I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,
Do the latter actually work?

Recommendations please.

TIA

--
Mint 20.04, kernel 5.4.0-42-generic, Cinnamon 4.6.7
running on an AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition processor with 8GB of DRAM.

pinnerite wrote:
I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,
Do the latter actually work?

Recommendations please.

TIA


The process isn't inhibition, because the offending material
arrives already in the water. And it's your job to do
something about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_exchange

"Ion exchange is a method widely used in household filters
to produce soft water for the benefit of laundry detergents,
soaps, and water heaters. This is accomplished by exchanging
divalent cations (e.g., calcium Ca2+ and magnesium Mg2+) with
highly soluble monovalent cations (e.g., Na+ or H+)
(see water softening)."

"Water softeners are usually regenerated with brine containing
10% sodium chloride.[6] Aside from the soluble chloride salts
of divalent cations removed from the softened water, softener
regeneration wastewater contains the unused 50 – 70% of the
sodium chloride regeneration flushing brine required to reverse
ion-exchange resin equilibria."

In the forward direction, it removes the calcium from the water,
and uses up salt in the process. Every once in a while, the
resin must be "recharged", by loading salt into it and
flushing out the calcium that has collected.

Don't own one, don't know the details.

*******

There is also reverse osmosis, which is how the Israelis
convert sea water to fresh water. The membranes must be
replaced at regular intervals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis

*******

Distillation will clean up water, but who wants gobs of
calcium in the boiler at the bottom ? Distillation is
not microbially clean. Or so our microbiologist told us.
He made fun of the stills we were running on the chem
lab side of the building, as being "impure". I would
expect his had UV or ozone or something for a final step.
Since nobody went into his lab, we don't know anything
about his setup (not after the sewage incident at least,
he had to analyze sewage once, and there was a spill).

Paul

pinnerite wrote:
I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,

Do you want it for your central heating, your bathroom or your drinking
water?

Theo

All I can say is that anything which does not remove it or chemically change
it usually clumps it together using magnetic or electrostatic effects which
tends to eventually result in very clogged up pipes near that device. I is
is nowhere near as effective as filtering. However having said that, being a
cheapskate I have left it as is and still need to descale things here in the
Thames Water area. I don't recall it ever being as hard as it is these days,
and it makes me wonder if its coming from erosion of the big concrete pipes
in the London ring.
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.!
"Paul" wrote in message
...
pinnerite wrote:
I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,
Do the latter actually work?

Recommendations please.

TIA


The process isn't inhibition, because the offending material
arrives already in the water. And it's your job to do
something about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_exchange

"Ion exchange is a method widely used in household filters
to produce soft water for the benefit of laundry detergents,
soaps, and water heaters. This is accomplished by exchanging
divalent cations (e.g., calcium Ca2+ and magnesium Mg2+) with
highly soluble monovalent cations (e.g., Na+ or H+)
(see water softening)."

"Water softeners are usually regenerated with brine containing
10% sodium chloride.[6] Aside from the soluble chloride salts
of divalent cations removed from the softened water, softener
regeneration wastewater contains the unused 50 – 70% of the
sodium chloride regeneration flushing brine required to reverse
ion-exchange resin equilibria."

In the forward direction, it removes the calcium from the water,
and uses up salt in the process. Every once in a while, the
resin must be "recharged", by loading salt into it and
flushing out the calcium that has collected.

Don't own one, don't know the details.

*******

There is also reverse osmosis, which is how the Israelis
convert sea water to fresh water. The membranes must be
replaced at regular intervals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis

*******

Distillation will clean up water, but who wants gobs of
calcium in the boiler at the bottom ? Distillation is
not microbially clean. Or so our microbiologist told us.
He made fun of the stills we were running on the chem
lab side of the building, as being "impure". I would
expect his had UV or ozone or something for a final step.
Since nobody went into his lab, we don't know anything
about his setup (not after the sewage incident at least,
he had to analyze sewage once, and there was a spill).

Paul

On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really makes a
difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements and
immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,
Do the latter actually work?

Only up to a point by making the calcium more soluble but at the risk of
corroding the central heating system. Things that make calcium more
soluble tend to make iron and copper more soluble too.

Recommendations please.

Forget about any of the clamp on magnetic ******** so frequently
advertised. They are nothing more than solid snake oil.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:
I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,
Do the latter actually work?

Recommendations please.

TIA


Don't buy a Quooker

On 25/04/2021 09:27, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really makes
a difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements and
immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

We have a water softener. The primary reason is to make cleaning the
shower room cubicle glass and tiles easier and less frequent.

It doesn't remove 100% of the limescale, but it does improve things
considerably.

We still have a hard water tap for drinking water, and filling the
kettle etc, I didn't think drinking softened water is a 'long term' good
idea ?
It certainly tastes crap.

On 25/04/2021 12:01, Mark Carver wrote:
On 25/04/2021 09:27, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really makes
a difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements and
immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

We have a water softener. The primary reason is to make cleaning the
shower room cubicle glass and tiles easier and less frequent.

