Water softening

Hard water is the most common problem found in the average home. Water softeners reduce the total hardness of the water, and protect household appliances and water systems from limescale, prolonging their life. An effect of hard water is that detergents lose some effectiveness. So you need more soaps. With a water softner it is also possible to reduce the amount of detergent necessary for the various washing operations (laundry, personal hygiene, house cleaning, anti-limescale products, etc.), and this reduces the environmental pollution from detergents.

The hardness of the water is due of certain salts: the main ions that cause it are calcium magnesium. These ions are the cause of the solid formations that cause obstructions in the pipes and in the plants that produce potable or process water. 



Limestone effects

The groundwater through the layers of the soil, in addition to many minerals present, it is enriched with numerous mineral salts that make up the salinity (limescale water). Some of these salts such as Calcium (Ca2 +), Magnesium (Mg2 +) and Bicarbonate (HCO3-), are the main causes of fouling and damage to water systems. In fact, limescale tends to deposit and stick to the walls of the components of boilers, appliances, pipes, etc. After attacking the only way to remove it is by chemical process. Water hardness usually is measured or reported in grains per gallon, but some laboratories use milligrams per liter, or parts per million (ppm).



Useful tips

It's easy to forget how important water is in our lives. With the usage of water with hardness higher than 20 °f, it is advisable to install a water softener, that through the use of particular food resins it retains the calcium and magnesium salts. In addition to preserving the water system, its use contributes to the health of your body: it makes the skin supple, the hair softer and allows the use of fewer soaps for daily washing. The use of a water softener is very simple and requires just: a proper sizing, a correct installation and a good management (given by the periodically supplying of salt). The amount of salt depends on how much you want to "sweeten the water". In other words, the water softeners take ordinary, chlorinated tap water and turn it into chlorinated, salty water.

 

Efficiency
 

The efficiency of the softeners is measured in cu.m /°f, that is the cubic meters obtainable for each degree of water hardness. This parameter is commonly called "exchange capacity". The value of the exchange capacity is divided for the value of hardness, to obtain the amount of water that can be treated by a given water softener. For example, for a water softener with 10 liters of resin that have an exchange capacity of 4.5 grams CaCO3 per mc, calculating an input hardness of 35 ° f we have: (4.5x10): 35 = 1.28mc = 1280lt. Calculating an average per capita consumption of 200 liters per day, a regeneration must be performed every 1280: 200 = 6 days (higher than the 4-day limit set by law).

In case a time regenerating system is used, it is always possible to manually advance the regeneration; while in the case of volume regenerating system (which is related also to the water actually treated), the system autonomously carries out a regeneration if necessary.
NB the resins are destined over time (some years), to lose their "softening" power and must be replaced. However, they have a relatively low cost (around 3 euros per liter).

With the use of a magnetic anti-scale (magnetic water softner), the water is subjected to a magnetic field of appropriate intensity, causing the microcrystallization of mineral salts (limestone), transforming its aggressive crystalline structure into an amorphous structure (aragonite). The action of the magnetic field leaves unaltered the amount of limestone in the water causing only the precipitation in the form of deposit. The processed mineral salts are dragged with the normal outflow of water without creating any danger of fouling with the contact surfaces.

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