Using maganets to soften water?

[GaryM]

Well, they were set for the 'right hand rule", so I reversed them. The ice cream is now hard, or at least "pointy", but the ice maker has quit working. I think the ice cream and ice cubes are of opposite polarity.

Tonight I'm moving the ice cream to the freezer with no magnets as a control.

[egon]

Gary; Iv'e been doing some thinking. Best way fot Pat to increase his cars gas milage is place a magnet on the back of transport truck , attach a long line and get the wife to steer while he holds on!!

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Rayko]

Hi folks:

It was so heartening to have my simple post generate so much continued interest and response.

You folks have a truly wonderful site in which others can feel comfortable sharing there thoughts and ideas.

I just thought I'd add a final thought or two:

The Industrial Water Softener we had used was not technically installed in a residential home, but was installed in a factory building. It was initially sized to serve the water needs of our manufacturing operation. However, as the business grew and our water demands increased, the water softener could not keep up without frequent re-cycling. (I just used the reference location of "home" for simplicity sake, because I spent more time at work than I care to admit.) By the way, it wasn't all that big a unit and we had no problem comfortably putting it inside the building.

I'm curious. As I read through your many spirited replies, I noted that it appears that none of the respondents ever "actually tried using magnets for themselves" to see if they actually noticed any tangible difference in the nature of their water. That's most interesting -- don't you think ?

By trade and profession, I have been a product design engineer for over 35 years, and am generally quite skeptical of all things that I'm not personally familiar with.

I'm retired now, and enjoying a slower lifestyle. But, my background has taught me one thing. That making assumptions and maintaining beliefs based on those assumptions can be quite limiting. Sometimes, going that extra mile and trying it our for yourself can open your eyes and your mind to a new experience that you might never of had otherwise.

Throughout history many successful design ideas have been the result of folks "doing" what everyone else said wouldn't work and couldn't be done.

After refiewing all the posts listed for this topic. It appears that I am the ONLY one who has actually experimented with the idea and tried it out for himself. My comments in my original post accurately reflect our results.

It would be wonderful if one of the many skeptics who have contributed so generously to this posting decided to go that extra mile, and bought yourself a couple of strong magnets, and tried it out for yourself. Once doing that, let us all know how it turned out. No good experiment should be considered valid unless it can be repeated with the same results. So, please give it a go, it would be fun to see what happens.

Again, thanks for all the generous and most interesting responses. Its been a lot of fun to say the least.

Rayko
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[Pat]

Rayko, Magnets for softening water is BUNK. Likewise for inreasing mileage on your car. Magnets are the replacement for pyramids in useless hyped money making schemes.

I think it was Oregon or Wash state (I forget which) that offered a large contract to anyone with scientifically gathered evidence from a repeatable experiment and there were NO TAKERS. Why wouldn't a legit company JUMP on an offer like that? It is pure SNAKE OIL. Magnets do not cure warts, loosen tight underwear waist bands, prevent hangnails, inrease fuel economy, or soften water. Magnets are for sticking junk to your friidge door and making a set of black and white Scottie dogs do tricks for kids.

Maybe the next wave of hokum will be carbon nanotubes...

Oh, I happen to have a lot of confidence in the testing methodologies employed by Consumers Reports (Consumers Union) Check with them.

There was a time in the US when tapeworm eggs were sold as diet pills. At least they worked!

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[GaryQWA]

Rayko, I fully agree with getting out of the box and entertaining ideas about what isn't known yet. Up until about 25 years ago, science couldn't explain long runout landslides, said there would be no life on the ocean floor, had no idea why trees and other things were totally destroyed as high as 1000' along the upper west coast of the US and Canada (tsunamis) on' and on. Any scientist that put forth an idea was shunned and out of research funds very quickly. But soon there were new 'discoveries' that couldn't be denied, like pictures of "smokers" on the ocean floor with life we had never been capable of imagining, and a guy in Japan IIRC, showing the causes of long runout landslides. The landslide evidence was there and studied for over 100 years but everyone in the know said it couldn't be a landslide.... lol yet never came up with what caused the piles of rubble to be much farther away from where it obviously came down the mountain.... Then a guy found a long runout landslide on the ocean floor off Hawaii, which showed the cause of the tsunami that struck the North West of North America... And today we have something going on when recirculated water is run through any sort of strong magnetic field, but no one as yet can prove why or what is happening.

