DIYbanter - View Single Post - NuvoH2O Saltless Water Softener Experiences

Doug Miller

In article , wrote:
Denrael wrote:

I've been looking at the NuvoH2O Saltless Water Softener as an
alternative to a larger brine based system. Does anyone here have any
experience with them? Thoughts?

Sigh. Google on the words "snake oil".

The short version is that there are only two ways of reducing mineral content in
water, commonly known as water softening. One is ion exchange (i.e. "salt"), the
other is reverse osmosis.

Anything else, especially those systems with vague pseudoscientific words and
standards that have nothing to do with water softening ("NSF" as in National
SANITATION Foundation) is pure snake oil.

I dunno -- did you look at their site? They claim it works by chelation --
which is at least theoretically possible. I wouldn't be quite so quick to
dismiss that. I am not a chemist, but I have had two years of college
chemistry, so I'm not completely ignorant of the subject. Chelation is a
well-known chemical phenomenon with numerous practical uses (for example, in
treating lead or mercury poisoning, by binding the metal ion in a soluble
form). It's at least possible in theory to soften hard water by chelating the
magnesium and calcium ions it contains, as they claim to do. I don't know if
it works in practice, but IMHO this should not be dismissed out of hand.
Perhaps there's a chemist or ChemE reading this who will chime in with an
opinion?