Waukesha County & the Milwaukee metro · $3,950 installed · free quote first, by phone
(262) 599-6261
Water softening & filtration · southeastern Wisconsin
Most town wells around here run 14 to 35 grains per gallon in published and state-sampled figures; Brookfield’s own utility publishes 23 to 34. Lake Michigan supply runs about 8. Either way it is hard water, and we are named for the number a softener leaves you with.
Why this matters
Nobody looks for a softener because they read a water quality report. They look because of one of these four things.
White crust on shower heads and aerators, and a water heater quietly taking more energy every year. Scale is a thermal insulator sitting on the heating surface.
Soap binds to hardness minerals before it can do its job, so glasses spot, laundry comes out stiff and whites go gray whatever you wash them with.
Scale settles on the heating surface and insulates it, so the heater burns more to do less.
Hard water leaves the spotting and film on glassware and fixtures that never quite wipes off. County wells bring iron too, which comes up clear and turns orange in the sink.
The systems
City water and well water are different problems, and a 1,400-square-foot ranch and a 4,000-square-foot colonial are different problems. The system is sized from your water and your house, not from a price list.
Softening resin and activated carbon in one tank. Sized to your water and your household on the quote.
It handles the thing almost every house here has: hardness that scales your pipes, your fixtures and your water heater. Ion-exchange resin under activated coconut-shell carbon, over a gravel underbed. One tank, one valve. Paired with the five-stage reverse-osmosis tap, it is the ZeroGrain One.
Best for: most three- and four-bedroom homes, on city water or a low-iron well
Details and specs →
7 stages, made on demand, no bulky tank under your sink.
Tankless reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink. Because it is tankless you get water on demand and your under-sink cabinet back, and a built-in alkaline stage adds calcium and magnesium before the tap.
Best for: anyone who wants a dedicated drinking-water tap without a storage tank
Details and specs →
Two tanks: an iron-media tank ahead of the softener.
Well water is a different problem from city water. This pairs a softening tank with a separate catalytic iron-media tank ahead of it. Two valves, one per tank.
Best for: homes on a private well with iron or manganese
Details and specs →
Point-of-entry systems for the whole house: showers, laundry, dishwasher, ice maker. The softeners here are the ones that take hardness out.
View systems →Reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink for the water you drink and cook with, on its own dedicated tap.
View systems →
Extras for one specific preference: calcium and magnesium added to reverse-osmosis water.
View add-ons →How it works
We would rather tell you the number does not justify a system than sell you the wrong one. It is a strange sales pitch, and it is the whole business.
One short call, about fifteen minutes. Your town’s published hardness, your household, where the main comes in. On a well, any lab result you already have.
One page, itemized, good for 30 days, with every model named. Take it, compare it, sleep on it.
A scheduled visit on a date you pick once the equipment is in hand and approved for use in Wisconsin (SPS 384). Wisconsin-licensed contractors working under a responsible master plumber, who pull any required permit in their own name.
On a softener install, before anything is connected and again once it is, with you watching the second number land.
Get your free quote
Takes about thirty seconds. We call you back the same or next business day.
Why zero
Hardness is not an opinion. It is a figure your utility publishes, or a figure a lab returns off your own well, and every honest decision about a system starts there. That is why the first thing this company does is read your number back to you.
And it is why a softener install does not end when the tank is plumbed in. It ends with your tap, tested before the install, retested after it for zero grains per gallon.
In writing
Every one of these is written on the quote or the agreement, not a promise on a call.
3 days
Three business days to cancel after you sign. Two copies of the cancellation notice come with the contract, filled in and dated.
0
The agreement puts full payment at the completion of the install: the system in, running and your water retested at your tap.
30 days
One itemized page with every model named, so you can compare it against anyone.
A closer look
The system in product renders: the softening tank and its brine tank, the drinking-water tap, and what is inside the tank, on one sheet.
Where we work
Every town we work in has its own page carrying that town’s utility, its source and its published hardness, not a regional average. Where a town publishes nothing, the page says so instead of guessing. The fullest of those pages is water softeners in Waukesha, where the lake-water switch and the city’s softener rule both apply.
Twelve towns, and no single number covers them. Brookfield publishes 23 to 34 grains and Hartland about 23 from their own wells; Waukesha and most of Menomonee Falls run about eight on purchased Lake Michigan supply. And the 40,000-plus private wells the county itself counts answer to nobody’s annual report.
Towns we serve →
Most of the towns we serve here run on Lake Michigan water. Milwaukee Water Works and the North Shore Water Commission both publish about eight grains, the softest tap water in this market, and Milwaukee’s utility says softeners are not necessary for residential use. So the honest first step is usually a drinking-water tap. Oak Creek and Franklin publish no figure at all, and River Hills is still mostly on private wells.
Towns we serve →
Cedarburg publishes 21 to 24 grains out of deep wells and says outright that it does not soften, and Grafton’s wells run about 22. The Mequon Water Utility sells Lake Michigan water, about eight grains, to connected homes in Mequon and Thiensville, and most of Mequon is on private wells. Port Washington treats its own lake water and publishes no figure.
Towns we serve →
Some of the hardest published water in the region and some of the least documented. Germantown publishes 24 grains across six wells, West Bend’s sewer utility gives 25 to 31 as the right softener setting, and Hartford’s own figure is 18 to 22. Richfield has no utility at all: the whole village is on private wells, by the Village Board’s own choice.
Towns we serve →Questions
Anything that is not here, just ask it on the call. The person sizing the system is the person who knows.
City of Waukesha taps now run about 8 grains: much softer than the old 20-plus, but still “hard” on the USGS scale. Homes on private wells didn’t switch anything. Either way the quote is free and the number decides, not us.
$3,950 installed for the ZeroGrain One: softener, activated carbon and the reverse-osmosis drinking tap, installed by an independent licensed Wisconsin plumbing contractor who pulls any required permit. Installation is in the price, not added to it. It is our only price, and the quote holds it for 30 days. The call checks it against your house first: your hardness, whether iron is along for the ride, and your household size.
Softening removes hardness minerals; it is not a safety treatment and we will not market it as one. For drinking water, the reverse-osmosis stage puts a dedicated filtered tap at your sink. If you’re on a private well we also recommend the state-certified lab tests for bacteria and nitrates. We can point you to them, and they are not something we sell. Reverse osmosis is not a safety treatment either; what it is rated for is on the manufacturer’s sheet for the model on your quote.
That is arithmetic, not a measurement: hardness times daily use gives the grains the resin removes each day, and the salt follows from how often it regenerates. How much you use depends on your hardness, your household and the salt setting, and the call works it out from your number. Oversized or timer-based units use more, which is one reason we size from your actual water instead of selling one tank to everyone.
Independent licensed Wisconsin plumbing contractors, working under a responsible master plumber, who pull any required permit. Softener drains and RO lines are real plumbing, and Wisconsin law treats them that way.
A typical single-family install is a morning’s work. It is scheduled once you have signed, the equipment is in hand and has Wisconsin product approval (SPS 384), on a date you pick, and your three-business-day cancellation window runs first.
Free quote, by phone
One short call, about fifteen minutes. We size from your town’s published number, or your well’s lab result, and your household, and you end the call with a one-page itemized quote.