Quick Answer: EcoWater is one of a small handful of brands — alongside Culligan, Kinetico, and RainSoft — that engineers its own resin tanks, valves, and control heads rather than sourcing components, and it’s been in that business since 1925. It’s also been owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway since 2008, through the Marmon Group conglomerate, a fact almost never mentioned in EcoWater’s own marketing. EcoWater publishes no price anywhere; documented 2026 quotes — including through its Costco referral program — run $3,600 to $10,000 installed, compared to roughly $3,690 shipped for a comparable Fleck-plus-carbon-filter DIY setup covering the same softening-and-chlorine-removal job.
We’ve referenced EcoWater across this site as one of the four “legacy” brands that build their own hardware from the ground up — most recently in our WaterBoss review’s FAQ, and in the clip-style bypass valve section of our best water softener bypass valve guide, since GE, North Star, and EcoWater systems all share the same 7278434 connection style. What we haven’t done yet, despite EcoWater being one of the most-searched softener brand names, is explain who actually owns it or what a quote costs.
EcoWater at a glance
| Line | What it is | Sold through | Approx. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| ERR3700 Refiner | Softener + carbon filter, single tank | Authorized dealers, Costco referral | ~$3,600-$6,000 installed (reported) |
| ERR3702 Refiner | Flagship refiner, Wi-Fi monitoring | Authorized dealers, Costco referral | ~$6,000-$10,000 installed (reported) |
| ECR series | Conventional salt-based softener, no carbon stage | Authorized dealers | Dealer quote only |
| Fleck 5600SXT + carbon filter (DIY equivalent) | Two-tank softening + chlorine removal | Amazon (AFWFilters) | ~$3,690 shipped, before install |
The Berkshire Hathaway connection nobody mentions
EcoWater’s founder, Lynn G. Lindsay Sr., held the world’s first patent for an automatic water softener back in 1925, and EcoWater has manufactured its own resin tanks and control valves ever since — the same in-house-engineering claim that separates it from assemblers like WaterBoss. What’s less advertised is who owns it today: EcoWater is a member company of the Marmon Group, a conglomerate of roughly 140 independently run businesses that Berkshire Hathaway acquired in stages starting in 2008, when it paid $4.8 billion for approximately 64% of Marmon Holdings from the Pritzker family before later taking full ownership. Marmon’s other business units span rail tank cars, wire and cable, and industrial equipment — EcoWater is simply one water-treatment company inside a much larger, mostly unrelated industrial holding company, a structure closer to how Pentair owns Fleck than to a standalone water-treatment specialist.
Fleck-based systems on Amazon cover the same softening-and-filtration job at a fixed price, no dealer visit required.
Softener salt and resin on time, every time — Amazon Prime ships them free in two days, and you can try it free for 30 days.
What an EcoWater quote actually costs
EcoWater doesn’t publish a price on its own site — every product page leads to a dealer consultation and in-home water test. The clearest documented pricing comes through EcoWater’s Costco referral program: Costco itself doesn’t sell or price the equipment, it just books a free in-home consultation with a local EcoWater dealer, who quotes independently. Owner-reported 2026 figures put the entry-level ERR3700 refiner around $3,600-$6,000 installed, with the flagship ERR3702 — which adds Wi-Fi monitoring and a larger capacity — running $6,000-$10,000 installed. Costco members receive a Shop Card worth 10% of the purchase after installation, and Executive members can layer on up to 2% cash back, but neither discount changes the underlying dealer-quoted price. For comparison, a Fleck 5600SXT softener (about $1,995 shipped) paired with a separate 2.5 cu ft whole-house carbon filter (about $1,695 shipped) covers the same two jobs — softening and chlorine reduction — for roughly $3,690 combined, near the low end of EcoWater’s own range, before EcoWater’s installation and service premium.
Refiner vs. conventional softener
EcoWater’s ERR (“Refiner”) series is the brand’s signature product: a single tank that combines ion-exchange softening with a carbon filtration stage rated for municipal water up to 4 ppm chlorine, so you get softened, chlorine-reduced water without plumbing two separate tanks. The tradeoff shows up at service time — see our water softener maintenance guide for how media rebeds work generally. Because the carbon and resin share one proprietary tank on EcoWater’s own valve platform, an independent plumber typically can’t service it the way they could a standard Fleck build; carbon exhaustion means scheduling a dealer visit for a media rebed rather than swapping a separate filter cartridge yourself. EcoWater’s plainer ECR series skips the integrated carbon stage and functions as a conventional salt-based softener, closer in scope to the Fleck 5600SXT systems we cover elsewhere on this site.
Who should actually request an EcoWater quote
An EcoWater quote makes sense if you want the combined softening-plus-chlorine-filtration convenience of a refiner, value a name-brand dealer’s installation and service contract, and don’t mind paying a premium for a single professionally serviced tank instead of two independently replaceable ones. It’s the wrong path if a DIY install is fine with you and you’d rather service softening and filtration separately — in that case, a Fleck 5600SXT plus a standalone carbon filter gets you the same two jobs done at a fixed, published price with no dealer visit or media-rebed dependency.
The bottom line
EcoWater earns its “legacy brand” reputation honestly — in-house engineering since 1925, one of only four brands on this site that build their own hardware rather than sourcing it — but it’s also, less visibly, a Berkshire Hathaway-owned business run through the Marmon conglomerate, and its Costco-routed pricing still lands at $3,600-$10,000 installed for a job a DIY Fleck-plus-carbon-filter build covers for around $3,690 total. If a dealer relationship and single-tank convenience matter more to you than price, request the Costco or local-dealer quote and ask specifically whether you’re being priced for the ERR refiner or the plainer ECR line. If you’d rather skip the dealer visit, see our Fleck 5600SXT review for the Amazon-purchasable equivalent, or our water softener brands compared guide for how this quote stacks up against the other 19 brands we’ve reviewed.
Last updated September 25, 2026.