South Florida, born and raised, left me well accustomed to excessively hard, mineral laden tap water. That is, of course, until I moved away, experienced showers with a reasonable amount of dissolved solids in my water, and then moved back. Stepping out of the shower, my skin and hair would feel much nastier than it had pre-ablution. Problem was, even the most economical water-softeners on the market were well out of reach for my broke ass.

What was I to do? just go through life feeling like I had a thin layer of dried-out gunk on my skin? Not a chance! I got on the interwebs, started researching the theory behind water softening, sketched up a plan, and got to work. Now, my showers are as pleasant as ever, and I don't have to go through the rest of my day feeling like I want to scrape my skin off with a carrot peeler.

Supplies

About 2 feet of (at least) 2-inch PVC Pipe (this will be an open system that does not operate at high pressure, so the less-expensive, thinner-walled DWV [Drain, Waste, and Vent) pipe ought to be acceptable if you're tight on cash).

2x 2" threaded PVC caps

4x 2" male x slip adapters

2x female x slip adapters

2x 2" 90 degree elbows

2x 1/2" NPT (National Pipe Thread) bulkhead fittings (Amazon)

Screen to keep the substrate of each of the two chambers segregated (I used shade cloth)

PVC cement

Handheld Shower Head

2x shower hose (chances are the shower head will include one of these, so you've likely got to purchase only one more)

Activated Carbon

Water Softener Zeolite

Needle valve

Hole Saw

Teflon Tape

Step 1: Familiarize Yourself With the Theory

Crash course: household water softeners work by passing the tap water through a zeolite (a material that exchanges the hard-water ions with salt ions). The zeolite has the size of a medium-fine sand, and must be "loaded" with salt (NaCl). Household water softeners automatically replenish the salt in the zeolite during it's recharge cycle; you will need to build a recharging column to achieve this (don't worry, you can do recharge a large load all at once, and it ought to be enough to refill the softener several times, lasting you a few months (depending on how often you need to swap out the zeolite, which is itself a function of your local water quality and the length of your showers). The recharging column is just a bucket, s'more PVC/fittings, and a marine water pump that recirculates a brine solution through the zeolite (no, you cant just throw it in a jar 'o brine and shake it up). The interwebs is replete with resources that go over the theory in differing levels of detail - poke around a bit.

Step 2: Draw Up Your Plans

Sketch up your plans ... always sketch up your plans. Either you don't have a good idea in your head of all the components and their fit, in which case you need to get it down; or you do, and you still risk missing something due to negligence, rushing, etc. Even if you are making an exact copy of my model, sketch out a copy for yourself. Doesn't need to be pretty - you just want to have a solid understanding of what goes where.

Step 3: Buy Your Components

The pipe/fittings can be found at your local big-box hardware store, the rest off of Ebay and Amazon. Although I prefer Home Depot for lumber, PVC/plumbing tends to be less expensive at Lowes (but YMMV). If you, like myself, are perpetually short on cash, shop around: there are multiple sellers on Amazon/Ebay, some with better deals than others. If you have a garage/workshop which is well stocked, you may already have some of the stuff on hand. One word of advice: don't go any smaller than 2 inches on the pipe diameter. My prototype was made of 1-1/2" pipe, and the flow was markedly better with the latter-used 2 inch.

Step 4: Cut Your Pvc, Do a Dry Fitting

Cut your 2 inch PVC pipe so that you have two longer lengths (I went about 10 inches) and one shorter length (of about 4 inches). If you don't own a pipe cutter, a hack saw works well. If you don't have a hack saw, use whatever saw has the smallest teeth (highest TPI count) that you can find. Don't sweat it if your cuts aren't perfectly square, the cut ends will be hidden inside the fittings, so it's very forgiving to a sloppy cut. Use a file or sandpaper to clean the burs from the cuts, and sand bot the pipe and the fittings with fine-grit sandpaper where they will mate. Clean off the PVC dust, and do a dry fitting.

Here is where you can cut out a couple 2" circles of shade cloth, etc. to use as partitions to keep the zeolite in one chamber and the carbon in the other. PVC cement them into place, taking care to trim/cut any that overlaps the outer diameter of the pipe (which would interfere with the fitting).

Step 5: Glue It Up

If everything looks like it should, you can disassemble, apply the PVC cement to both mating surfaces, and put them together (make sure you have a roll of paper towels and some acetone close at hand for clean up) . A rubber mallet is helpful for getting a tight fit.

Drill a hole in the bottom of the middle length of pipe, just smaller than the diameter of the threads on your needle valve. This is important: any water that collects in here in between showers will have been dechlorinated by the activated carbon. That means that it is now susceptible to legionella, the cause of Legionnaires Disease. Now, this does not spring up overnight, but, say you go out of town for a couple weeks and leave that dechlorinated water within your filter/softener ... yep, best to open the valve and let it drain if it isn't going to be used for more than a day or two.

Step 6: Insert Bulkhead Fittings

Now, measure your bulkhead fittings to see what size hole saw you'll need. If you don't have it, buy that sized hole saw (and a chuck if you don't have one) and use it to drill into the top of the pipe caps. Sandwich the cap between the two mating pieces of the 1/2" bulkhead fitting (after wrapping the threads with Teflon tape to prevent leakage). You now have your filter/softener assembled.

Step 7: Install Shower Head to Stem

Go ahead and install your shower head (again making use of Teflon tape), with one deviation from the stock instructions: instead of running the hose directly to the shower head from the stem, run one hose from the stem to your softener, with the second hose returning from the filter/softener to the shower head. Voila! You've just saved about 500 dollars (on the low end). The one downside is that, instead of having a system that automatically recharges your zeolite, you must change it out and recharge it manually. If it should happen that you, like me, are not made of money, this softener may be the next best thing. Bon douche!

Soon to come: instructions for my DIY Zeolite Recharging Column