Salt-based water softeners are highly effective for reducing scale, but the water they produce is unhealthy to drink long term.
A natural solvent, water has the ability to dissolve rock and sediment.
In some areas of the Mediterranean and around the world, this dissolution process introduces high levels of calcium and magnesium into the water, creating “hard water.”
As water evaporates, the concentration of minerals increases and creates saturated water, forming scale.
Since more than 80 percent of geographic locations in the Mediterranean have hard water, many homeowners and landlords look into installing water softeners to protect their homes and appliances from the damaging effects of scale buildup.
However,
do the main advantages of salt-based water softeners outweigh the
disadvantages to your health and environment?
Advantages
Disadvantages
Drinking realy soft water is not a good idea. Most water softener manufacturers will recommend installing a reverse osmosis system under your kitchen sink to remove the excess sodium for your drinking water. However, we do not recommend drinking reverse osmosis water either for a number of reasons.
There are plenty of good filter systems these days, water filter technology has advanced dramatically.
Consumer Options for “Softening” Water
Siliphos consists of glass-like polyphosphate silicate spheres that prevent scale and stop corrosion.
There are a variety of strategies used to prevent scale buildup on pipes and fixtures. These are generally lumped together and called “softening” devices, although “softening,” if the meaning is removal of the “hardness” minerals calcium and magnesium, can only be properly applied to the conventional ion exchange water softener or or to reverse osmosis units. Here’s a look at the most popular scale-fighting strategies, starting with the conventional “water softener” itself.
Ion Exchange
Although the origin of the conventional water softener is not too clear, it likely goes back to the early 1900s.
The softener works by “exchanging” sodium for calcium and magnesium, so that the hardness minerals are actually absent from the water and cannot cause scaling of pipes or spotting on dishes and automobiles or cause soap to fail to lather. Actually, conventional softeners can be used to do a lot more, like removing iron and manganese from well water and, in specialized formats, dealing with tough contaminants like ammonia, lead, strontium, barium, and radium.
The effectiveness and reliable, predictable performance
of the softener have made it popular, but it is not without its problems
and its detractors. The ion exchange softener uses a fair amount of
water to regenerate its resin, it puts salt into the environment, and
its product water can have a “slickness” that many dislike. Although
the newer, more sophisticated softeners use less water and less salt
than early models, they still use salt and water, and many cities have
banned or restricted their use.
Poly-phosphates
The use of phosphates to inhibit scale buildup goes back
to the early 19th century. Phosphate treatment does not remove hardness
minerals but “sequesters” them to prevent hardness scale deposits.
Preventing scale with phosphates has wide application. Poly-phosphate
cartridges (which often combine phosphate with carbon to add taste/odor
improvement to scale prevention) are very popular in restaurants, for
example, to protect equipment such as coffee machines from scale while
providing good-tasting water. Poly-phosphate can also be fed as a liquid
into a water stream to protect home appliances and to prevent hardness
buildup on buildings and sidewalks from irrigation water.
Scale Centurion is simply a powder type media that your water runs through. It doesn't require any salt supplies or other maintenance.
Scale Centurion softener media has been fully tested using the DVGW-W512 protocol.
(DVGW is the top gas and water industry certification body in Europe).
Plus; the media has been fully tested by Arizona State University against the
international protocol for scale prevention. Achieved a 99.6% effectiveness
rating - the only non-salt based anti scale technology to do so.
The testing methodology used the German DVGW-W512 protocol.
At the lowest challenge (TDS 479 and CaC03 180) Scale Centurion technology had an efficiency of 99.6% and at the highest challenge (TDS 1200 and CaC03 500) 90% efficiency.
In
all water samples, other alternative devices (water conditioners) only
achieved 50% and below, with electro/magnetic being the worst.
Scale Centurion technology was judged to be exceptionally efficient. It saves money, saves water and does not harm the environment.
"The evidence shows that [Scale Centurion] technology is equally as efficient as ion exchange [i.e. salt] water softeners at preventing the formation of scale, and has the added benefits
of no salt use, no water waste from regeneration, and importantly, no
harmful brine discharge into drains, groundwater and the wider
environment".
* The study was funded by the WateReuse Research Foundation in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Energy Commission, and the California Department of Water Resources.