New self-regenerating salt water softeners cannot be installed in Fontana. The Inland Empire Utilities Agency ordinance covers this city along with Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland.
Existing units are grandfathered and IEUA pays a rebate if you remove yours. What is not permitted is a new install, or replacing your current unit with another salt softener when it fails.
Hardness in Fontana
Fontana is served by Fontana Water Company. We do not publish a hardness figure we have not measured, so we test at your hose bib before we quote.
Can you install a water softener in Fontana?
Not a new salt one. The ordinance exists because brine discharged during regeneration reaches the wastewater system and then the regional groundwater basin, where removing it is costly.
Fontana is a large city and this catches a lot of homeowners, particularly in the newer south-side tracts where owners assume a softener is a standard upgrade. It is not an option here.
What we install in Fontana instead
A salt-free whole-home water conditioning system, $3,495 installed, equipment and professional installation included. It conditions hardness minerals so they stop forming scale on pipes, water heaters and fixtures, rather than removing them from the water.
It includes whole-home carbon filtration for chlorine taste and odor, uses no salt, needs no drain line, and never regenerates. That absence of a regeneration cycle is exactly why it is compliant here.
How hard is the water in Fontana?
Fontana Water Company supplies the city. We do not publish a Fontana hardness figure because we have not measured one consistently across a city this large, and readings vary considerably between the north and south ends.
We test at your hose bib before quoting and size the system to that result.
Southridge, Sierra Lakes and the old steel town core
Fontana spans a very wide range of building eras. Southridge, Sierra Lakes and the Village of Heritage are newer master-planned tracts with accessible main lines and predictable utility layouts, which makes for straightforward installs.
The older core around the historic downtown dates back to the city's steel town years, and there the housing is mid-century or earlier with tighter utility spaces and, in some cases, original galvanized supply line still in service. Treatment does not fix a pipe that is corroding shut, and we will say so if that is what we find.
The full ordinance, and the rebate
We wrote a longer page on the IEUA ordinance, which cities it covers, how the grandfathering works, and how the removal rebate is claimed.
Read the Inland Empire salt softener guideWater filtration questions from Fontana homeowners
Are water softeners banned in Fontana?
Who supplies water in Fontana?
How much is a salt-free system in Fontana?
Nearby cities we serve
- Water filtration in Rancho Cucamonga
- Water filtration in Ontario
- Water filtration in Upland
- Water filtration in Redlands
Not sure which system fits your home? Read our water system guide, or see the main water filtration page for how the options compare.