Hardness

Exceptionally Hard Water

Hard Water
- Calcium deposits from untreated hard water leave a hard white crust that is difficult to scrape off.
- Hardness consists of calcium carbonate, magnesium, and fourteen other hardness elements.
- These minerals are common, but the amount varies by geographical region and by well depth.
- An initial water test will determine the level of hardness in your water.
- The scaling that hardness creates in pipes causes many home appliances such as dishwashers and clothes washers to clog and fail.
- It is particularly important to remove hardness from homes with in-floor heating or on-demand water heaters. Repairing or replacing the plumbing on these systems is both a messy and costly nuisance. Both systems require clean, pure water to function as designed.
- Drinking an excessive amount of calcium carbonate can build up in the body and produce gall stones.
Treatment: Only Two Options
- For whole-house treatment of hardness, you have only two choices: salt or powder — ionization or oxidation. This means that either you install a water softener, which ionizes the water with salt, or an oxygen system, which puffs it into a powder (or both). The decision is which are you willing to live with: salt in the water, or mild calcium bicarbonate residue?
- For point-of-use treatment, like under the kitchen sink, hardness can be removed with reverse osmosis or distillation.
ECOsmarte
- Advantages of conditioning with ECOsmarte
  - The ECOsmarte titanium electrodes condition the hardness. As the water passes through this chamber, the calcium, magnesium, and the other fourteen hardness elements transform into a powder that will not scale on the pipes or leave white stains on the house fixtures. Because these healthy minerals are not removed from the water, powder deposits may appear on the surfaces where the water comes out of the faucet. This powder is safe, hardly noticeable, does not stain, and is easy to wipe away if no post filter has been installed.
  - There is no scaling in the pipes. Calcium carbonate is converted to calcium bicarbonate, which not only does not scale pipes, but also will not scale the inside of your body. An excess of calcium carbonate can build up in the body and produce gall stones, whereas calcium bicarbonate is like baking soda and is safe, healthy, and keeps your body clean. The ECOsmarte system creates calcium bicarbonate.
  - With low levels of hardness, there will be no white hard crust deposits on the house fixtures.
  - There is no need to purchase or add salt, as long as the hardness level is lower than 200 parts.
  - Calcium and magnesium are both desirable and healthy minerals. The ECOsmarte conditioning process makes these minerals more absorbable through the skin and for drinking.
- Disadvantages of conditioning with ECOsmarte
  - The hardness is not removed: there will be white powder residue. Generally this powder is not noticeable. Because the calcium carbonate has been converted to calcium bicarbonate, the powder is easily wiped away if it is noticeable, and the water is safe to drink. If this powder is not acceptable, a simple 20-micron filter can be added after the GAC filter to remove the 40-micron powder particles.
  - Avoid cleaning with products containing chlorine, because chlorine will aggravate the calcium and make it harden. For information on chlorine-free products, call (206) 324-5055.
  - The ECOsmarte system is a salt-free system up to a certain point. With low levels of hardness, the powder is unnoticeable. However, if the hardness level is over 250 parts, with an ECOsmarte system the powder may begin to show. The harder the water, the more noticeable the powder residue will be. Extremely high hardness levels — over 450 parts of hardness — may produce an excessive amount of powder, which could be unsightly, annoying, or might clog orifices; such a high level might justify the need for further treatment, either in the form of a post filter or a water softener.
  - If the temperature of the water is above 150 degrees F, the powder created by the ECOsmarte titanium electrodes will dissolve and the water will become hard again. There are two options: (1) turn the water temperature down below 150 degrees, or (2) add a water softener to the hot water line.
  - Water boils at 220 degrees, which is hotter than 150 degrees. This means that when cooking with boiled water, or when making tea or coffee, the water will appear cloudy due to the re-conversion of calcium bi-carbonate back to calcium carbonate.
  - If you boil water frequently, install a reverse osmosis filter under the kitchen sink, which will remove all the calcium, and use this water for cooking. Another option would be a compressed carbon block, which will remove almost all of the calcium, down to .5 micron. Follow this link for options: https://www.Multipure.com/Dean
- Filter for Excess Powder
  - Add a micron filter after the final ECOsmarte carbon filter.
    - For exceptionally high levels of hardness, if the calcium powder is noticeable or excessive after the final ECOsmarte filter, it may be helpful to add a 20-micron filter after the final ECOsmarte carbon filter.
    - Because the human eye cannot detect anything smaller than 40 microns, this would remove any visible powder from the water. While the calcium particles average around 135 micrograms, you can experiment with various smaller micron-size filters to meet your needs. You might go down to a 10 micron filter or as small as a 5-micron filter, but any smaller — like 1 micron — will noticeably reduce your water flow.
    - This filter will remove the particles, but will not remove dissolved residue. Any calcium that is still dissolved will appear on dark fixtures after the water evaporates as a small amount of white; it is easy to wipe off.
  - How to install a micron filter.
    - Fasten a bracket to the wall and add a 20″ Pentair Big Blue filter housing between the carbon filter and the copper electrodes and insert a 10-micron pleated filter into the cannister.
    - Install a valve before and after the cannister to isolate it during filter changes.
    - Install a by-pass valve as an option to route the water as it was before the installation of the new filter. This by-pass enables water usage during the process of servicing the 20″ filter.
Water Softeners
- Advantages of a water softener:
  - Water softeners can be designed and adjusted to remove any amount of hardness.
- Disadvantages of a water softener: Water softeners require the addition of salt, which ionizes the calcium and magnesium.
  - The results are the feeling of “soft” water, so that it feels slimy, as if soap cannot rinse off the skin.
  - The salt remains in the water, so that end users actually drink the salt, even though the flavor is subtle.
  - After backwashing the brine (salty water) onto the same place on the ground for over twenty consecutive years, the ground becomes so sterile that plants cannot grow there.
  - Salt must be purchased and added every week or two. If there is no salt, the system will not operate properly.
Reverse Osmosis
- The ECOsmarte system will produce water as safe and clean as a reverse osmosis system, so in most situations, adding an RO system is redundant.
- There are only two reasons to add a reverse osmosis system after an ECOsmarte system.
  - For cooking with boiled water, and you don’t like the subtle cloudiness.
  - If a water softener is installed and you want to avoid drinking salt, then a reverse osmosis system at the kitchen sink would remove that salt from the water.
- For more information, refer to the page on “Other Systems” and click on Multipure. You can order a reverse osmosis system for beneath your sink at https://www.multipure.com/dean: look for the Watts RO system.