Maintaining the Water Softener

I bought my cottage 16 years ago.  My cottage was built in the 1930's and after I bought it, I put on two additions, a new furnace, central air conditioning, a new well and changed over most all the electrical to a larger panel.  It came with a Culligan Water Conditioner which worked awesome up until a few years ago.

After having the Culligan man out to tell me that mine is shot and I need a new one or a newer used one, I had to get creative with making the one I have last until I could save for a new/er one.  For some reason, it will cycle the salt, but it doesn't return water to the brine tank.  So every few days, I put a couple buckets of water in the tank before the next cycle day.

Well, I am still babying my water softener and decided that I would add a household water filtration system.  It looks like this, to add to my water softener system.  Now to find someone to install it.  I do see that Kmart/Sears carries water softeners systems for $300.   I wonder if I can put one in layaway.

The filters to this system cost $11 each.  They are charcoal filters and are supposed to last a couple months each, so I think this is something I could add to my budget.  Even if I had to change it every month, it is only an extra $5.50.  I hope it helps.

Adding a Hot Tub to the Cottage with the 52 Week Money Challenge.

I started this Challenge the first week of January 2014 and saved until the end of the summer.  I ended up with around $1200 to work with.  A little bit of a challenge, because that $1200 had to buy my a tub, the pad and electrical, but I am very pleased with the results, pictures below.

I educated myself by reading about different hot tubs, going with a 110 or 220 electrical hookup, where I should place it and would read anything I thought would help me make my decision.   I chose a 220 electrical hookup just because I knew that I wanted my tub outside and here in Michigan, we have cold and snowy winters.  I searched on Craigslist, Stores with sales, Ebay, etc.

Here are some pics of the hot tub and installation.

This last picture, I thought I would put up a gazebo, but a snow storm took it out, so now it just sits out in the open.  I like it in the open, you can see all the stars at night.  This year, will be re-staining the deck.  But for anyone thinking about adding a hot tub, I think it is worth it.