An Introduction To The Salt Water Softener

When we talk about hard water, we mean water that contains minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and sometimes iron. Hard water can come from either your own well, or from a municipal water supply. Either way, it’s good to take care of it with a salt water softener.

Water containing hardness minerals will cause harm in many varied ways. It could cause scale build-up to form inside of water pipes, which eventually may cause them to close off. A build-up of scale inside of water heaters results in reduced efficiency, in turn causing them to consume more energy. If the pipes in your home are made of copper, these minerals in the water can cause corrosion, eating right through the pipes and creating leaks. (The repair bill for this can be quite costly, especially if your plumbing is laid under concrete slab.) Also, these minerals could cause corrosion and pitting on your sink fixtures.

When it’s time to bathe or to do laundry, these hardness minerals can decrease the efficiency of soap or detergent. A soap scum will form, causing colored clothes to lose their brightness, and white clothes to turn a nasty yellow. (You can see where this would increase clothing costs.)

For the sake of your plumbing, your body, and your clothing, it’s desirable to soften the water by removing the hardness minerals. The most efficient way is to do an ion exchange, replacing the hardness mineral ions with something else. Usually, that “something else” is sodium.

A softening unit has a bed of resin that will periodically get bathed with highly-concentrated salt brine. This “recharges” the resin with sodium ions. An ion exchange happens when water goes through this resin.

Just a few decades back, softening units would have to be returned to the shop to be recharged. Every week or so, or as the homeowner believed that the device might need it, a shop worker would replace the unit with a new one. The old one would be hauled back to the shop to get recharged. Nowadays, though, softening units are self-recharging. They can be set to recharge either on a chronological schedule or after a certain amount of water has passed through. The homeowner only needs to keep the salt from running out, and for certain makes, to maintain a full tank of resin rinse solution.

Many different vendors offer different models of the salt water softener. Many newer models have features that were unheard-of only a few years ago. Your favorite search engine can help find more information.

Before you buy anything online, make sure you check Anthony Presbers’ excellent information page on Salt Water Softeners and read dozens of Salt Water Softener Reviews

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