A: possibly yes. (Never thought I'd find myself saying that :-))

Took out a CW storage tank and HW cylinder yesterday and found a magnetic
gizmo on the 15mm copper feed to the system. The storage tank had a very
small amount of scale encrustation around the water level line. The
cylinder had no evidence of _any_ limescale in the bottom (it was as light
as a new one when I lifted it out (not quite one-handed, but not the
usual hernia-inducing lugging/dragging one usually has to do).

This is in a hard-as-nails water area (Reading) where storage tanks often
have sheets of limescale around the sides and bottom, and cylinders have
half a builder's bag of limescale in the bottom.

Interestingly the last few litres of water (tipping the cylinder over to
get out the liquid below the bottom inlet tapping) were a sort of brown
sludge.

Someone had written on the magnetic gizmo that it was installed in 1993.

So there you go. I won't be fitting them to my installations: I need
something that provably works, and for all I know there could be some
completely different phenomenon at work here[1], or it may not work
everywhere, and I can't afford to take chances with customers'
installations.

But I'd be interested to know if others have similar - or contradictory -
evidence. FWIW this unit was called an AQUAMAG and consists of two plastic
blocks about 200mm long which clip together over a 15mm pipe, and (judging
from the way a ferrous object is attracted to the blocks, and the two
half-blocks attract and repel each other) seems to have 4 sets of magnets
arranged thus

ASCII art pre

-----------------------
| N----S----N----S----N |
--------------------------------
p i p e
--------------------------------
| S----N----S----N----S |
-----------------------



[1] and no, there wasn't a water softener in the system, or any evidence
of a bag-in-the-tank type scale inhibitor in the tank.

--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember YAPH saying
something like:

[1] and no, there wasn't a water softener in the system, or any evidence
of a bag-in-the-tank type scale inhibitor in the tank.

But you never know - there could have been, for years.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:57:46 +0100, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember YAPH saying
something like:

[1] and no, there wasn't a water softener in the system, or any evidence
of a bag-in-the-tank type scale inhibitor in the tank.

But you never know - there could have been, for years.

There's no evidence of there ever having been a water softener, and I
started working on this place when the new owners moved in 2-3 years ago
and I'm pretty sure they hadn't touched the tanks, so hadn't removed any
bag-in-tank inhibitor themselves. Maybe the previous owners took it with
them ;-)

Incidentally one of the jobs I had to do for the current owners a year or
2 back was deal with a blockage in the feed pipe into the CH system. IIRC
the pipe - about 2-3m of it - from the header tank down to where it joined
the system was pretty solidly blocked and I replaced it with a length of
plastic. Normally one gets a fairly localised plug of scale where the cold
feed hits the hot water in the system but in this case the blockage
extended some way back up the pipe. Maybe the brown sludge that I found in
the HW cylinder had occurred in the feed pipe and solidified over some
length of pipework.

--
John Stumbles

Blamestorming
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed
or a project failed, and who was responsible.

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
A: possibly yes. ...

Probably no IME. I had one in the feed to a flow boiler, which needed a new
heat exchanger due to scaling within four years.

Colin Bignell

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:36:00 +0100, "nightjar" cpb@ wrote:

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
A: possibly yes. ...

Probably no IME. I had one in the feed to a flow boiler, which needed a new
heat exchanger due to scaling within four years.

Magnetic type similar to one I described or electrolytic, electromagnetic
or what? I've descaled boilers with the latter types attached.



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Pessimists are never disappointed

YAPH wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:36:00 +0100, "nightjar" cpb@ wrote:

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
A: possibly yes. ...
Probably no IME. I had one in the feed to a flow boiler, which needed a new
heat exchanger due to scaling within four years.

Magnetic type similar to one I described or electrolytic, electromagnetic
or what? I've descaled boilers with the latter types attached.



The only evidence I have seen of any scientific nature suggest that they
may JUST stop scale forming in the immediate vicinity, but it will
happen somewhere else for sure.

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:36:00 +0100, "nightjar" cpb@ wrote:

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
A: possibly yes. ...

Probably no IME. I had one in the feed to a flow boiler, which needed a
new
heat exchanger due to scaling within four years.

Magnetic type similar to one I described or electrolytic, electromagnetic
or what?

Why would you think that a reply to a thread about magnetic scale inhibitors
would not refer to magnetic scale inhibitors?

Colin Bignell

"nightjar" cpb@insert my surname here wrote:

Probably no IME. I had one in the feed to a flow boiler, which needed a new
heat exchanger due to scaling within four years.

As previously posted here, the building services manager at a place
where I used to work installed them on the feeds to a set of industrial
scale autoclaves - without telling anyone. He then stopped buying all
those expensive industrial chemicals used to soften and condition the
feedwater. Within two years he had rendered the autoclaves, or rather
the steam generators feeding them, inoperable.

His arse didn't touch the ground as he left the factory.