It doesn't remove 100% of the limescale, but it does improve things
considerably.

We still have a hard water tap for drinking water, and filling the
kettle etc, I didn't think drinking softened water is a 'long term' good
idea ?
It certainly tastes crap.

Ditto, ditto and ditto.

Before we had the water softener installed, the Torbeck valve in the
upstairs bog would crud up and require a good toothbrushing every
3 or 4 months, but now it runs with no trouble for years!

On 25/04/2021 12:01, Mark Carver wrote:
On 25/04/2021 09:27, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really makes
a difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements and
immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

We have a water softener. The primary reason is to make cleaning the
shower room cubicle glass and tiles easier and less frequent.

Spray the wet surfaces with stuff that calls itself "shower shine" (or
similar) after showering. (Mr Muscle make one.) Then, the next time you
use the shower, first wash the surfaces down with water from the shower
head.

You won't need to do a proper wash more often than once or twice a year.
(I use Lime Lite to do a proper wash down of the surfaces.)

--
Max Demian

In article ,
Mark Carver wrote:
On 25/04/2021 09:27, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really makes
a difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements and
immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

We have a water softener. The primary reason is to make cleaning the
shower room cubicle glass and tiles easier and less frequent.

It doesn't remove 100% of the limescale, but it does improve things
considerably.

We still have a hard water tap for drinking water, and filling the
kettle etc, I didn't think drinking softened water is a 'long term' good
idea ?
It certainly tastes crap.

our water softener is on the feed to our loft storage tank. Drinking water
is straight from the main. Kettles get descaled when needed,

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 25/04/2021 12:01, Mark Carver wrote:

We still have a hard water tap for drinking water, and filling the
kettle etc, I didn't think drinking softened water is a 'long term' good
idea ?

Depends a lot on the quality of the water. I recall that a place I used
to stay (and indeed my own house before they did away with the private
supply) had soft water off a granite catchment that tasted very good.

Officially bad for you and potentially able to dissolve lead pipes but
it was a very high quality natural pure water.

It certainly tastes crap.

We now have Northumbrian water (originally intended for the steel
works). It would taste OK if it didn't have so much chlorine in it. It
needs to be charcoal filtered to make it pleasant to drink. It is
particularly bad at weekends so I suspect they dump a double dose in the
holding tanks on the Friday afternoon and none over the weekend.

Real coffee is very sensitive to having just the right amount of water
hardness. Too much and you get bitter free base alkaloids and a nasty
looking scum on the surface and too little and it is a feeble brew.

Newcastle turns out to have almost perfect coffee making water.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 25/04/2021 13:58, Martin Brown wrote:

snipped

We now have Northumbrian water (originally intended for the steel
works). It would taste OK if it didn't have so much chlorine in it. It
needs to be charcoal filtered to make it pleasant to drink.

Try it without the filter - the Chlorine will come off just because it's
left standing for a while. The Chlorine you can smell isn't in the
water, it's up your nose.

I put my finger over the tap to froth up the water as I fill a glass,
then just gently blow the Chlorine away.

--
Cheers
Clive

On 25/04/2021 13:16, Max Demian wrote:
On 25/04/2021 12:01, Mark Carver wrote:
On 25/04/2021 09:27, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

Your choices are limited to a water softener for where it really
makes a difference or accepting a reduced lifetime of kettle elements
and immersion heaters. It depends just how hard the water really is.

We have a water softener. The primary reason is to make cleaning the
shower room cubicle glass and tiles easier and less frequent.

Spray the wet surfaces with stuff that calls itself "shower shine" (or
similar) after showering. (Mr Muscle make one.) Then, the next time you
use the shower, first wash the surfaces down with water from the shower
head.

You won't need to do a proper wash more often than once or twice a year.
(I use Lime Lite to do a proper wash down of the surfaces.)

Utter bollox.

My softener failed. I used shower shine every shower and it didn't
really work completely.

Now I have a water softener again and its bliss - the scale in the loos,
the plumbing, the water tank and the pipework is gradually dissolving.

And the scale on the taps is going slowly too.





--
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain

On 24/04/2021 20:31, pinnerite wrote:

I am shortly to move to a bungalow that needs a lot of TLC.
I want to ensure that we do sometghing to counteract hard water.

It is either a water softener or an inhibitor,

Do the latter actually work?

Depends on what you mean by "inhibitor", and "work"!

If you actually want soft water, then an ion exchange softener (or
possibly a RO one - but IIUC they are not common in domestic use) are
the only ways you will remove the hardness salts from the water.

If all you want to do is stop it depositing on heating elements in
combi's and cylinders etc, then a phosphate dosing system will do that
to some extent. However it does not actually soften the water, and it
will still deposit scale on evaporation - so does not do much to help
shower surfaces or taps etc.

The magnetic/electronic ones seem to have little or no effect.

(probably for completeness ought to mention CH system inhibitor - again
does not soften water, but does protect the CH system components from
corrosion)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/