Speaker 1: Eight eleven here on the Morning show on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: We do this every single Thursday at this time we
Speaker 1: get together. You hear him on better than two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five stations syndicated nationwide, and we're happy that
Speaker 1: his home base is right here in the Buckeye State
Speaker 1: and Cincinnati, Ohio. Talking about our friend Gary Sullivan. Happy
Speaker 1: New Year, my friend.
Speaker 2: Well, happy New Year to you. Tom. How you doing
Speaker 2: doing great? How about you? I'm doing really really well.
Speaker 1: I hope your holiday went well.
Speaker 2: It went great. Do you have a lot of family time?
Speaker 1: I sure did, and it was a fantastic Hope you
Speaker 1: did too, Yep, sure did. Okay, we've been talking and
Speaker 1: a lot of people talk all the time about New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions, right, and we were talking the other day
Speaker 1: that seventy nine percent of those has to do with
Speaker 1: people getting in better physical shape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, A lot about health right now, Yes it is.
Speaker 1: But look, there's also some New Year's resolutions you can
Speaker 1: have with your home and talk about regularly. There is
Speaker 1: no bigger investment for most of us out there than
Speaker 1: what we invest in our homes, and so you want
Speaker 1: to keep them in tip top shape. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the most basic thing we need in life besides air,
Speaker 1: and that would be water.
Speaker 3: Well, that ties into the health thing also, tom is
Speaker 3: you know in a lot of parts and it's been
Speaker 3: in the news over the years, you know, a number
Speaker 3: of years back with flint, Michigan and everything. How safe
Speaker 3: is our water? And I want to say upfront, some
Speaker 3: of the most safe water in the United States is
Speaker 3: right here in the Great six sinety area. It's wonderful water,
Speaker 3: but it's very hard water. Lots of limestone, you know,
Speaker 3: limestone's good for racehorses and bourbon.
Speaker 2: That's so good for our home.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you're right about that. Okay. We hear all
Speaker 1: the time about water softeners, right, and there are some
Speaker 1: that you salt, there are some that don't.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Did you walk us through sort of the differences if
Speaker 1: you're thinking about a water softener here in twenty twenty six, yep.
Speaker 3: So there's three water quality products out there. There's salt
Speaker 3: free water softeners. You may have heard it advertised. That's
Speaker 3: very appealing to somebody that doesn't want to carry fifty
Speaker 3: pounds bags of salt down into the basement.
Speaker 1: Which I do all the time.
Speaker 3: So do I And also there's parts of the country
Speaker 3: now that have brine restrictions. In other words, that salt
Speaker 3: flushes out the system, okay when it collects hard water deposits,
Speaker 3: and that brine goes down into the sewerage system which
Speaker 3: goes into the waterways. And there's some people different parts
Speaker 3: of the country now I have some brain restrictions. So
Speaker 3: that's one and I'll explain the difference between the two.
Speaker 3: And the other one is the one you and I
Speaker 3: are used to, the water softener that you put the
Speaker 3: salt in the big salt tube.
Speaker 2: And away you go. Now, the whole thing what a
Speaker 2: water softener is is it takes.
Speaker 3: Out or eliminates hard water that's the minerals in the water.
Speaker 3: So the salt free is not really a water softener,
Speaker 3: so it's not really taking out hard water deposits. What
Speaker 3: it's doing is the sult free softeners actually removed the
Speaker 3: They change the molecular structure of the minerals in the water,
Speaker 3: which allows it to pass.
Speaker 2: Through you know, your water heater, your shower and everything.
Speaker 3: And what they've done is they've charged the hard water
Speaker 3: particles so that it does not stick on metal surfaces.
Speaker 3: The salt free or that's the salt free, the salt type.
Speaker 3: It starts kind of collecting those, Okay, it's not really
Speaker 3: charging them. So when you put the salt in there,
Speaker 3: it's removing the hard ware deposits. It's really the best
Speaker 3: soft water. It's actually giving you soft water, good for
Speaker 3: your skin, good for your clothes, good for your water here,
Speaker 3: good for your showers. It's it's soft water. It's removing it,
Speaker 3: and then the salt flushes it out.
Speaker 2: Of the system.
Speaker 3: Okay, a lot of people when they get salt in
Speaker 3: a system, they're they're they're they're afraid that they're going
Speaker 3: to be ingesting salt. It's not that's going down the
Speaker 3: i'll say sewer, septic whatever. It's kind of removing it.
Speaker 3: It allows the soap to lather better. It really is
Speaker 3: eliminating the hard water. And again that's salt free. It's
Speaker 3: just charging the particles in there. It's keeping the hard
Speaker 3: water from sticking on glass, on metal. It's just allowing
Speaker 3: that hard water to not adhere to something in your
Speaker 3: plumbing system. It's going right down the drain, but you
Speaker 3: don't get the benefits of the i'll say, good.
Speaker 2: For your skin, good for your clothes, your hair. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that type of thing. So that's the two main differences.
Speaker 3: Then there's a third one and it's not a water softener,
Speaker 3: and that's a product. A lot of people get very confused.
Speaker 3: They think, well, water softener is really bringing up the
Speaker 3: quality of water, and it is from a hardness standpoint.
Speaker 2: But a reverse osmosis, I don't know if you have
Speaker 2: one of those in your home or not.
Speaker 3: Those are usually point of use, like underneath the kitchen
Speaker 3: sink or in the bathroom. And what it does is
Speaker 3: a company will come and they will test for chemicals
Speaker 3: in your water. Like I said, in the Cincinnati area,
Speaker 3: we got pretty good water. But you may be surprised.