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:03:30 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

The only evidence I have seen of any scientific nature suggest that they
may JUST stop scale forming in the immediate vicinity, but it will
happen somewhere else for sure.

Indeed, but the odd thing was that this _seemed_[1] to have stopped scale
precipitating out in the HW cylinder as well.

[1] my observation: magnetic gizmo fitted to pipe, no evidence of pukka
scale inhibitor, no scale in tank or cylinder.



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:19:28 +0100, "nightjar" cpb@ wrote:

"YAPH" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:36:00 +0100, "nightjar" cpb@ wrote:

"YAPH" wrote in message
...

Magnetic type similar to one I described or electrolytic,
electromagnetic or what?

Why would you think that a reply to a thread about magnetic scale
inhibitors would not refer to magnetic scale inhibitors?

Because we're all human and whether through ignorance, oversight or random
noise in the CPU[1] may occasionally not process all the factors
correctly. Also I asked if it was a magnetic type _similar to the one I
described_ whereas the subject line just said magnetic scale inhibitors
generally.

I take it that yours was similar to mine then, with 4 pairs of magnets
arranged longitudinally in parallel to the pipe, rather than some other
arrangement?

FWIW this corresponds to a Which? finding of many years ago that such
devices seemed to work in some situations. Though with a sample size of
two so far that's pretty thin even for Which? tests ;-)



[1] Cerebral Processing Unit



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Question Authority

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember John Stumbles
saying something like:

There's no evidence of there ever having been a water softener, and I
started working on this place when the new owners moved in 2-3 years ago
and I'm pretty sure they hadn't touched the tanks, so hadn't removed any
bag-in-tank inhibitor themselves. Maybe the previous owners took it with
them ;-)

Does it have its own borehole, perhaps? Are you utterly sure it's
getting the same chalky water as the other dwellings in the
neighbourhood? I'm thinking if it's a farmhouse, odds on it's not on the
mains anyway, as would be common around here; although borehole water
around here is notoriously chalky, there are a few with soft water.

On Oct 17, 4:38*pm, YAPH wrote:
A: possibly yes. (Never thought I'd find myself saying that :-))

Took out a CW storage tank and HW cylinder yesterday and found a magnetic
gizmo on the 15mm copper feed to the system. The storage tank had a very
small amount of scale encrustation around the water level line. The
cylinder had no evidence of _any_ limescale in the bottom (it was as light
as a new one when I lifted it out (not quite one-handed, but not the
usual hernia-inducing lugging/dragging one usually has to do).

This is in a hard-as-nails water area (Reading) where storage tanks often
have sheets of limescale around the sides and bottom, and cylinders have
half a builder's bag of limescale in the bottom.

Interestingly the last few litres of water (tipping the cylinder over to
get out the liquid below the bottom inlet tapping) were a sort of brown
sludge.

Someone had written on the magnetic gizmo that it was installed in 1993.

So there you go. I won't be fitting them to my installations: I need
something that provably works, and for all I know there could be some
completely different phenomenon at work here[1], or it may not work
everywhere, and I can't afford to take chances with customers'
installations.

But I'd be interested to know if others have similar - or contradictory -
evidence. FWIW this unit was called an AQUAMAG and consists of two plastic
blocks about 200mm long which clip together over a 15mm pipe, and (judging
from the way a ferrous object is attracted to the blocks, and the two
half-blocks attract and repel each other) seems to have 4 sets of magnets
arranged thus

ASCII art pre

* * -----------------------
* *| N----S----N----S----N |
--------------------------------
* * * * * * p i p e
--------------------------------
* *| S----N----S----N----S |
* * -----------------------

[1] and no, there wasn't a water softener in the system, or any evidence
of a bag-in-the-tank type scale inhibitor in the tank.

--
YAPHhttp://yaph.co.uk

I will sell you one, and a magnet that improves gas milage, one that
makes you younger, and a hydrogen converter for your car, and a air
turbulance thingy you put in the intake all for 1$. But none works.

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:02:10 +0100, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

Does it have its own borehole, perhaps?

Nope, urban Reading, Thames Water straight out of the pipe from the street.



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Testiculate [v.t]
To wave one's arms around while talking ********.

On 17 Oct, 22:38, YAPH wrote:
A: possibly yes.

Without another identical tank fed from an identical supply heated in
an identical way, you don't really have any valid data at all, I'm
afraid.

Ian

On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:44:20 -0700, The Real Doctor wrote:

On 17 Oct, 22:38, YAPH wrote:
A: possibly yes.

Without another identical tank fed from an identical supply heated in
an identical way, you don't really have any valid data at all, I'm
afraid.

How "identical" would you want another tank (and cylinder) to be? And how
accurately would you want the temperatures in the two set-ups to be
controlled? Even in a designed-to-be-identical setup there would be some
differences.

