Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve, washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Thanks
Alex

"alexbartman" wrote in message
...

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Thanks
Alex

Full water softeners are expensive and take up space. That leaves:

1. Phosphor canister descalers (sometimes called CombiMates)
Available from B&Q, Homebase around £40-45
They are fitted in-line wity the cold water pipe.They must not supply the
drinking water, so a double non-return valve must be used. Canister changed
once a year. They tend to have a problem of clogging the venturi holes in
the pipe base. Just get a paper clip and poke them on changing the
canister. Change once a year.

2. Wrap around electronic device.
These are best just before the heating appliance: combi, cold feed to the
cylinder, etc. I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale removed.
These usually come with a 6 months no quibble return policy. So worth
getting one and seeing if it works, as they are very simple to fit.




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Doctor Evil wrote:

2. Wrap around electronic device.
These are best just before the heating appliance: combi, cold feed to the
cylinder, etc. I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale removed.
These usually come with a 6 months no quibble return policy. So worth
getting one and seeing if it works, as they are very simple to fit.


These do not work. Why do you have to keep doing this?


--
Grunff

"Grunff" wrote in message
...
Doctor Evil wrote:

2. Wrap around electronic device.
These are best just before the heating appliance: combi, cold feed to
the
cylinder, etc. I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale
removed.
These usually come with a 6 months no quibble return policy. So worth
getting one and seeing if it works, as they are very simple to fit.

These do not work. Why do you have to keep doing this?

You are obviouisly hard of thinking and reading. I wrote, it is just above,
"I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale removed".

This group really has the know-it-alls. The know-it-alls, who know eff all.



_________________________________________
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More than 120,000 groups
Unlimited download
http://www.usenetzone.com to open account

"alexbartman" wrote in message
...

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Fit a proper water softener, top with salt once a month and never have to
descale showers, baths, sinks etc again. Also can halve amount of washing
powder used and generally soap last longer so save money as well. Well worth
the £500 I paid. Doesn't take up too much space either I have mine under the
sink in the kitchen.

"Ian_m" wrote in message
...
"alexbartman" wrote in message
...

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Fit a proper water softener, top with salt once a month and never have to
descale showers, baths, sinks etc again. Also can halve amount of washing
powder used and generally soap last longer so save money as well. Well
worth the £500 I paid. Doesn't take up too much space either I have mine
under the sink in the kitchen.
Seconded, don't stuff about, just get a softener fitted and enjoy the luxury
of soft water, you will not regret it, rather like getting an auto washing
machine after washing clothes in the sink, or your first dishwasher.

Doctor Evil wrote:
"Grunff" wrote in message
...
These do not work. Why do you have to keep doing this?
You are obviouisly hard of thinking and reading. I wrote, it is just above,
"I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale removed".

Where does the scale go? I've never understood how those things are
supposed to work...

Jim

In article , alexbartman
writes

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Fit a proper water softener, its the only sure way to go, they are
reasonable in price and easy to fit, shop around for salt as this varies
in price, interesting you say cost effective, what's your boiler and
other appliances worth?
--
David

"mrcheerful ." wrote in message
.uk...

"Ian_m" wrote in message
...
"alexbartman" wrote in message
...

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Fit a proper water softener, top with salt once a month and never have
to
descale showers, baths, sinks etc again. Also can halve amount of
washing
powder used and generally soap last longer so save money as well. Well
worth the £500 I paid. Doesn't take up too much space either I have mine
under the sink in the kitchen.
Seconded, don't stuff about, just get a softener fitted and enjoy the
luxury
of soft water, you will not regret it, rather like getting an auto washing
machine after washing clothes in the sink, or your first dishwasher.


Thirded, however I wouldn't agree with "get fitted". "Fit", I'd say.

Regards,
Simon.

In article ,
Doctor Evil wrote:
These do not work. Why do you have to keep doing this?

You are obviouisly hard of thinking and reading. I wrote, it is just
above, "I have one and it works to around 80-90% of scale removed".

Having tried one in my part of London, I can say it doesn't work.

This group really has the know-it-alls. The know-it-alls, who know eff
all.

