Water softener install

I went to Lowes and finally broke down to buy a water softener since we have hard water here in Kyle. I had also figured in the long run, it would be an asset to the house when I go to sell it. Last Friday I went to the Lowes in south Austin. I had originally went to the Lowes in San Marcos but the guy John who helped me made me feel like I was wasting his time. The south Austin Lowes had a New Jersey John who was very friendly, helpful and set up everything for me.

I get a call Sunday afternoon from the installer who says next week is wide open. I call him back first thing Monday morning and we set it up for Tuesday. They were at my house around 11am and in 2 1/2 hours later, they had me up and running.

I am overall pleased with the unit. It is very quiet and lives in the garage. They did have to dig up my yard to tap into the water line. I was amazed that they did not bury the lines deeper than they did. I was not impressed with the fact that the installer wanted to charge me $33 for 1 "hose bibs" which would allow me to use my water hose to water my grass with hard water rather than soft water. He tells me that the first one would be $33 and the second one would be over $100 because they had to trench more. Ironically, they failed to mention after he installed the hose bibs that there is a bypass valve on the water softener itself. I did not need to have a hose bib installed. I also thought the install price of $950 for labor was a tad bit much. I had gotten 3 estimates and labor would run me $500 maximum. For $950, the installers should have given me hose bibs for free. The water softener itself was only $549. It is amazing how an install fee would cost you twice as much as the actual unit itself. Lowes basically tells me their water softener install program is in a "test" market. The cool thing is you can run this water softener on either salt pellets or Potassium pellets. The different is the salt is $2.50 a bag and the potassium is like $11 a bag. There are 3 bags of salt in the unit now and I might have to buy 1 bag after having the unit in my house almost 3 weeks.

I had asked the installers how many water softener installs they do a week and he tells me 3. I realize what a racket this guy has doing 3 installs. The normal price is $1000 for the install. This guy is making at least $3000 a week in installs alone. I realize he has labor because there was 2 other guys with him. Both guys did not speak a word of English. He probably used day laborers. He also used a bunch of PVC pipe. It is not an install I would do myself since they did have to get permits from the city of Kyle and had to tap into my water supply line. I think Lowes needs to regular these guys a little more, especially if they are going to overcharge on the install almost $500 off the regular price.

Would I call Lowes again to get them to install something else? I would probably pass on the install and hire my own contractor to do the labor and just buy the materials from Lowes.