Your outside faucets, called hose bibs, can be a significant source of demand on your water softener and subsequently be causing you to use much more salt than necessary. Many homes are connected with all hose bibs plumbed to the softened sources of water. This is clearly a waste of softened water when using this water for watering plants or lawns. If you like to wash your car and desire to use softened water, designate only one hose bib for this and re-plumb the other bibs to the un-softened source. Then when watering landscaping be sure to use only the un-softened water hose bibs.