The Hague WaterMax,
Sized To Your Grain Count

Hard water is a mineral count,
not a matter of opinion

A water softener has one job and it does it well. Hardness is dissolved calcium and magnesium, counted in grains per gallon, and homes in Boise, Meridian and Nampa typically read between 8 and 15 grains. Water isn't considered soft until it drops under about 3. So an ordinary house here sits well past the point where scale starts building on every hot surface the water touches, from the element in your water heater to the inside of the coffee maker to the shower glass that never quite comes clean.

You can see the result without a test kit. Pull the heating element out of a six year old tank in Meridian and it comes out jacketed in a chalky gray crust, because every gallon that passed through left a little of its mineral load on the hottest surface it could find. That crust insulates, so the element runs longer to hit the same temperature, and the appliance quietly becomes a consumable.

Ion exchange, in plain terms

The mechanism is simple. A softener is a tank of resin beads carrying sodium. Hard water runs through the bed, the calcium and magnesium swap places with the sodium, and what leaves the tank is soft. When the resin fills up, the unit rinses itself with a brine solution, sends the hardness minerals to the drain and goes back to work. That rinse cycle is called regeneration, and how often it runs should be set by your water, not by a timer guessing on your behalf. Get the exchange right and soap lathers again, laundry comes out soft, and the scale that furs up your fixtures stops forming.

Five softeners in the Hague range,
and where each one fits

Hague does not build one softener and hope it suits every house. Five models cover the work we do here, and they differ in what they can stage, how much salt they hold and how much room they take. Here is the range and where each one earns its place.

Flagship

WaterMax

This is the one 96 percent of our clients choose. The patented three compartment design puts softening and filtration stages inside a single cabinet, with a self cleaning sediment pre filter built in, so there are no cartridges to change, and a built in bypass so outdoor water can be drawn untreated. Hague rates it at up to 50 percent less salt, up to 80 percent less water and up to 80 percent less time, though no baseline is published alongside those figures.

Design

Patented three compartment, softening and filtration in one cabinet

Dimensions

38" x 30" x 15"

Salt storage

200 lb

Certification

WQA Certified

Warranty

25 year limited from date of installation, covering the media tank, brine tank, main control valve and fine mesh resin

Smart controller

WaterMax Signature Series

The Signature Series is the same cabinet with a Wi-Fi controller on the front, built in 2 or 3 compartment form. The salt monitor is standard and gives an audible and visual warning when the level runs low, and it also flags a salt bridge, which is the fault most people never spot until the water goes hard again. Its resin beads are fine mesh, 23 percent smaller than standard mesh, and a safety shut off is fitted, intended to prevent overflow.

Design

2 or 3 compartment

Dimensions

38" x 30" x 15"

Salt storage

200 lb

Controller

Wi-Fi enabled smart touch with touchscreen, optional email alerts

Certification

WQA Certified

Warranty

25 year limited

Straight softening

Maximizer

The Maximizer suits a household that needs softening done properly without the filtration stages stacked in behind it, and it comes in three layouts. The 97MM is a single cabinet unit with a color smart touch controller. The 96MM, pictured here, runs as a dual tank across two cabinets on a five button controller. The 6MM carries the smart touch controller.

97MM

Single cabinet, color smart touch controller

96MM

Dual tank and dual cabinet, five button controller

6MM

Smart touch controller

Higher flow

HydroClean

The HydroClean is built around flow and capacity. Media capacity runs from 0.8 to 3.3 cubic feet, so the same model scales from a modest house up to a busy one, and it will pass up to 18.6 gallons per minute at maximum. That headroom is what keeps the pressure honest when two showers, the dishwasher and the washer all run at once.

Softening media capacity

0.8 to 3.3 cubic feet

Maximum flow rate

Up to 18.6 gallons per minute

Warranty

10 year limited on the mineral tank and brine tank

Compact

HomeGuard

The HomeGuard is the small one, described by Hague as taking half the space. It holds 30 lb of salt rather than 200, so you top it up more often, but that is the trade for a cabinet that fits a utility closet or a tight garage corner where a full size unit was never going in.

Dimensions

21" x 11.5" x 18.5"

Salt storage

30 lb

Footprint

Hague describes it as half the space

Warranty

10 year limited

Most Treasure Valley homes end up on the WaterMax, because hardness here rarely turns up on its own and the extra compartments earn their keep. The Signature Series suits anyone who wants the controller to tell them about the salt before the shower does. The Maximizer covers straight softening, the HydroClean is for houses that pull high flow at peak, and the HomeGuard is for the ones with no room to spare. Which of the five goes in your house comes out of the free test at your sink, not out of a catalog.