Water Softeners
In Hard Water Areas:
- Scale forms easily
- Existing scale builds up
- Much more soap and detergent is required
- You get less lather and lots of soapy scum to clean off!
You can combat these problems by installing a water softener
How Does it Work:
Water hardness is removed by a process called ion-exchange.
Hard water is passed through a cylinder containing ion-exchange resin in the form of millions of tiny plastic beads. The resin attracts and exchanges the hardness ions in the water.
Maintainance is simple - just top up with salt tablets periodically.
The salt tablets are used to create a brine wash for cleaning and regenerating the ion-exchange resin. The used brine is flushed away down a nearby drain. Refreshed by the regeneration the resin is again ready to remove hardness ions from your water.
The regeneration process is all automatic, either on a set time basis, or more usually based on the quantity of water softened. It usually is set do run in the early hours of the day, and then only on the days when it actually needs to.
All you need do is add salt tablets to the machine when the remote system monitor starts to indicate that the salt level is getting low.
It is important to note that the salt does not soften the water, it is just used to clean the ion-exchange resin media bed.
Unlike naturally occurring soft water, softened water has exactly the same amount of dissolved solids as hard water. All we have done is exchanged calcium and magnesium ions that cause scale and soap scum for sodium ions that do not.
Is Filtered Water Healthy?
WILL DRINKING SOFTENED WATER DEPRIVE ME OF ESSENTIAL MINERALS?
The short answer is no. People who live in Cornwall, Wales or Scotland and other soft water areas do not suffer from mineral deficiency because their water is naturally soft, and neither will you when you have a water softener. All your mineral requirements are satisfied by the food you eat, not by the water you drink.
HOW MUCH SODIUM IS THERE IN SOFTENED WATER?Typical examples are - two slices of bread contain 375 mg, and two glasses of milk contain 325 mg of sodium. For comparison, an adult in a average hard water area drinking 4 pints of artificially softened water per day would add only 310 mg of sodium to their average daily intake.
Information above extracted from the independent Consumers’ Guide to Water Softeners by British Water.
UK Bylaw:
In the UK there is a water bylaw in force today that means that one tap in the house is left un-softened. In practice this usually means a third mini tap at the kitchen sink. The two main pillar taps are softened and the mini tap provides hard water.
Water softeners: What does it take to fit one?
The modern water softener is designed to fit into an under counter cupboard. Typically sited in the kitchen or utility room, but the garage and a few other places downstairs are also possible.
The usual installation involves softening all the water in the house from the rising main stopcock with the exception of a new hard water mini tap at the kitchen sink and the garden tap. This means finding a site that has space for a water softener and allows:
- A route for diverted water that needs to be softened, from the rising main stopcock to your water softener via new plumbing
- Access to a drainage point, much smaller than a washing machine or dishwasher, but still a point to put waste water down from the cleaning or regeneration process.
- Finally, the electronic controller will require an electrical power source. This is reduced down to 12 volts via a transformer for the softener.
Water softeners: What are the choices?
There are intelligent microprocessor based meter controlled machines, which means that they will measure your actual water consumption and automatically adjust themselves daily to match the water demand.
Economy based electro-mechanical time clock machines that rely on the user to set an interval of regeneration in anticipation of water usage.
