City water
A complete city water system for a hard water house
Quick answer
A complete city water system is a laboratory test, a metered softener sized on measured hardness, two stage whole house filtration and an under sink reverse osmosis system. It runs around a thousand dollars in equipment and addresses hardness, taste and drinking water separately, because those are three different jobs.
This is the setup for a city water house that has tested hard and wants the drinking water dealt with properly as well. It separates three jobs that get conflated constantly: softening removes hardness, filtration handles taste and particulate, and reverse osmosis is the only one of the three that touches dissolved contaminants.
The softener is sized from the measured hardness rather than from the bathroom count on the box. That number is a flow guide, not a capacity guide, and sizing on it is why so many softeners regenerate far more often than their owners were told.
What to skip
Skip the whole house reverse osmosis idea. It comes up constantly and it is almost always the wrong answer: it wastes enormous amounts of water, needs a storage tank and a pump, strips minerals from water you are only going to flush and bathe in, and costs several times an under sink unit. Treat the drinking tap.
Skip the remineralisation stage unless you find the taste flat. It is a preference rather than a health measure, and it is easy to add later as an inline cartridge.
What to upgrade first
Upgrade the salt efficiency before the capacity. A softener run at a 6 to 8 pound salt dose removes far more grains per pound of salt than the same unit at 15, and NSF/ANSI 44 sets 3,350 grains per pound as the high efficiency threshold. That is a programming change, not a purchase.
After that, a permeate pump on the reverse osmosis system roughly halves the drain water and needs no electricity.
How this compares to the other systems
This system totals $1,515 across 10 items.
Rule of thumb Water treatment trade convention rather than a published standard. Taught everywhere, useful for planning, and not a specification. No standards body publishes it.
| System | Water source | Items | Equipment total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | City water | 6 | $233 |
| Complete | City water | 10 | $1,515 |
| Premium | City water | 12 | $2,925 |
| Starter | Well water | 7 | $700 |
| Complete | Well water | 11 | $2,443 |
| Premium | Well water | 16 | $6,820 |
Equipment only, and prices move constantly. Installed cost is a separate question covered on HouseProjectCalc.
The complete complete list
10 items, grouped by what each one does rather than by what it costs, and listed in the order the water actually reaches them. That order is not cosmetic: sediment has to come out before anything finer sees it, oxidation has to happen before a softener, and ultraviolet goes last because it needs the clearest water in the house.
1. Measure it first
$279A laboratory panel costs a fraction of the equipment below and it is what sizes all of it. It also tells you whether the drinking water stage is addressing anything real.
| Item | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| Tap Score Advanced Home Water Test Kit, Well or City Reported with the regulatory limit alongside each result rather than as a bare number. | $269.00 | Check price |
| Varify Water Hardness Test Strips For checking the softener is still working after it is installed, which nothing else on this list does. | $9.99 | Check price |
2. Sediment and taste, before the softener
$323Filtration goes ahead of the softener so chlorine and particulate do not reach the resin. A chlorine residual oxidizes standard resin and shortens its life measurably.
| Item | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| iSpring WGB22B 2 Stage Whole House Water Filtration System Sediment plus carbon block in the big blue format that actually passes whole house flow. | $286.70 | Check price |
| Pentair Pentek DGD-5005-20 Big Blue Dual Gradient Sediment Filter, 20 Inch A dual gradient cartridge, 50 micron stepping to 5, which is staged filtration inside one cartridge. | $36.12 | Check price |
3. Softening
$665Sized on the measured hardness and household size, not on bathroom count. Run it at an efficient salt setting: the last increment of capacity is bought very expensively in salt.
