HARD WATER TREATMENT

[Pat]

I have recently met a man who tells me that the average life of his electric water heater elements is no more than 3 to 3 1/2 months. They treat their coffee maker with CLR but they don't last a year. Faucet aerators have to be uncloged frequently. He claims that if his well water were any harder it would bruise them in the shower.

He originally had his new home plumbed for a softener but a giant air duct suddently appeared in the utility closet and took up the space. This guy's plumber tells him that a water softener will not work with this water. He says everyone tapped into this aquifer in that area has the same problem and a softener won't fix it.

In a nutshell my response was BALDERDASH (or something similar starting with "B") I am unconvinced that this plumber knows what he is talking about and said so to the homeowner who has a professional with decades of experience on one side telling him one thing and me on the other saying the plumber may mean well but is ignorant.

WHATUP water dudes???? Is there such a thing as water that is too hard to fix??? I don't think so but have limited softener experience and was going on my understanding of the underlying science. There are no off flavor notes to his water straight from the tap. No iron stains. I didn't check but I would bet that unfiltered tap watre made into ice cubes would look like a snowstorm when melting in a glass of water (mine do and my well isn't that hard so as to ruin a heater in a few months. I fortgot to tell him to set his heater temp for 120F as hotter deposits more minerals inside the heater and on the heat coils.

I'd think even if a single pass through a normal household softener didn't make the water soft, it would certainly make it SOFTER! I have never seen multiple softeners employed in series but that should tame water that is saturated with the highest calcium and magnesium content the water is capable of disolving. He can always go RO to get rid of the residual sodium if it were too strong. He has high blood pressure and doesn't need the extra sodium.

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

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I could see the water heater elements going in a short time if his PH was... say 1.5!

bob...

[Pat]

Bob, I haven't tested his water other than take a drink but the water was from the dispenser on the frige and most likely filtered. The individual in question is not particularly backward or slow on the uptake, just not trained in science and engineering so he is not so well equipped to filter bad information supplied by a so called expert (at least professional since they paid him to plumb their new house.)

I likke the guy and will be running some cattle in common with him so I was trying to disabuse him of the idea that his water was untreatable and he had no recourse but to live with frequent heating element changes and such.

I think the best thing to do is to get a sample of his water tested and see what the real deal is. It is truly amazing the number of truly ignorant and misinformed people in positions of trust that are to be found. Their plumber might be a magician at plumbing but I fear he doesn't know squat about water treatment. I even had darker thoughts about how since he "messed" up and used the space intended for a water softener for duct work he covered his tracks by making the softener no longer required because the water was untreatable.

ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

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

[GaryQWA]

Pat, sad to say that most plumbers don't know water treatment nor do they want to learn about it. Most don't know or want to learn about wells and pumps either. In my experiences I find many learn a lot by way of gossip at the plumbing house counter.... You're also right about a softener being able to remove hardness no matter how hard the water is, and we have other means to remove/reduce hardness.

My record hardness is 136 gpg and the softener removed all but a few gpg when the family used more gpm than usual. I regularly soften waters with up to 50 gpg; especially in TX and West into CA. A lot of that is city water.

Have the neighbor get a water test and post the results. He should test for hardness, iron, pH, TDS (total dissolved solids) and sodium, chlorides and sulfates if possible.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[Pat]

WOW Gary, I thought I had hard water in San DIego and used to joke about being bruised in the shower but we had rain water compared to 136 grains. That leads us to this questioin... I wonder how many grains of hardness is possible? I guess if we ingnored all the chemicals possible, all those magnesium sulphates and such and assumed calcium carbonate we could figure that for a specific temperature.

Cave water with lots of exposure to limestone gets pretty hard and when it drips and evaporates you get some heavy duty hard water deposits, AKA stalagtites and stalagmites.

Some folks get kidney stones when exposed to too much mineralizatioin of their water. For someone sensitive in that way, you'd think 136 grains would be a nightmare.

About those tests... shouldn't he also test for nitrates and coliform bacteria?

What other hardness amelioration tactics do you employ besides ion exchange systems with resin beds? Do you try to precipitate the mineralization and then recover from that?

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

[GaryQWA]

He could test for them too but a softener doesn't effect either.

That 136 gpg is about 20 miles west of me and the area is known for caves in limestone; Penn's Cave is maybe 20 miles away. We also have a Limestone township here, just north of me.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[Pat]

ROger that, Gary. But if you are going to test regarding a softener you might as well find out anything else of interest like if there is any ground water contamination (coliform) or nitrates from years of fertilizer in the area.

I'll look into DIY tests and recommend a lab for anything not easily covered in the DIY.

What is your take on over the counter test kits?

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

[GaryQWA]

Over the many years that I did water testing for prospective well water customers, I always tested for coliform, nitrates, nitrites if the nitrates where 5 ppm or higher, sulfates, chlorides etc..

The dip strip type tests are okay or hardness, pH and iron which is basic for a softener. Other than those parameters, I'd go a water treatment guy or lab.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[Blackfoot]

Hello, Well we have hard water also. Our water is so hard when it comes out of the pipe it turns to rust, we have to put our submersibles down with PVC as the galvenized will rust in less than a year, hence the need for long rope. The county does not have a scale that goes high enough to test our water. I am not trying to enter a contest here, we are always looking for some kind of new filter system that we have not already tried. The good thing about it is that our horses n mules really like it,they will drink it befor our drinking water that we have to haul. It turns everything that it touches dark orange. Our well is artesian, it puts out around 20 GPM with no pump running. We have a pitless valve about six feet below the top of the casing, if we shut the pitless off, water will shoot 16 ft or better up in the air through the hole in the top of the casing where the rope that holds the pump is. So if anyone out there can help us with this problem it would sure be appreciated. Thank you,,,,,,,,,, Blackfoot

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It sounds more like an iron problem Blackfoot. I'm sure you can find someone out there that can test your water.

The worse water I have ever encountered was at my last residence on a River that runs out into Tampa Bay. The TDS was 4700 and the hardness I don't know. I quit dropping chemical into the tube at 100. It was still red. It was the nastiest I have ever seen and without taking out stock in Morton salt, I couldn't afford to fix it.

bob...