Soft Water

Ours is a Water Right Impression Plus metered softener, When first went on the well had SEVERE Sulphur and brownish tint water(Iron), had it sampled where was heavy Iron so used Iron Out pellets for two years where supplier said to try just plain pellets, all is still good and still not seeing Iron, it will deplete after a time.

If you take a sample of hard water straight from your cold tap, pour it into a Pyrex container, and place it on your kitchen stove, and warm it to 180F.

Once you've done that, dump the water out, add more cold water, and repeat... three more times.

You will see that the glass is gradually turning yellowish brown.

What you're seeing, is thermal activation of saturated lime.  It is rising above a temperature at which a really cool self-binding chemical reaction can occur... similar to what gave us 'quicklime'.

Because of it's locally high temperature, the bottom of a gas water heater is an excellent spot for lime to be heated above 'binding' temperature... an electric heating element is almost as good... in either case, the now-bound lime flakes fall to the bottom of the tank, where they accumulate.  In electric heaters, the effective volume decreases, and in gas heaters, a thick layer of rock-like insulation slows heat transfer, both gradually reducing the heater's effectiveness.

Installing a saline-regeneration softener will SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE the amount of dissolved lime coming into your system, thus extending the performance life of your softener.  As others noted, it will also be trapping any similarly-saturated iron... but it won't be so good at clearing that, so DO put in a filtration stage ahead of the softener so your resin beads don't get gradually poisoned with iron slime.

A tankless heater will do very well amidst high lime content, but I would STILL recommend having a softener ahead of it, as the rest of your plumbing is being affected by lime scale too.

I do plan to add an outside faucet with softened water for washing cars and tractors.

I knew what you meant on the iron filter coke, we have one on the industrial system at work.  

When we first moved into our house, the water was terrible.  It destroyed brand new faucets and shower heads in a short time.  Water lines that went to the second floor, would discharge ketchup looking water for the first few minutes.  Tasted pretty nasty too, and smelled like lake water.  Why in the heck they didn't check that when building and put in a system when new is beyond me.  Especially when I asked them in the beginning of things.  

Anyway, the guy who put my softener  said no need to mess with the iron out type salt, just plain was all I need, so that's what I've bought.  It helps, a lot, but still you can see some iron especially on the second story plumbing.  Guess I should just try it for myself and see if it makes a difference.  I don't see how it could deplete over time, I suppose some wells could.

Just as a general note, there's just a handful of major manufacturers of water softener control valves... Clack, and Fleck are the big ones... Autotrol, Chandler, and Erie are others.   Several companies manufacture resin and media tanks, and several companies manufacture resin beads.  The brine tank is just a plastic barrel with a shelf in the bottom, the brine pickup is a siphon tube with a fitting, sometimes a valve. 

Culligan, and most other companies, buy standard components, assemble the softener, and put their stickers on it.  For some components, they buy a particular model from the supplying manufacturer under a purchase contract, and they'll oftentimes specify the valve design, and negotiate volume purchase to 'fix' the price of the valve they spec.

Usually, a spec'd valve is made somewhat cheaper, and provided in volume enough so that it is used as a full a replacement assembly, rather than selling a rebuild kit for it's internals, as replacing the entire valve in the field will be faster, less downtime, and assure that the whole assembly will perform properly on the first shot.

IF the seller from whom you purchase assembled the system, they will often sample your water, and select the media (resin, etc) to best cope with your water circumstances, the sizing to suit your house needs, and a valve that will provide proper service and cycling interval method for best results and least salt waste.

There's all sorts of media used in those tanks.  There's greensand, different types of carbons, stuff called Katalox... there's PH neutralizers...

It is likely that someone selling a softener will tell you that their branded unit is 'superior' to all others.  They might say that the valve unit is 'exclusive' to their outfit, and it might be, but that doesn't guarantee it to be 'better'.  Unless they've picked all the pieces individually, and tailored it to your specific circumstances, it's not assured to be in any way 'superior' to any other setup.  Big-box systems are just as they would be-  one-size-fits-all.  If your neighbor has high sulfur, low iron, and your water is high iron, low sulfur... and you're using identical big-box units, you'll both get marginal performance and in some cases, a very limited service life... but in others, they could work out just fine and last a long time.  IF the system is setup by an outfit that truely understands a saline-regen system, and has sampled your water, picked the resin, sized your home use, and selected tanks and a valveset that suits all those variables, you'll have a long-lasting, well performing system.

IF you're putting the softener in a basement, or somewhere inside a house, you do NOT have to place the brine tank in same spot.  My unit is in the basement, but the brine tank is at ground level, in the back of the garage.  My wife can back the car in, open trunk, unload bag of salt right into the tank.  Check with the valve manufacturer, they will identify what the max limits of practical operation are... having that brine tank in an easy spot sure makes adding salt simpler... no carrying bags down the stairs.

You are correct!

We've got 7 people living in the house right now, so for me a tad irrelevant!