Perhaps you'd say roughly where you live - given you probably don't know
the difference between hard and soft water - so a real expert on here
could tell you what type of water you have?

Hint. No shed round here sells 'electronic scale removers' anymore.
Perhaps you might ponder why?

--
*I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

alexbartman wrote:

As I plan to stay where we are for some time, what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

If you actually want it softened water, then you only real choice (other
than moving!) is an ion exchange water softener. The phosphate dosing
carts will stop scale forming to a large extent, but will not actually
soften the water, and hence you will get none of the other advantages of
soft water like lower detergent use.

The magnetic and electronic "scale inhibitors" are somewhat
controversial, there is some evidence that they may have a beneficial
effect on recirculating systems, but very little that they are any use
on single pass systems. In the cases where people have found benefit
from them it seems to be dependant on local factors since the successful
experiments are often impossible to reproduce elsewhere.

You will no doubt find a few people who claim success with them, however
YMMV.

--
Cheers,

John.

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

It was somewhere outside Barstow when Jim
wrote:

Where does the scale go?

It stays in solution, which is after all how it got there in the first
place.

The resonant bogon flux from the coil causes the molecular structure
to shake its booty in a way that prevents crystallisation. Or maybe
not.

The resonant bogon flux from the coil causes the molecular structure
to shake its booty in a way that prevents crystallisation. Or maybe
not.

Aha, so it's a basic form of terulian diode bypass transformer. We
used those on my planet Melmac some centuries ago.

ALF

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "Doctor Evil"
saying something like:

2. Wrap around electronic device.

Load of utter ********.
--

Dave

In message , Simon Stroud
writes
"mrcheerful ." wrote in message
o.uk...
"Ian_m" wrote in message
...
"alexbartman" wrote in message
...

Bit of an open question I know - but I live in St Albans in
hertfordshire - and we have extremely hard water. This manifests
itself in regularly scaled-up shower-heads, kettle etc etc. Whilst
it's relatively easy to clean the external bit and pieces up, I'm
concerned that its doing long term damage to bolier, shower valve,
washing machine and everything else that's not easily dismantlable.

As I plan to stay where we are for some time,

That's the real clincher - as you plan to stay put for some time the
capital cost will really become irrelevant.

what is the best and most
importantly cost-effective way of softening the water?

I'd be very grateful for any words of advice

Fit a proper water softener, top with salt once a month and never have
to
descale showers, baths, sinks etc again.

Thirded, however I wouldn't agree with "get fitted". "Fit", I'd say.

N'thed. Even for a bozo like me fitting the Atlantis softener into a
kitchen cupboard was so easy I forgave them for the truly naff animation
on their Features page (so the plastic lid swivels - wow!). The one
query I had while fitting it was answered quickly over the telephone.

http://www.atlantis-uk.com/

Here're a few more manufacturer's sites:
http://www.colemanwater.co.uk/
http://www.culligan.co.uk/
http://www.ecowater.co.uk/
http://www.ensign-water.co.uk/
http://www.tapworks.net/
http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/
http://www.waterways.ltd.uk/
....and the one that at least one regular on here really likes:
http://www.kinetico.co.uk/

Here's a supplier of salt:
http://www.directsalt.com/

--
dave @ stejonda

http://costofwar.com/

[[[big snip]]]
http://www.atlantis-uk.com/

Here're a few more manufacturer's sites:
http://www.colemanwater.co.uk/
http://www.culligan.co.uk/
http://www.ecowater.co.uk/
http://www.ensign-water.co.uk/
http://www.tapworks.net/
http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/
http://www.waterways.ltd.uk/
...and the one that at least one regular on here really likes:
http://www.kinetico.co.uk/

Here's a supplier of salt:
http://www.directsalt.com/

One thing to watch which caught my friend out is the capacity rating. He
bought a timed one (regenerates at 2 in the morning) with 1200l capacity
suitable to a family of 4. But this 1200l capacity assumes a water hardness
of 200ppm but is his nearer 400ppm thus only gets about 600l before it runs
out, which it often does. He changed the timing to regenerate every 12 hours
but then it uses a lot of salt. His uses about 2 25kg bags a month where as
my metered (only recharges when necessary) uses about 1/2 - 3/4 a month.