| Item | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| Aquasure Harmony Series 48,000 Grain Water Softener Metered digital control, so it regenerates on water used rather than on a clock. | $629.99 | Check price |
| Morton Clean and Protect Water Softener Salt Pellets, 40 lb, 2 Pack Salt is almost always cheaper locally. This is here for comparison rather than as a recommendation to ship forty pound bags. | $35.00 | Check price |
4. Drinking water
$180Reverse osmosis is the residential technology for dissolved contaminants, and only where the model carries that certified claim under NSF/ANSI 58. Match the claim to the laboratory result rather than assuming.
| Item | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| APEC Water ROES-50 5 Stage Under Sink Reverse Osmosis System, 50 GPD Standard sized cartridges available from many suppliers rather than one, which matters at year three. | $179.99 | Check price |
5. Install and monitor
$68The gauge is the diagnostic for everything upstream of it, and the wrench is the part people wish they had bought before a swollen housing refused to open.
| Item | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| Reotemp PD25H Home Water Pressure Test Gauge with Max Pointer, 0 to 160 PSI Fit one either side of the filter housing and note the clean baseline. | $12.99 | Check price |
| Superb Wrench SPBW-2 Heavy Duty Metal Water Filter Wrench Metal rather than the plastic wrench in the box, which cracks when it is actually needed. | $33.96 | Check price |
| SharkBite Max Water Filtration Connection Kit, 3/4 Inch Push to connect fittings, which is what makes this a weekend job rather than a soldering job. | $21.49 | Check price |
System total
$1,515
10 items across 5 groups. Prices move constantly and this total is a snapshot rather than a quote. Nothing here includes plumbing labor, a drain line, an electrical outlet where one is needed, or the permit if your jurisdiction wants one. Installation cost estimating is a different question from equipment selection, and it lives on HouseProjectCalc rather than here.
Frequently asked questions
What does a complete city water system cost?
About $1,515 in equipment across 10 items, as listed above. That excludes plumbing labor, a drain line where one is needed, and any permit, all of which vary by region. Prices on the individual items move constantly, so treat the total as a snapshot rather than a quote.
Do I have to buy it all at once?
No, and on a well you should not. Buy the test first and let the result decide the rest, because iron filters are specified by the form of the iron and by pH, and neutralizers by how far the pH sits below range. The filtration and monitoring items are safe to buy early; the treatment equipment is not.
Why does the order of the groups matter?
The groups are listed in the order water reaches them, and each stage protects the next. Sediment comes out first, oxidation happens before any softener so the resin never meets raw iron, and ultraviolet goes last because it needs iron below 0.3 mg/L and manganese below 0.05 to deliver its rated dose.
Is the total an installed price?
No. It is equipment only. Labor, a drain line, an electrical outlet and a permit where your jurisdiction requires one are all extra and vary enormously with how accessible your main line is. Installation cost estimating is a different question from equipment selection and HouseProjectCalc covers it.
What if my water test shows something not on this list?
Then this is not the right list. Bacteria, nitrate, lead, arsenic and PFAS are not do it yourself topics: they are invisible and tasteless, the limits are legal figures, and the equipment has to be matched to a certified laboratory result and verified afterwards. Contact your local health department or a licensed water treatment professional.
Get the complete water treatment shopping list
Every item in the starter, complete and premium systems for both city water and well water, with running totals, in one printable list. It opens with the test kit, because that is genuinely the first purchase. No charge.
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Researched, not professional advice. This page is compiled from published standards, regulatory limits, manufacturer specifications and owner-review consensus, not hands-on testing. Nothing here diagnoses a water problem or says any product makes water safe to drink. Figures described as a rule of thumb are water treatment trade convention rather than published standards, and they are labeled that way wherever they appear. Test your water before you buy equipment: on city water start with the Consumer Confidence Report your utility publishes each year, and on a private well only a certified laboratory test tells you what you have. Bacteria, nitrate, lead, arsenic and PFAS are not do it yourself topics, they are invisible and tasteless, and they need a laboratory and usually a licensed professional rather than a product. Remember that a certification covers a specific claim under a specific standard, so "NSF certified" with no number attached tells you very little.