Acid Neutralizer and Water Softener: Do You Need Both?
Number copied. Text it from your phone: 443-277-2204.
Caller "I'm looking at the Clack 2.5 cubic foot non-backwashing acid neutralizer. I've got very low pH well water, like 4.7. I'm wondering if that will make my water hard, and if I need a water softener."
Aidan "Any neutralizer is going to increase the hardness by three to six grains per gallon. Put the neutralizer in, give it a week or two, and retest the hardness. If it's above seven, you should consider a softener."
That was a caller in Pennsylvania this summer, and it is the question I get most about these two tanks. The answer is usually both, in a specific order, and the rest of this page is why.
Quick Answer
An acid neutralizer raises the pH of acidic water. A water softener removes hardness. They are two different machines, neither can do the other's job, and the neutralizer goes first.
- The neutralizer makes your water harder. If your well water pH is below 7.0 and you install an acid neutralizer, your water will get harder. That is not a side effect; it is literally how the system works. The calcite dissolves into the water to raise the pH, and calcite is calcium. Figure on 3 to 6 more grains per gallon. See why the neutralizer makes your water harder.
- Most acidic wells end up needing both. Acidic well water usually starts out soft, so the neutralizer alone pushes many homes past 7 grains, where a softener is recommended. At two or three grains you are fine. At seven and up, install a softener. See do you need both.
- The neutralizer goes first. Well tank, sediment filter, acid neutralizer, then the softener, so the softener can catch the hardness the neutralizer just added. See which one goes first.
- What the pair costs. The packages run $3,095 to $4,195 depending on the tank and softener size; most homes land on the $3,295 pair. See how to size the pair.
What's in This Guide
- Two Different Jobs: Neutralizer vs Softener
- Why the neutralizer makes your water harder
- Do you need both?
- Does a water softener lower pH?
- Which one goes first
- How to size the pair
- What to expect the first month
- Keeping both tanks running
- What buyers said after installing both
- Frequently asked questions
- Shop AN + softener
Two Different Jobs: Neutralizer vs Softener
A caller in New Jersey this July was closing on a new house. The builder had put in "a water filtration and softener system," one white 10x44 tank, and he wanted to know whether that was the softener or the neutralizer or both. The acid neutralizer raises the pH. The water softener removes hardness. That is the whole difference. Then I asked whether there was a second, shorter tank next to it. There was, a black one for salt. That made it a softener. A neutralizer is one tank, no salt tank, no drain line, no power cord.
| Feature | Acid Neutralizer | Water Softener |
|---|---|---|
| Problem it solves | Acidic water, pH below 7.0. Blue-green stains, pinhole leaks, corroded fixtures. | Hard water. White scale on fixtures, spotted glasses, soap that will not lather. |
| How it works | Water passes through a tank of calcite (crushed limestone). The acid dissolves a little of it and the pH comes up to neutral. | Resin beads trap the calcium and magnesium and swap them for sodium. Salt water rinses the beads clean when they fill up. |
| What it needs | Nothing on the non-backwashing model: no outlet, no drain, no salt. | An outlet within 6 feet, a drain line within 20 feet (1/2 inch tubing, not included), and salt. |
| What it adds to the water | Calcium, which is hardness: about 3 to 6 grains per gallon. | A little sodium in place of the hardness it removes. |
Why the neutralizer makes your water harder
Calcite is limestone, and limestone is calcium. Every bit that dissolves to raise your pH adds calcium to your water, and calcium is hardness. Hardness is measured in grains per gallon; two or three grains is soft water, seven is where it starts to leave marks. The tank is self-regulating: once the water inside reaches neutral it stops dissolving calcite, so the hardness does not climb forever. But it does climb.
Here is the part people miss. Acidic well water is usually soft to begin with. When the Pennsylvania caller asked about a hardness test, I told him not to bother until the neutralizer was in, because right now he had no hardness; that is part of why his water was so acidic. Of the acidic wells my customers have had lab-tested, more than half start out soft, under 3 grains (35 of 61), and only about one in seven is already at 7 or more. Start at 2, add what the neutralizer adds, and you land right around the line.
