Buying guide
How to compare water treatment companies
There are several good water treatment companies in southeastern Wisconsin, and we are not going to tell you we are the only one. What we will do is answer the seven questions a buyer should be asking, so you can hold anyone, including us, to the same seven.
The seven questions
Our answers first, then what to ask everyone else.
Print this if it helps. We would genuinely rather you bought a good system from someone else than a bad one from us.
1. Can you give me a price before anyone visits?
ZeroGrain Water
Yes, and it is already published: $3,950 installed for the ZeroGrain One, on this site. The quote itself is a phone call of about fifteen minutes, itemized on one page and good for 30 days. Nobody visits your house before the plumber does.
Ask anyone else
Ask for a number over the phone before you book anything. A company that will only quote in your living room is telling you how the close works.
2. How long is the in-home appointment?
ZeroGrain Water
There is no in-home appointment. The first person in your house is the licensed plumber, on install day, with any required permit pulled. Sizing needs your town’s published hardness, or your own test on a well, and your household.
Ask anyone else
Ask how long to set aside. If the honest answer is three hours, that is a sales presentation, not a water test.
3. What model am I being quoted, and why that one?
ZeroGrain Water
We size it from your hardness number and your household, and the model is named on your one-page quote. We do not put a grain number in an ad.
Ask anyone else
Ask for the model number, the salt setting it will run at, and the reasoning. A salt-free conditioner has no grain capacity at all: it does not soften, and anyone quoting grains on one is confused or hoping you are.
4. What are the components, specifically?
ZeroGrain Water
10% crosslinked softening resin under granular activated coconut-shell carbon, over a polishing gravel underbed, in a composite pressure tank, with a ceramic-disc metered valve and a 72-hour memory backup. All of it is on the product pages.
Ask anyone else
Ask which resin and which valve, by name. A brand sticker on the tank is not a component list.
5. Who does the installation, and is a permit pulled?
ZeroGrain Water
An independent licensed Wisconsin plumbing contractor, working under a responsible master plumber, with any required permit pulled in the plumber’s own name. Softener drain lines and reverse-osmosis reject lines are plumbing under Wisconsin law, which is why a licensed plumber makes them.
Ask anyone else
Ask for the plumber’s license number and who pulls any permit the job needs. An in-house crew is only an answer if it is licensed for the drain connection.
6. What does the warranty cover, part by part?
ZeroGrain Water
The complete written warranty comes with the quote, before you sign anything, broken down by component with each term’s length named. We do not print a one-word warranty badge on a website, because a warranty you cannot read is a word, not a warranty.
Ask anyone else
Ask for it broken down by component, and ask whether labor is included and for how long. A great many one-word warranties mean parts only, from day one.
7. What does it cost me after year one?
ZeroGrain Water
Salt for the brine tank, reverse-osmosis filters every six to twelve months, and a trip charge for service visits after the first year, when there is none. The first two are worked out on the call from your hardness and your household; the trip charge is on the quote. None of it is left for after you sign.
Ask anyone else
Ask the annual filter cost and whether there is a trip fee once the first year is up. That is the number that quietly separates a good deal from a bad one over ten years.
One more thing
The industry’s worst habits, named
If you see any of these, it is not a red flag about one salesperson. It is how that company is built.
The price that drops if you sign tonight
A price that falls the moment you hesitate was never the real price. Real pricing does not care what day it is.
Testing your water to frighten you
The precipitate demo, where tap water turns orange in a jar, mostly shows the metal of the test electrodes dissolving. It is not a safety test and was never meant to be one. It is theater.
“For life” with nothing behind it
Ask which components and whether labor is included. If the answer is not a table with the lengths named, there is not a warranty. There is a word.
A payment quoted as the price
“A little a month” is a payment, not a price. Ask for the cash number and the total you will pay over the term. Both.
Then go and ask everyone else the same seven.
Every home here is quoted over the phone. Get our number first; it makes every other conversation easier.