Gary Slusser wrote:
AdvanceAgent wrote:
In order to soften water you need to remove the minerals in the water.
There are resin inside the softer that will "filter" out the minerals
in the water. Salt or potassium are used to clean the resin
periodically so the resin can filter again. This is the short
explaination.

I am currently using Ecowater with potassium: http://www.ecowater.com

But there are a lot of makes and model operating with the same
principle. I like the Ecowater ones because it's relatively small.

[AdvanceAgent #367924]
Game I am currently playing:
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=367924

A softener only uses the sodium or potassium of the sodium chloride or
potassium chloride, softener salt or salt substitute.


Lets be perfectly clear about this. Water softeners work by replacing
calcium, magnesium and other metals in carbonate groups with either
sodium or potassium.They do not remove minerals from water. The
only processes that I know about that we can do as consumers to REMOVE
minerals are either Distillation,or Reverse Osmosis.

The amount of sodium (or potassium) added to water is trivial. Drinking
64oz a day of this stuff, 7 days a week will add less Sodium to your
diet in a month than eating ONE of ANY fast food joint's quarter pound
hamburger with cheese

And ecowater's softeners do not appear to be necessarily any smaller in
physical size than any other unit.

All softeners use/have sodium form resin or man made Zeolite, so
potassium is not as efficient and in many cases you will have to set
the salt dose higher than if you were using softener salt. The incease
can be as high as 30% more., while potassium always costs 1-2 times
more than salt for the same size bag.

The limiting item on size is how much resin is in the unit Amount of
resin determines how much water it can treat between backwashes of the
resin bed. Everyone uses the same resin suppliers,there are NO magic
bullets out there
..
As to the physical water treatment anti scale or descaling devices....
they don't soften water, they are supposed to prevent or reduce scaling
caused by water hardness. And the vast majority don't work in
residential applications. And those few that do leave a white powdey
film on all surfaces the water is allowed to evaporate on.

This qualifies as a magic bullet. How in the world does a high
intensity magnet affect non-ferrous minerals in water???Ok, if the
magnetic intensity is HIGH enough,some effects can be noticed. But the
question is,do most devices sold into the residential market achieve
the required magnetic field intensity. I agree with Gary, this is
hocus pocus for homes.