Where is the line? At two or three grains you are fine. At seven and above, the water-using appliance manufacturers recommend treating the water, and so do I. That is not just my number: the USGS calls water "hard" from 7 grains, and the Minnesota Department of Health uses the same 7 grains as the point where you might need a softener.
What harder water does to a house is the same list you have probably already noticed somewhere: white crust on faucets and shower heads, spots on glasses, soap scum in the tub you use most, and scale inside the water heater where you cannot see it. One of my buyers, who put in a 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer with a calcite and FloMag blend, went from pH 5.4 to 8.3 and watched his hardness land at about 8.7 grains. He had taken a softener out eight years before. He put one back.
Four minutes on camera: what pH is, why the neutralizer adds hardness, the 17.1 arithmetic, and what soft water changes in the house.
Do you need both?
If your pH is under 7 and your water is not already hard, you need the neutralizer for certain and you will very likely need the softener after it. Two numbers settle it: your pH now, and your hardness after the neutralizer has been running a week or two. Here is how I read them.
| What your test says | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| pH under 7, hardness already 7 grains or more | You are hard before the neutralizer touches it. It will only get harder. | Plan on both from the start. A caller in Pennsylvania at 12 grains landed near 20 after the neutralizer. |
| pH under 7, hardness under 7 grains or unknown | Most acidic wells. Whether the neutralizer pushes you past 7 depends on where you started. | Put the neutralizer in, give it a week or two, retest the hardness. Seven or above, add the softener. Two or three, you are fine. |
| pH 7 or above, any hardness | Your water is not acidic. This page is not your problem. | Skip the neutralizer. If the hardness is 7 or more, you want a softener on its own. |
The middle row is most people, and it is honest advice even though it costs me a sale some of the time. A buyer in a mildly acidic house put in a 1.5 cubic foot neutralizer, saw the staining stop the same day, and never bothered with a softener; a year later, no problems. A caller in North Carolina with 30 mg/L of hardness, almost soft, heard from me that it would go up maybe four to six grains and that he could always add a softener if he needed to. The package deal saves money if you know you need both. It does not save money if you did not.
The one case where I say buy both up front without the retest is the first row: hardness already at 7 or higher. And if you just moved into a house on a well and found out the pH is low, it is probably a good idea to put the softener in at the same time.
One test gives you both numbers
If you already have a lab report, skip this. If not, one certified test, mailed to you, run by an accredited lab, gives you the pH, the hardness and the iron in one go.
53 contaminants. Results reviewed by Aidan, in plain English. On city water, use the city water test.Does a water softener lower pH?
A softener can drop the pH by about a point, and it cannot raise it. So the neutralizer goes first and brings the water a bit above 7 before the softener sees it. It will not fix acidic water, and acidic water going in comes out a little more acidic. If your pH is below 7, the softener is never the first tank.
If you already own a softener and the water at the tap reads acidic, test the raw water out of the well tank, before the softener. If that reads under 7, the well is acidic, and the fix is a neutralizer ahead of the softener you already have.
Which one goes first
The acid neutralizer always goes before the water softener. Two reasons. The neutralizer adds hardness, and the softener has to be downstream to remove it. And the softener takes about a point off the pH, so the water has to come in above 7 to leave above 7. From the well, the order is pressure tank, sediment filter, acid neutralizer, then softener. If the test also shows iron, where the iron filter goes depends on your pH. In the 5s, a backwashing neutralizer goes first so the iron filter has the pH it needs, then the iron filter, then the softener. In the 6s, the iron filter goes first and a non-backwashing neutralizer goes after it; a non-backwashing neutralizer never sits ahead of an iron filter. Either way the softener stays after both. If the test shows bacteria, the UV light goes last, after the softener, because hardness bakes onto the hot UV sleeve and weakens the lamp.
It does get installed backwards. One of my buyers with a five-bathroom house had a plumber put the neutralizer where the softener belonged and the softener where the neutralizer belonged; he swapped them himself afterward without trouble. If yours is reversed, the fix is plumbing, not new equipment: the two tanks trade places on the line, and you retest the hardness at the tap once the order is right.