Speaker 3: There may be maybe you're someone that doesn't want fluoride
Speaker 3: in your water. Maybe in olders areas you have a
Speaker 3: lot of lead pipes that will test for lead. You know,
Speaker 3: you're receiving good water, but then as it goes through
Speaker 3: an old plumbing system, by the time you drink it,
Speaker 3: it's not so good. So they'll test for lead, they'll
Speaker 3: test for fluoride, they'll test for chlorine chlorine, And that's
Speaker 3: what a reverse osmosis is. It goes through like three
Speaker 3: if you install one, it'll go through like three sets
Speaker 3: of filter and it'll actually filter out those different chemicals.
Speaker 2: That are in your water.
Speaker 3: So that's totally different from the water softener. So there's
Speaker 3: really two that you need to pay attention to. One
Speaker 3: is the water softener that's for hardness, like over in
Speaker 3: the Milford area.
Speaker 2: Very very hard water.
Speaker 3: A lot of heating elements go out because of the
Speaker 3: hard water, and probably a lot of showers don't look so.
Speaker 2: Good because of the hard water.
Speaker 3: But get your water tested and just see how hard
Speaker 3: it is, and when you're there, do a test on
Speaker 3: the actual chemicals in the water, and then you can
Speaker 3: make a decision if you want to do one nune
Speaker 3: or both of them.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong here,
Speaker 1: But it sounds like if you're really interested in the
Speaker 1: healthiest possible water just in one particular area, and you're
Speaker 1: talking about this reverse osmosis, that would really be the
Speaker 1: focal point. It sounds like, if I hear what you're saying,
Speaker 1: where you might clean food and all those kinds of
Speaker 1: things would be in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Right right, I would say probably ninety percent of them
Speaker 3: are put right on the kitchen. Some of them have
Speaker 3: to have another spout through a granite countertop. Yeah, a
Speaker 3: lot of people don't like doing. I think it was
Speaker 3: Culligan about seven eight years ago. They came up with
Speaker 3: a system where it's bluetooth. There's a switch and it
Speaker 3: literally shuts the water supply going straight up from the
Speaker 3: pipes and it sends it through the osmosis system and
Speaker 3: out the spout.
Speaker 2: Bottom line there, not to confuse anybody, is you don't
Speaker 2: have to drill through the countertop. Okay, so that, but.
Speaker 3: The kitchen areas certainly tom where you want to put it,
Speaker 3: you know, And quite honestly, it's just like a breed
Speaker 3: a water filtering system on steroids.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to something you said a
Speaker 1: minute ago about some of the stuff that would go
Speaker 1: into say the sewage and then into some waterways. Most
Speaker 1: people are on some kind of sewage system. There are
Speaker 1: some of us who are septic. You touched on that
Speaker 1: for a minute. If you are someone who has a
Speaker 1: septic system, does this stuff mess that up?
Speaker 2: Well, it's so diluted, I would say no.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not really a reason to totally walk
Speaker 3: away from the salt type water softeners. But I also
Speaker 3: want to say it depends on how much water you
Speaker 3: actually use. And again that's why it's really good to
Speaker 3: work with somebody to do those studies. Like I was
Speaker 3: in a home depot the other day and they got
Speaker 3: a home water softener for a thousand bucks on the shelf.
Speaker 2: Install it yourself, but I.
Speaker 3: Really recommend working with a plumber or a professional where
Speaker 3: they can really give you what's best for you. I
Speaker 3: think that's what I want to give everybody a shout
Speaker 3: out is let's do it right. Let's address all the needs.
Speaker 3: Let's address the chemicals, Let's address the minerals. Let's address
Speaker 3: how much water you're using. Let's dress how.
Speaker 2: Long that water softener is going to last.
Speaker 3: I've had both in my home and the ones over
Speaker 3: the shelf. You're probably gonna get about seven years out
Speaker 3: of just by the mechanics of it.
Speaker 2: And maybe your better brands.
Speaker 3: You might get fifteen twenty years out of it, right,
Speaker 3: and they're probably double the price. But I'll tell you
Speaker 3: when I switched mine out, and this has probably been
Speaker 3: about eight years ago, now, I could instantly.
Speaker 2: Tell the difference. There's no doubt there was a pig difference.
Speaker 3: So really, I think the step number one is if
Speaker 3: you're always complaining that it's so hard to clean the shower,
Speaker 3: there's water deposits, there's water spots on the glasses, on
Speaker 3: the shower doors, on this that get the water tested.
Speaker 3: It doesn't it doesn't cost you anything. Just let's find
Speaker 3: out what's in the water. And especially if you have
Speaker 3: you know, you were talking like or I was talking
Speaker 3: about over and over in the Milford area, right, very
Speaker 3: hard water. But there's also some older century type palms,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what type of service line of
Speaker 3: water you have coming into that home.
Speaker 2: I don't know what kind of pipes you have in
Speaker 2: that home.
Speaker 3: And if there are lead pipes, and there's still plenty around,
Speaker 3: you may have some lead in those pipes, not coming
Speaker 3: from the municipality, but coming from your own home exactly.
Speaker 3: So let's find out what's in the water. It doesn't
Speaker 3: mean everybody has to have one. We were talking about
Speaker 3: New Year's resolution and healthy water.
Speaker 2: There it is. Let's find out what's in the water.
Speaker 2: Let's do that. Let's find out what's in the water
Speaker 2: and take some action. If it's bad news, it's great stuff.
Speaker 1: Gary, you are the best my friend again, Happy New
Speaker 1: Year and thank you for your expertise. This is great stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tom. Look forward to next week.
Speaker 1: Okay, buddy Gary Sullivan. You can hear him on fifty
Speaker 1: five KRC Saturday and Sundays from nine until noon and
Speaker 1: syndicated nationally on nearly three hundred radio stations across America