Re: [OT] Water Conditioners...

["Alan Ainslie" <alan.ainslie@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The principle of operation of the 'salt'  type conditioners is that the
heavy dissolved solids are exchanged out  of harms way: that is gone for
good.

Cost is related to hardware and the fact that salt has to be donated in
exchange for the heavy dissolved solids.  For a family house this is only a
£100 or so a year.

The electromagnetic devices work by changing the apparent solubility of
ions
after exposure to fields.  The scientific evidence seems very vague, but in
any event any benefit is very quickly lost as the ions revert to the
original state over time. Consequently there is no real benefit at all: the
solids stay dissolved and come out of solution as scale and precipitates.
And soaps are still rendered less effective.

I penned this quickly and so the terminology may not be absolutely correct:
but I researched the matter in some depth and have several technical papers
around should anyone be more interested.

Reason for the research is that we run a large steam railway at our house
and have to be very careful of boiler scaling and precipitation. No totally
OT as there is lots of signalling and automation related to both operation
and safety.  Even some Systems Integration with the main house. (Visitors
welcome in Surrey....just email)

Proper salt softeners do work, in-line filters only remove suspended
solids,
not the hardness, and the electromagnetic devices are virtually useless.

Alan Ainslie


>>The thing is - do these things actually work?? and are they any
good?
>>Have any of the 'ukha collective' ever used these things and would
like
>>to share their thoughts? Are water softeners in general worth their
money?
>
> The water "softeners" that work on a magnet/electromagnet
basis are
> utterly useless, in my experience. I tried one, as did a few others
> that I know, and they made no noticeable difference.
>