How to size the pair
Size the neutralizer to your pH and how many people use the water; size the softener to the hardness you will have after the neutralizer, not the hardness you have now. Most of the homes I talk to end up with the 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer, which handles pH down to 5.5 on plain calcite and a household of two people up to ten, and the 48,000 grain softener. Below pH 5.5, FloMag gets blended into the calcite; the package pages do not carry that option, so call or text and I will set it up. Two people and a pH around 6 can use the 1.5. A house that is already hard before the neutralizer, like the 12-grain caller who was going to land near 20, gets the 64,000 grain softener so it is not burning salt and water on constant regenerations.
| Package | Who it fits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 1.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener (Clack + Fleck 5600SXT) | Two people, pH 6.0 or higher, or a spot that only fits a 10 inch tank | $3,095 |
| 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener (Clack + Fleck 5600SXT) | Most homes: pH down to 5.5 on plain calcite, two to ten people, hardness after the neutralizer under about 20 grains | $3,295 |
| 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 64,000 grain softener (Clack + Fleck 5600SXT) | Hardness heading for 20 grains or more after the neutralizer, or a big family using a lot of water | $3,495 |
Each pair is $195 less than the same two units bought separately. Those are the non-backwashing neutralizers, which is what I recommend 99 percent of the time: no drain, no electricity, nothing to program on that tank. If your test shows iron around 1 ppm or more, the neutralizer needs to be the backwashing type, and the package collection has those pairs too, along with a 3.5 cubic foot and 80,000 grain pair for very large homes. Prices are what is on the site today; the product pages are the final word.
On salt-free conditioners: people ask, and I have tried both myself. The salt-based softener is the way to go. The new ones are efficient with salt and the resin lasts for years; a salt-free unit needs its media changed about every three years at twelve to fourteen hundred dollars a time, and one buyer who tried a salt-free unit wrote that the water was not as soft as it had been with his salt softener.
Not sure which pair you need?
Text me your pH, your hardness if you have it, and how many people are in the house. I'll tell you which row you are in and what to order.
8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, seven days a week. A real person, usually Aidan.What to expect the first month
The first water out of a freshly filled neutralizer runs milky white from the dust in the calcite bags; run a cold tap until it clears, about five to ten minutes, before you put the softener in service behind it. One buyer drained his new neutralizer for 45 minutes and still got calcite fines into his softener and his under-sink drinking water filter. Flush the neutralizer to clear water first, then bring the softener online.
Then wait a week or two and test the hardness at a tap. A hardware-store strip is fine for this; match the color, divide the mg/L by 17.1, and you have grains. That number is what the softener gets programmed to, and it is the number that tells you whether you needed the softener at all. If you bought the package, set the softener to that post-neutralizer hardness, not the raw well number.
Both tanks ship empty. The calcite comes in 50 lb bags (five of them with the 2.5) and is loaded through the fill port at install; the softener resin comes in its own bags. Drain tubing for the softener is not in the box. We recommend installation by a licensed plumber, and I support your plumber by phone at 800-460-5810.
Keeping both tanks running
| Tank | What you do | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Acid neutralizer | Shine a flashlight through the tank and check the calcite level. Add bags through the fill port when it is low. | Check once a year. Refill every 18 to 24 months on a 1.5, 30 to 36 months on a 2.5; sooner with very low pH or heavy use. |
| Water softener | Keep salt in the brine tank. The Fleck meter counts gallons and regenerates on its own, using 8 to 10 lb of salt each time. | Look in the salt tank every few weeks. One buyer adds a bag every couple of weeks. |
There is nothing to set on the non-backwashing neutralizer. The softener's Fleck head gets programmed once, to your post-neutralizer hardness, and I walk people through that on the phone. The full refill procedure, with photos, is on servicing your acid neutralizer.