I got mine from http://www.ezsoftener.com/, took a in total a day to fit,
but I had to re-arrange kitchen sink waste pipe-work to make room for it.

I used to sell Ecowater watersofteners about twelve years ago, and I have to
admit even though they cost a fair amount of cash initially they do save
money in the long term. The life expectancy of appliances improves
dramatically and you use far less detergents in the household.

I now live in Yorkshire and have no need for a softener, but if i once again
lived in a hard water are i would once again have one.

The £50 options, in line filters, magnets, electronics etc are just a rip
off in my humble opinion!

Lloyd

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "Doctor Evil"
saying something like:

2. Wrap around electronic device.

Load of utter ********.
--

Dave

Thanks for the advice so far - can anyone suggest an online shop for getting hold of ion-exchange softeners and thelike???

In message , alexbartman
writes

Thanks for the advice so far - can anyone suggest an online shop for
getting hold of ion-exchange softeners and thelike???

errrrrrmmmmmmn

)

--
dave @ stejonda

"Ian_m" wrote in message
...

[[[big snip]]]
http://www.atlantis-uk.com/

Here're a few more manufacturer's sites:
http://www.colemanwater.co.uk/
http://www.culligan.co.uk/
http://www.ecowater.co.uk/
http://www.ensign-water.co.uk/
http://www.tapworks.net/
http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/
http://www.waterways.ltd.uk/
...and the one that at least one regular on here really likes:
http://www.kinetico.co.uk/

Here's a supplier of salt:
http://www.directsalt.com/

One thing to watch which caught my friend out is the capacity rating. He
bought a timed one (regenerates at 2 in the morning) with 1200l capacity
suitable to a family of 4. But this 1200l capacity assumes a water
hardness
of 200ppm but is his nearer 400ppm thus only gets about 600l before it
runs
out, which it often does. He changed the timing to regenerate every 12
hours
but then it uses a lot of salt. His uses about 2 25kg bags a month where
as
my metered (only recharges when necessary) uses about 1/2 - 3/4 a month.

I got mine from http://www.ezsoftener.com/, took a in total a day to fit,
but I had to re-arrange kitchen sink waste pipe-work to make room for it.


Oh yeah I forgot that little trick.

Mine is a Aquadial Prismertec (part of or a brand of or taken over by, not
sure which) Culligan.

I chose this because it is intended for high flowrate systems with minimal
pressure drop. I have plumbed it in with hard 22mm pipework all the way from
the stopcock to the (large Eco-Hometec) combi and onwards, and to all
showers etc "star fed" to minimise the effects of turning various things on
and off. For minimum restriction you need to throw away the piddly "washing
machine hoses" that come with it and do it in 22mm copper, only beneficial
if the softener has big bore internal pipework and resin vessel. This has
worked really well, although we are a bit limited by our crappy old 1/2"
water main but upgrading that to modern blue 25mm was a project too far.

The Prismertec is also rated for a large family (8-10 "people-days"
capacity) and measures usage and adjusts salt dosing appropriately. However
their figures for capacity of softened water per day are VERY optimistic.
When I first installed it I used to watch the display and its "capacity"
indication always seemed to start off at something like "0.98" after
regeneration and I assumed that meant about 98% of possible capacity.
Generally, if it drops below about "0.50" then it regenerates that night,
and it always seems to do this with our usage. It's not THAT bad because it
does seem to adjust the salt dosing time so it approximately picks up only
the amount of salt needed to regenerate the capacity that has been used
rather than the whole resin capacity.

BUT I later discovered that it's a bit of a con. The claimed capacity at
preset hardness is 1360 litres. BUT when it went wrong one time I did a lot
of Googling and discovered lots of technical data on the valve and
controller used in it - the same valve is used in lots of American
softeners. As well as revealing how to repair it, it also revealed all the
factory settings for use on softeners of many sizes, and it became clear
that the "0.98" is actually the capacity in cubic metres which sounds a lot
like 980, nowhere 1360, so a bit of a con.

Apart from this, I'm very pleased with it.

.... and the way it went wrong was that one of the valve springs broke. Very
easy to get a replacement from Culligan to fix it. Interestingly, a
colleague has a Prismertec and his went wrong in EXACTLY the same way - same
spring, same valve, so may be a bit of a weakness there.

ISTR I paid around £600 for it when they were on promotion at the local
plumbers merchant.

Regards,
Simon.

"Simon Stroud" wrote in message
...

"Ian_m" wrote in message
...

[[[big snip]]]
http://www.atlantis-uk.com/

Here're a few more manufacturer's sites:
http://www.colemanwater.co.uk/
http://www.culligan.co.uk/
http://www.ecowater.co.uk/
http://www.ensign-water.co.uk/
http://www.tapworks.net/
http://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/
http://www.waterways.ltd.uk/
...and the one that at least one regular on here really likes:
http://www.kinetico.co.uk/

Here's a supplier of salt:
http://www.directsalt.com/

One thing to watch which caught my friend out is the capacity rating. He
bought a timed one (regenerates at 2 in the morning) with 1200l capacity
suitable to a family of 4. But this 1200l capacity assumes a water
hardness
of 200ppm but is his nearer 400ppm thus only gets about 600l before it
runs
out, which it often does. He changed the timing to regenerate every 12
hours
but then it uses a lot of salt. His uses about 2 25kg bags a month where
as
my metered (only recharges when necessary) uses about 1/2 - 3/4 a month.

I got mine from http://www.ezsoftener.com/, took a in total a day to fit,
but I had to re-arrange kitchen sink waste pipe-work to make room for it.


Oh yeah I forgot that little trick.

Mine is a Aquadial Prismertec (part of or a brand of or taken over by, not
sure which) Culligan.

I chose this because it is intended for high flowrate systems with minimal
pressure drop. I have plumbed it in with hard 22mm pipework all the way
from
the stopcock to the (large Eco-Hometec) combi and onwards, and to all
showers etc "star fed" to minimise the effects of turning various things
on
and off. For minimum restriction you need to throw away the piddly
"washing
machine hoses" that come with it and do it in 22mm copper, only beneficial
if the softener has big bore internal pipework and resin vessel. This has
worked really well, although we are a bit limited by our crappy old 1/2"
water main but upgrading that to modern blue 25mm was a project too far.

The Prismertec is also rated for a large family (8-10 "people-days"
capacity) and measures usage and adjusts salt dosing appropriately.
However
their figures for capacity of softened water per day are VERY optimistic.
When I first installed it I used to watch the display and its "capacity"
indication always seemed to start off at something like "0.98" after
regeneration and I assumed that meant about 98% of possible capacity.
Generally, if it drops below about "0.50" then it regenerates that night,
and it always seems to do this with our usage. It's not THAT bad because
it
does seem to adjust the salt dosing time so it approximately picks up only
the amount of salt needed to regenerate the capacity that has been used
rather than the whole resin capacity.

BUT I later discovered that it's a bit of a con. The claimed capacity at
preset hardness is 1360 litres. BUT when it went wrong one time I did a
lot
of Googling and discovered lots of technical data on the valve and
controller used in it - the same valve is used in lots of American
softeners. As well as revealing how to repair it, it also revealed all the
factory settings for use on softeners of many sizes, and it became clear
that the "0.98" is actually the capacity in cubic metres which sounds a
lot
like 980, nowhere 1360, so a bit of a con.

Apart from this, I'm very pleased with it.

... and the way it went wrong was that one of the valve springs broke.
Very
easy to get a replacement from Culligan to fix it. Interestingly, a
colleague has a Prismertec and his went wrong in EXACTLY the same way -
same
spring, same valve, so may be a bit of a weakness there.

ISTR I paid around £600 for it when they were on promotion at the local
plumbers merchant.

Yes you have to watch the capacity thing, luckily my Wizard has two resin
containers and re-generates as necessary, just switches resin whilst other
one regenerates. You just programme the number of litres before it
regenerates. Was supplied set at 600l per tank, but mine is currently set at
320l before regeneration, you can by a 99p water hardness test kit from B&Q
to check the output of your softener. Mine was supplying hard water at 340l
per tank and soft water when supplying 300l per tank so set at 320l. Mine
was £530.