Short version for Iowa City: buy the reverse osmosis first, and treat the softener as optional. The Iowa City Water Division softens raw water of roughly 17.5 grains per gallon at the plant, and it still reaches your kitchen at about 5 to 8 grains. An under-sink RO from Kind Water Co runs $897 installed, or $997 tankless.
That is the verdict. The rest of this page is the reasoning and the prices, so you can check our work.
| What you notice | The usual explanation in Iowa City | What actually fixes it | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drinking water tastes treated; ice and coffee taste flat | Softening at the plant is aimed at calcium and magnesium. Taste and dissolved solids are a different job entirely. | Under-sink reverse osmosis on its own faucet | $897 tank, $997 tankless |
| You are buying bottled water by the case | The same taste complaint, solved in the driveway instead of at the sink | The same RO, on tap — no hauling, no Sunday runs | $897, then $199/yr |
| Spotting on glassware or the shower door | The roughly 5 to 8 grains per gallon the plant leaves behind, which is normal for moderately hard water | A softener, if you want one. Here that is a comfort choice, not a must. | $1,900 softener only |
| Orange staining, a sulfur smell, or grit | Almost never Iowa City water. This is a private-well signature. | Free in-home test first; iron and sulfur treatment is sized to your results | Quoted after your free water test |
| Nitrate on your mind, because Johnson County is farm country | Iowa State University Extension notes nitrate is odorless and tasteless, so your tap tells you nothing either way | Test for it. ISU lists reverse osmosis, distillation and anion exchange as the methods that reduce it. | Test is free |
Put the corridor's published numbers side by side and Iowa City sits with the other plant-treated towns, well below the unsoftened ones:
The USGS calls 61 to 120 mg/L moderately hard and 121 to 180 mg/L hard, so Iowa City's tap sits in the moderately hard band and reaches just into hard at the top of its range. Some spotting on glass and shower doors is normal at that level, but the Water Division has already done the expensive half before the water reaches your meter, which is why a home softener here is a comfort choice rather than a must. Hardness by Iowa city has the wider comparison; the Iowa City service area page covers softeners and well packages here.
Softening at a plant does not govern taste, so taste is what is left for you to solve. Reverse osmosis pushes water through a semipermeable membrane and sends what stays behind out a drain line, which is why it is the standard answer for dissolved solids rather than hardness. NSF/ANSI 58, the certification standard written for residential RO, requires at least a 75% reduction in total dissolved solids for a system to certify under it — a fact about the standard itself. If taste is your whole complaint, read why tap water tastes like chlorine.
Both are open to you because you are on city water. A tank system at $897 stores treated water in a small pressurized tank, so it needs cabinet room beside the trap and the disposal. A tankless system at $997 takes far less space and makes water on demand, but it needs an outlet under there.
That outlet is where kitchens get complicated. Often the only one is a switched outlet already spoken for by the garbage disposal. A $200 disposal air switch moves disposal control to a counter button and frees it. That add-on is deliberately thin margin and is not a money-maker for us; we do it because it decides whether tankless is possible.
On a private well we install the tank RO only — wells run high dissolved solids and tankless units lose pressure under that load. A line to the refrigerator or ice maker adds $300 (tankless) or $350 (tank), and we say both facts first: impossible if your sink is in an island, and otherwise it works about half the time with no reliable way to predict which half you are in.
All-in: equipment, installation by a licensed plumbing professional, taxes, lifetime parts warranty.
A diagnostic call is $199, waived the first year on systems we installed. Military and first responders take $100 off, 0% financing is available, and travel is free inside 50 miles of our Des Moines or Marion office, which covers Iowa City comfortably. Most companies in this market publish no prices at all; we will state that once, plainly. See Iowa RO costs and our reverse osmosis systems, or softeners if you decide you want one anyway.
The work is done by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind, insured and bonded start to finish. The unit mounts in the sink cabinet, taps the cold line, drains to the sink drain, and feeds a dedicated faucet — many sinks already have a spare hole from an old sprayer. A standalone RO is usually one to two hours, and before anyone leaves you will know how to change filters and where the shutoff is. Warranty is lifetime on parts, five years on media, one year on labor.
We would rather measure than guess, and there is no charge either way. We will come anywhere in Iowa City or Johnson County, test what is actually coming out of your tap, and tell you plainly what you need — which here is frequently less than people expect. Call 319-319-6566, email hello@kindwaterco.com, or start an instant quote. No pressure, no obligation, nothing that expires.
Cross a city line and the advice flips. Coralville does not soften at all. North Liberty runs its own reverse osmosis plant. Solon and the wells around it get no municipal treatment at all. Not listed? We travel — call 319-319-6566.
An under-sink tank system is $897 installed; tankless is $997. That is all-in: equipment, installation by a licensed plumbing professional, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty. Annual service is $199 a year, or $249 on a tankless home. Bundled with a softener and whole-home filtration, the package price is $2,850.
Not a waste, but not a must either. The Iowa City Water Division softens raw water of about 17.5 grains per gallon at the plant, and its 2025 Water Quality Report puts the tap at about 5 to 8 grains, which the USGS scale calls moderately hard. Some spotting on glass and shower doors is normal at that level, so a softener here is a comfort choice. Plenty of people still want one for the feel of the water, and that is a fine reason to buy it.
Probably not the way you did there. Marion runs 18 to 20 grains per gallon unsoftened, per The Gazette in February 2023, while Iowa City reaches you at about 5 to 8. Most families who move in this direction find the softener becomes a comfort choice rather than a necessity, and the drinking water becomes the question. A free test settles it.
Tank if you have cabinet room, tankless if you would rather keep the space and there is an outlet under the sink. Many kitchens have one switched outlet already taken by the disposal, and a $200 disposal air switch frees it. On a private well we fit the tank only, because tankless units lose pressure at high dissolved solids.
Iowa State University Extension lists reverse osmosis, distillation and anion exchange as the methods that reduce nitrate, and notes nitrate is odorless and tasteless, so the tap gives no warning either way. That describes the technology, not our units: our RO systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids only, not for nitrate, so for nitrate we start with a certified lab test.
Whole-home water softening, filtration, and reverse-osmosis drinking water — professionally installed and built to last a lifetime.
Serving Des Moines, Polk County & homes across Iowa
Kind Water Co is a d/b/a of Zero Cap Investments LLC · 600 SE 15th St, Des Moines, IA 50317
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