What is “Soft Water”?
To begin this discussion it helps if we first understand hard water. It was a term coined in the early 1800s by machinists trying to mix soap into water to be used as a coolant for drilling or lathe turning metal parts. When the soap wouldn’t readily dissolve in the water they referred to the water as being hard to mix and subsequently hard water. The problem went away when using water from certain streams and rivers and ultimately chemists determined the difference between acceptable water and hard water was the presence of calcium and bicarbonate alkalinity in the hard water and absent or in diminished quantity in the good water. With the opposite of hard being soft the term soft water was born. It was soon learned as industries developed that the hardness components in the water not only caused interference with soap but also interfered with food and chemical processing, caused boilers to explode because of scale formed as the calcium compounds dropped out of solution, plugged water pipes for the same reason and, of course, laundry problems.
The 100 Year Old Technology
Over a period of 100+ years, many processes were developed to overcome the hard water problems. Eventually, a natural mined mineral Zeolite was selected and soon followed by synthetic zeolite (currently called resin) which to this day is found in virtually all devices called water softeners. The water softeners using this now nearly 100-year-old technology remove the calcium along with magnesium and some other positively charged ions BUT they are replaced with Sodium and in some cases Potassium which must be replenished with bags of sodium chloride or potassium chloride. The definition of soft or more appropriately softened water is water with calcium removed and replaced with sodium or potassium. The softening process entails equipment that has numerous moving parts requiring occasional servicing, needs electricity, needs replenishment of salt, and of most importance discharges a relatively high volume of water to drain that is laden with salt.
Soft Water Without Waste
Because of the discharge of salty water to drain and the high cost of service, alternatives to the salt-based softeners are dramatically increasing in popularity. There is absolutely no reason to remove a desirable electrolyte such as calcium from the water if the calcium and alkalinity can be brought together as water enters the home to form microscopic particles of hardness that flow through the plumbing system without attaching to water heaters, plumbing fixtures or pipes and will not interfere with cleaning products. We offer a number of products based on this contemporary technology that uses no chemicals or salt, discharges no water to drain, uses no electricity and has no moving parts.
Please see:
– Aquafer – City Water Application
– Aquafer Plus – City Water Application
– Maxi Cure – Well Water or City Water Application
– Maxi-Cure Plus – Well Water or City Water Application
– ESF – Well Water or City Water Application
– ESF Plus – Well Water or City Water Application