The water is genuinely different
Trinity Aquifer water moves through limestone and dolomite, dissolving calcium and magnesium on the way. Wells across Kendall County commonly test 25-35 grains per gallon, against 15-20 on Boerne city supply.
It can also carry things municipal water does not, because nobody is treating it before it reaches you: iron, manganese, sulphur (the rotten-egg smell), sediment, and occasionally bacteria.
And it varies property to property. Two wells on the same road can produce noticeably different water, because they may not be drawing from the same depth or the same fracture. A neighbour's test results are interesting, not applicable.
So the first step is a test rather than equipment: hardness, iron, pH, total dissolved solids, and bacteria. Everything sensible follows from those numbers, and buying treatment without them is guessing expensively.
Worth knowing
Well chemistry changes over time, particularly through a drought when drawdown pulls from lower in the water column. If your filters started clogging faster or the water tastes different, retest rather than assuming the equipment failed.
Pressure — and why it is rarely the pump
The most common well complaint, and people assume the pump because it is the expensive part. It usually is not.
The pressure tank holds water under pressure against a captive air cushion behind an internal bladder. Its job is to stop the pump starting every time anyone runs a tap. When the bladder fails, the tank fills with water and loses its cushion — and the pump then starts and stops rapidly every time you use water. That is called short-cycling and it destroys pumps.
The pressure switch starts the pump at cut-in and stops it at cut-out, typically 30/50 or 40/60 psi. Contacts pit and burn. It is an inexpensive part.
The test worth knowing: turn off power to the pump, drain the system, and check the air valve on top of the tank with a tyre gauge. It should read 2 psi below cut-in — 28 psi on a 30/50 switch. If water comes out of that valve instead of air, the bladder has failed and the tank needs replacing.
Do that once a year. It costs nothing and it prevents the failure that takes the pump with it.
Sediment, iron and the order that matters
Getting the treatment sequence wrong is the most expensive common mistake on a well, and it usually shows up as a softener that stops working within a year or two.
Sediment first. Sand and grit damage everything downstream. A spin-down or cartridge filter at the entry point. If cartridges are loading unusually fast, the well may be producing more solids than it used to, which is worth investigating rather than just replacing filters — see why filters clog quickly.
Iron second, if present. Above roughly 0.3 ppm, iron fouls standard softener resin — it coats the beads and they stop exchanging, and once that has happened the resin generally does not recover. Iron needs oxidation and dedicated filtration, or specialty resin, before the softener.
Softening last, sized to your tested hardness. At 25-35 grains a unit sized on a city-water assumption will regenerate constantly and wear out early.
The symptom of getting this wrong is orange staining that persists after a softener was installed to fix it.
What hard well water does to the rest of the house
At 25-35 grains, everything that heats or holds water ages faster.
Water heaters accumulate sediment quickly, which insulates the burner and costs capacity. The annual flush is not optional here.
Tankless units need descaling twice a year rather than annually, because scale forms directly on the heat exchanger and there is nowhere for it to hide.
Fixtures and valves — cartridges, aerators, showerheads — scale and stiffen sooner.
Appliances with heating elements see the same effect.
This is the practical argument for softening even where the water is otherwise acceptable: it is not about comfort, it is about how long the equipment in the house lasts.
Bacteria, and the rule that gets forgotten
Municipal water arrives disinfected. Well water does not, and the system is only as sealed as its last opening.
Any time the system is opened — pump replacement, pressure tank change, well cap work, pipe repair — it should be disinfected afterwards and retested. This is routinely skipped, and it is how contamination gets introduced by a repair rather than by the well.
Test annually for coliform bacteria and nitrates as a baseline, and always after flooding, after any work, and if the taste, smell or appearance changes.
Check the wellhead physically. The cap should be secure and vermin-proof, the casing sound above ground, and the ground graded away from it so surface water runs off rather than pooling around the casing. Surface water reaching the annulus is a genuine contamination route and it is entirely preventable.
None of this is complicated. It is simply that there is no utility doing it for you, which is the real difference between a well and a meter.