What buyers said after installing both
Every reviewer below is a verified purchase through our store; the quotes are as they wrote them, including the one who was not thrilled. Where a buyer sent a photo of the install, it is in the first column; tap it to see the whole setup.
| Install photo | Buyer | What they bought | What they wrote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anonymous, May 2026 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener | "My only problem was a defective coupler between the water softener and the shut off valve. A replacement part was delivered within five working days ... Mid Atlantic has good videos for the acid neutralizer." | |
| Anonymous, Jul 2024 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener | "I had been using an old neutralizer for over 30 years. The water softener broke about 20 years ago. With the new system the water volume has increased dramatically because of the vortex tanks." | |
| Anonymous, Jan 2023, 3 stars Verified buyer | 1.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener | "One of the cheapest deals on a softener and calcite system ... The brine tank is not stout ... the controller does not have a manual included ... Mid Atlantic also took a very long time to deliver." | |
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Dale H., Apr 2022 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer, between his iron filter and softener | "Raised my PH from 6.8 to a perfect 7.6! ... it was installed between a backwashing iron filter using Katalox Lite media and a 40,000 grain water softener. Tech support via text message was fast and courteous." |
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Kevin L., Sep 2020 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + a Fleck softener | "Install of the water softener was easy with minor plumbing knowledge ... You do need to program it so I looked online for direction. No instructions were included but not big deal. Already notice the difference. Paired with an acid neutralizer." |
| Scot O., Apr 2020 Verified buyer | 2.0 cubic foot neutralizer + a Fleck softener | "Acid Neutralizer does make your water harder, and that is just part of neutralizing the acidity of water. Knowing that, you may want to look into a softener." | |
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Paul R., Mar 2020 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener | "The acid neutralizer is pretty much no maintenance ... The water softener requires a little more maintenance. We put a bag of salt in the salt tank every couple weeks ... After installing the water softener, I no longer have that 'squeaky clean' feeling after taking a shower." |
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Stuart S., Mar 2020 Verified buyer | 2.5 cubic foot backwashing neutralizer + 48,000 grain softener | "The neutralizer is excellent quality, the control valve works flawlessly ... This unit replaced a much smaller and inferior one I had installed years ago ... I put the softener in parallel but have not had to use it yet." |
The manual complaint is fair, and it comes up more than once above: the Fleck head does not ship with a printed programming guide. That is what the phone number is for. Call with the softener in front of you and we set it together.
Frequently asked questions
Is an acid neutralizer the same as a water softener?
No. The neutralizer raises pH with calcite; the softener removes hardness with resin and salt. A neutralizer is one tank with no salt tank, no drain and no power. A softener is two tanks with a drain line and a plug.
What is a water neutralizer system?
A tank of calcite plumbed in after the well pressure tank and sediment filter. Acidic water passes through it, dissolves a little of the limestone, and comes out at a neutral pH. When people say "water neutralizer system" they usually mean this tank plus the softener that follows it.
How long does an acid neutralizer last?
The tank and valve carry a 10-year and 5-year warranty, and one buyer wrote that his old neutralizer had run for over 30 years before he replaced it. What gets used up is the calcite: roughly every 18 to 36 months you add bags through the fill port, sooner with very low pH or a busy house.
How much does an acid neutralizer cost, with and without the softener?
Alone, the 1.5 cubic foot neutralizer is $1,295 and the 2.5 is $1,495 with plain calcite ($1,695 with FloMag mixed in). With the Fleck 5600SXT 48,000 grain softener, the packages are $3,095 and $3,295. The cost guide covers every configuration.
Does a water softener change pH?
Down a little, about a point; never up. That is why the neutralizer goes first.
What are the downsides of a water softener?
It needs an outlet, a drain line, and salt, and it puts a little sodium into the water in place of the hardness. If sodium is a concern in your house, keep an unsoftened cold tap for drinking or regenerate with potassium chloride instead of salt.
Can I skip the softener and just live with harder water?
If your hardness after the neutralizer comes back at two or three grains, yes; that is fine water. At seven and above I would not, because the scale ends up in the water heater and the appliances where you cannot see it. Between those numbers it is your call; retest and decide on the number, not a guess.
Aidan Walsh
Aidan Walsh has spent 32 years in residential water treatment, the first stretch of it installing and servicing well systems before Mid Atlantic Water became an online supplier. Mid Atlantic Water is a family company; every recommendation on this site is based on what actually failed in the field and what fixed it. If you have a question this page did not answer, call or text him.
Aidan answers calls and texts 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, every day.Number copied. Text it from your phone: 443-277-2204.