I'm comparing a grp storage tank fed by copper pipework from Thames
Water's domestic supply, feeding a copper hot water cylinder heated by a
domestic gas boiler on a gravity hot-water setup, with other such setups
I've seen in the neighbourhood. I'm seeing a huge difference between the
scaling in this one and the others and the only thing that I notice about
this one that's not present in any of the others is the magnetic gizmo.

That doesn't mean it's the magnetic gizmo that accounts for the observed
difference in scaling: as I indicated in my original post I might have
missed something else. But it would be closed-minded to assume that it
must be something else rather than the mag thingy, just because the mag
things are often peddled by charlatans with no understanding of science and
all too much understanding of human gullibility.



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh

On 22 Oct, 18:19, YAPH wrote:
But it would be closed-minded to assume that it
must be something else rather than the mag thingy, just because the mag
things are often peddled by charlatans with no understanding of science and
all too much understanding of human gullibility.

It would be equally closed-minded to assume that it's not the
proximity of a ley line to your house, or the feng shui of the
kitchen, or a spell cast by a local witch, All of these things are
just as likely to work as a couple of magnets, and until you've
controlled for them you really can't tell if it's the magnets or
not ...

Ian

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:26:16 -0700, The Real Doctor wrote:

On 22 Oct, 18:19, YAPH wrote:
But it would be closed-minded to assume that it
must be something else rather than the mag thingy, just because the mag
things are often peddled by charlatans with no understanding of science and
all too much understanding of human gullibility.

It would be equally closed-minded to assume that it's not the
proximity of a ley line to your house, or the feng shui of the
kitchen, or a spell cast by a local witch, All of these things are
just as likely to work as a couple of magnets, and until you've
controlled for them you really can't tell if it's the magnets or
not ...

OK, I suppose it all comes down to some sorts of prejudices as to what are
"likely to work". Having a scientific/engineering background my prejudice
is that a "normal" phenomenon like magnetism is more likely to have some,
perhaps unexpected and non-intuitive, effect on limescale deposition
than "paranormal" phenomena involving ley lines, feng shui or witchcraft.
Your prejudices may be different, and it's entirely possible that one of
your theories may turn out (if we ever get to the bottom of it) to be
correct. My own position is that I would put money on it being magnetism
rather than witchcraft, rather than that I would burn at the stake anyone
advancing your suggestions.


--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Question Authority

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember YAPH saying
something like:

My own position is that I would put money on it being magnetism
rather than witchcraft, rather than that I would burn at the stake anyone
advancing your suggestions.

But if you had a banana stuck in your ear during the year preceding your
discovery, you may conclude that the absence of ear bananas leads to
limescale formation in your customers' water pipes.
There's only one way to be sure - you must ask your customers to apply
bananas forthwith, in the name of science.

On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:26:02 +0100, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

But if you had a banana stuck in your ear during the year preceding your
discovery, you may conclude that the absence of ear bananas leads to
limescale formation in your customers' water pipes. There's only one way
to be sure - you must ask your customers to apply bananas forthwith, in
the name of science.

Cue Graham Chapman in an army officer's uniform to step in and say "Stop
this: it's getting silly!"



--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Pessimists are never disappointed

On 23 Oct, 22:15, YAPH wrote:

OK, I suppose it all comes down to some sorts of prejudices as to what are
"likely to work". Having a scientific/engineering background my prejudice
is that a "normal" phenomenon like magnetism is more likely to have some,
perhaps unexpected and non-intuitive, effect on limescale deposition
than "paranormal" phenomena involving ley lines, feng shui or witchcraft.

And having done many years of research on applied magnetism, I'm
pretty confident that ley lines are a more likely explanation for what
you're seeing.

Ian

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:24:53 -0700, The Real Doctor wrote:

And having done many years of research on applied magnetism, I'm
pretty confident that ley lines are a more likely explanation for what
you're seeing.

So did your work on applied magnetism specifically look at effects on
limescale deposition? (I'd have thought that was more Applied Chemistry,
anyway.)

--
YAPH http://yaph.co.uk

Question Authority

replying to YAPH, Scott wrote:
I have a Vulcan V5000 electronic anti-scale system installed
German manufactured Its not cheap but the damn thing works really well
using capacitive impulses
Worth the investment for me

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy...rk-514739-.htm

He obviously has a basement full of unsold stock to shift after Christmas.

Beware, its not going to work indeed might make things worse after a time.
Scott seems to be everywhere today.
I bet its great for removing sludge from oil feed pipes as well.

Could I have one fitted to my main arteries in my body to stop plaque build
up?
Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .
In article , Scott
m wrote:

replying to YAPH, Scott wrote:
I have a Vulcan V5000 electronic anti-scale system installed
German manufactured It's not cheap but the damn thing works really well
using capacitive impulses
Worth the investment for me

WTF is a "capacitive impulse" ??

--
There's no obfuscated Perl contest because it's pointless.

- Jeff Polk