So although I haven't tried or witnessed magnets changing the the ability of water hardness to form scale phenomenon, I have seen it done as you describe, by the electronic anti-scale/descale devices on the market. They supposedly use the same 'principal', which currently can't be "proved" nor can the process be identified by current 'science'. So most people make fun of MWT and PWT; mechanical and physical water treatment. I used to be one of 'em, until I saw it in two prospective customer homes. A white powdery substance everywhere the water was allowed to evaporate. Now I don't sell them because most don't do anything but lighten the persons wallet, but if more of them did as I've seen those two do, I probably would as long as people didn't mind the 'dust' problem.

Pat, CR leaves out the majority of products in all categories they test and report on. Such as softeners, insurance polices, toasters, furniture, etc.. IMO CR is a poor choice for basing the selection of a specific product on; I once was a long time paying subscriber.

Gary Slusser

[Rayko]

Hi Folks:

RE: Pat. I appreciate your kind and determined post. You are absolutely correct, as is Consumer Reports. "Magnets DO NOT soften the water". If you re-read my initial posting carefully, you will find that I clearly acknowledge that Magnets DO NOT soften the water, and the water is just as hard with the magnets, as without. HOWEVER, what the Magnets actually do, is they tend to eliminate some of the more irritating problems associated with hard water. Thus, a shower "feels better" on your skin, and "less soap" is required when showering, or laundering.

RE: Gary. Thanks for the thoughtful response. We live in a wonderful world of constant discovery, and it is a pleasure to hear from someone with an open mind who embraces possibilities.

You folks have a wonderful day. I'll wait patiently for one of the more skeptical of you folks out there to actually go that extra mile and "try it", and let us all know how it turns out.

Best Regards to you all

Rayko
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[egon]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
After refiewing all the posts listed for this topic. It appears that I am the ONLY one who has actually experimented with the idea and tried it out for himself. My comments in my original post accurately reflect our results.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah -ah ahh - when I still gainfully employed it was tried on a water cooling system for a fractionating plant. The before and after exchanger inspection reports were not encouraging.

By the way we have a magnetic hill up here. Park your car and it will coast uphill. Great tourist attraction! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon

[brent]

I have been following this post and found it interesting .
I work at a powerplant that uses (thousands) of gallons of water a day, I am sure if was as easy to run the water thru magnets we would be using it soften the water for the 3 boilers we run. We use a lime system and zeolite and charcoal beads to reduce the hardness and impurities. Like someone mentioned before it is not the sodium that makes the water soft, it recharges the zeolite beads. For the last month we have been trial using a Reverse Osmosis system from G.E. that is a portable unit on a 40 ft trailer and a holding tank, it is working well. I talked to the G.E. rep and asked him about home based units and they do make them but they are costly.

Great thread.

Brent

[egon]

Brent:

We have a reverse osmosis system for the house. One tap only in the kitchen. It surely takes out the chlorine taste of the town treated water. One thing about these systems is that they require pretty good quality water going into them or they have a short lifespan.

When I was still employed part of the job was;

looking after three 50K D type gas fired boilers running at 150PSI. They were surely not state of the art by any means. Also had a cold lime softening/ clarification system for the raw river supply water for the cooling towers and the boiler zeolites.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Egon,

You're talking about the Magnetic Hill near Moncton, right? Been there twice. After the first trip the car was always wanting to head North, so had to go back to get it neutralized. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]