On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 21:40:12 +0100, Ian Cornish "icornish at talk21
dot com" wrote:

I live in a hard water area, and the house I just bought seems to have a
lot of problems with it's basic water plumbing, mainly steming from
limescale.

Questions:-
1) Would a water softener help reduce the limescale build up over time,
without replacing all the pipework?

Yes


2) What types of softener are there, and what are the maintenance costs?
Which ones are effective ?

Ion exchange types which run with salt, deal with scale and soften the
water, so the salt cost is offset by detergent and shampoo saving.

Phosphate dosing devices like Combimate. These address scale but do
not soften water.

Electronic, electric and magnetic devices do nothing worthwhile.


3) How easy are they to fit diy?

Very easy if you can do basic plumbing


4) Any other considerations I need to think about before spending my dosh?

(the house is 6 yrs old, 3 bed semi, 2 bathrooms)


Not really. It's a question of location and having a suitable route
to a waste pipe or drain.

--

..andy

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