Soft water users... I have a question

[PineRidge]

We drink the softened water and also use it to make tea and coffee. Neither the wife or I have ever noticed any bad tastes but we have had a well since we were both kids too. We both must be accustomed to the taste I reckon.

Hey wait a minute maybe all that salty water is why my hair fell out. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Well you didn't think I was wearing the hat cause I liked it did ya? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[anthonyk]

Hey ya'll!

I'm actually an engineer for a water purification company and can explain what's happening. When you have hard water, it's due to limestone. When limestone dissolves in water it becomes calcium carbonate and calcium and magnesium sulfate.
The calcium carbonate is the white scale which ruins water appliances. BUT the calcium sulfate reacts with soap to form a curd you identify as soap scum. The problem is, you don't just leave the scum on the bathroom wall. When you have hard water, you literally clog every pore in your body when you shower. It's that soapy film that sucks up your body's natural skin oils and thus leaves you with much drier skin than you'd normally have. Now, when you have softened water, you remove the calcium carbonate and sulfate. Soap comes off instantly, and your natural skin oils can be felt. That's what it feels like when you're truly clean. A soft, slippery feeling. Takes some getting used to because you're used to "so clean that it squeaks". Well that squeaky grip is soap scum, and it ain't clean. By the way, if you can shave in the shower with soft water, it's the best!

Hope this helps,

Anthony

 

[Richard]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( By the way, if you can shave in the shower with soft water, it's the best! )</font>

Does that infer I should upgrade to a GFCI or just not stand in the water while I'm shaving?

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ByronBob]

A good question asked was how hard is your water? Mine is 80 grains hard. Anything over 60 I believe is considered hard. Do you need one even is a good place to start.

 

[Richard]

I've not measured it's hardness yet. I've just presumed it's hard from the deposits around the faucets and most glaringly, the buildup I get inside my water heater (which I understand to be calcium precipitated out of the heated water).

My water heater has filled with these flakes to a level higher than the low heating element on more than one occasion.

 

[coveredbridge]

Richard,

We switched to softened well water from "city water" about a year and a half ago. I had both tested and was told the city water was almost naturally soft (1 - 2 grains) while the well water was very hard (10 grains). I don't know why these numbers don't jive with some others in this thread. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Even though the "city water" was almost naturally soft, you can definitely tell the difference in the way the softened well water "feels" on your skin. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif While I don't doubt the science posted here about why that is and why "slickery" is better for you, I still usually have the feeling that I don't have all the soap off my skin, but that feeling doesn't last after drying. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif I can't honestly say I've gotten completely used to it, but it's not really an unpleasant feeling anymore, just different. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Anyway, I do recommend you have your water tested before installing and using a softener, because you will need to know how much softening you will need which will dictate how often the softener regenerates, either by meter or demand monitor.

It also will help determine the correct capacity of softener you need. For example, the person that installed my softener set it at 32 grains (10 for hardness and 22 for iron content - I think it was 4.5 per unit of iron, don't remember exactly). I have a 30,000 grain softener, which means that it can treat about 1000/gal of water per regeneration cycle. So it regenerates about every 4 - 5 days, based on demand. We use around 200 gal per day (family of six).

I know the women in the house are adamant about having the softener. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif They claim it greatly reduces the soap scum in the shower/tub and gets the laundry much cleaner and brighter. It also eliminates mineral buildup on fixtures.

Hope this helps. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Jagmandave]

So Anthony,
We have a large multimedia filter in our plant, because we were getting a lot of sediment in the city water (we're a food manufacturing plant) and this seems to produce really crystal clean water - you can take a glass of filtered vs. a glass of "city" water and literally see the difference in clarity. Wouldn't this also work for a well, and not have to deal with the salt?

 

[coveredbridge]

I'm not an engineer or an expert, but I believe the reason a sediment filter won't work is because the calcium and other minerals are in solution. The water softener works at the molecular level by exchanging "hard" calcium and magnesium ions with "soft" sodium or potassium ions. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif All other things equal, I don't believe you could visually distinguish between hard and soft water.

I hope I got that right. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[anthonyk]

To answer a couple of questions posted to me:

First of all, any water over 1 grain can technically be considered "hard". One grain is equal to 17.1 ppm. That's the magic number where some of the less desireable side effects begin to take place. The only difference between 1 grain/ 10 grains/ or 80 grains is how quickly you will see damage.
Now, in my humble opinion, 10 grains is moderately hard water, but even with only 2 grains, with the additions of a water softener, you WILL feel the difference when you shower. With only 2 grains of hardness though, you will not see the buildup that you would for the man who said he had 80 grain hard water.
As for the question about the multi stage filter at the business, I don't know what they're using, but if it's a large scale RO or distiller, then no, you can't use one at home.
The basic approach to home water systems is, use a proper water purification system for the house (not just a softener, a softener will NOT remove chemicals. Reducing or removing chemicals for your shower is important because you can absorb them through your skin. A proper water treatment system should incorporate a certain amount of carbon in the resin bed for that purpose-otherwise you're buying medicine that cures half of your illness) After that you should add an additional filter at the kitchen sink capable of removing bacteria. Typically that is an RO (reverse osmosis system) or some sort of high density carbon filter capable of filtering past .5 microns. It is not necessary to remove bacteria for the whole house, nor is it practical.
Hope this helps,

Anthony

 

[anthonyk]

One other thing, looking back at this thread I noticed that someone said they couldn't drink the water that had been softened because it tasted bad, so they didn't soften the water at the kitchen sink.
There is no reason for softened water to taste bad. While it is true that all water softeners use sodium chloride to regenerate, and thus leave a small amount of sodium in the water, the amount in negligible, unless you have a very very poor quality softener with weak backflush rates, or if your system is using way too much salt. The residual sodium left in water after softening is based on the degree of hardness.
The formula is 7.5mg of sodium per grain of hardness per quart of water (assuming correct backflush rates and not overcharging with sodium during regeneration-many cheap systems have worse residual levels) So assuming 10 grains of hardness to begin with, that leaves you with only 75 milligrams of sodium per quart of water. Most people don't drink even a quart of water per day, but even if you drank a GALLON, that's 300mg per day. The daily recommended level of sodium for a normal healthy person is about 2,400 milligrams, so you'd have to drink 8 gallons per day to get that!
He also stated that he did not have soft water at his kitchen sink. Since a softener is usually put at the front of the water line, and does the whole house, I don't know how he did that unless he plumbed a seperate water line just for his kitchen sink. Not casting aspersions here, just stumped. We often get requests to put in a system, but leave the outside hoses hard. That can't be done unless you plumb the house with that intent during construction.
By the way, ALL water softeners can run on potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, and a properly maintained RO will remove 99.98 % of the sodium at the kitchen anyway.

Again, hope all this helps

Anthony /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif