Water Softening

Water softeners are the longest established, effective and greenest household water treatment devices on the global water treatment market.  In the era of steam power, UK and US firms discovered water softening could helpsteam engines beset by scale.  Early UK pioneers Kennicott (1902) and Permutit (1908) were followed by Clack, Culligan and later GE and Siemens.  Watersofteners became high-tech after WWII when synthetic resin based water softeners were introduced.
Water softeners are the most costeffective energy saving devices within the household plumbing system. No other household plumbed device provides the energy savings of water softeners, or does the cost of any plumbed system getre-paid as soon as water softeners.  Water softeners guarantee to fully soften water at the lowest lifetime costs, typically the running cost per year of just one or two restaurant steak dinners.

Water softeners have formed the backbone of green energy saving devices since their inception, keeping heating systems free from scale especially around the copper cylinder spiral coil heat transfer area of any heating system.  Water softeners allow the removal of dissolved limestone from hard water, exchanging problem ions with harmless ions.  Limescale causes plumbing damage by hard scale build up, staining and the problems of itchy skin, badly washed hair and poor results in washingclothes.

Clack water softeners utilise flow monitoring and memory functions,recording performance, monitoring water volumes, backwash and peakwater flows over system life.  Water softeners are sealedwith negative ion exchange food grade polymer resins thatcause positive calcium ions in hard water to cling to the resin over aperiod of time – water softeners then calculate when to wash thelime, chloride ions and excess sodium ions collected out into a waste pipe using just very few sodium ions to regenerate the resin. Water softeners are proven not to discharge any hazardsto bio or sceptic systems and do not impart sodium chloride tohousehold supplies.

There is zero sodium chloride in softened water – just trace levels ofsodium, often below the level found in officially “low sodium”beverages such as supermarket soft drinks and close to thelevel of Tesco bottled waters.  In short, even 1000 litres ofsoftened water would not yield enough sodium to fill a tea spoon andbecause there are no chlorides – salt taste is completely absent.

Trace sodium in softened water is mostly below the EU limit of 200 mg/l, usually between 80 to 160 mg/l (ppm) factoring in sodium in sourcewater.  Many supermarket carbonated soft drinks exceed 200 mg/l, milkhas 500 mg/l and Heinz soups contain 3000 mg/l.  The healthysodium intake we require each day in our diets is2,400 mg.  Of course milk, soup and softened water are all harmless foralmost all age groups in normal use.  Baby formula should be preparedas recommended by the manufacturers.

Domestic metered water softeners typically use 2 euros of electric and 2 to 6bags of food grade salt tablets per year costing from €15 to €45. Salt use depends on water hardness and amount of water used.  Bags ofsalt cost from 7 euros each.  Savings on household cleaning / bathingproducts / plumbing repairs can exceed 300 euros per year, repaying thecost of water softeners in a very short time, along with improvingqualityof life considerably.

The older timer based water softeners, could eat up to12 to 20 bags of salt per year.  The difference in cost of timer and meter watersofteners nowadays is not usually more than 100euros.  Water softeners now cost from 750 euros and even the larger, most sophisticated domesticmetered water softeners cost up to €1,200.

For a full list of water softeners, iron / manganese filters, odour/ colour removal water filters, grit and turbidity removal waterfilters, ultraviolet sterilisers, reverse osmosis water filters and other specialist water treatment systems please call or email us.