Water softners

[just-william]

Morning all, hoping for your opinions please.I have a 3 bed house and need a water softner. I don't want to loose any pressure due to the direct cylinder in the attic. Already replacing the second electric shower in three years. I want to soften the whole house.Now plumb supplier up the road said gas board are installing these.... a 15 mm inline softner. Mate says he uses the ones with the electrics around the pipe to negate the calcium particles building up. Plumber friend said that the big ones that take the salt he has been asked to REMOVE twice as they are crap. Oh and very expensive.Can I please ask your thoughts on this as stuck for whats best to do.Cheers Jimbo

 

[NickH]

Personally I think the "gadgety" devices that wrap around the pipe are questionable to say the least, cheap but I'm not convinced they do a lot of good. I've fitted a good few "proper" water softeners and have had one at home for 13 years and to call them crap is nonsense. Yes they can be expensive to buy and fit but they undoubtably work, the results are measurable and you will immediately have soft water. A good, modern metered unit will cost around 6/700 quid and is a days work to fit, so maybe 8/900 all up.
I recently fitted an Aquadial prismatec 2 and it came with 22mm fittings and pipework so as not to reduce flowrates.

 

[bcp]

Both types do work but this is definitely a case of you get what you pay for. Expensive = proper job. Cheaper wrap around the pipe types = a lesser result.

 

[Alanka]

A good water softener certainly is the business, but very expensive and do you really want completely softened (calcium- and magnesium-free) water? It's bad to drink (sodium-rich) and bad for the garden, so you must lay on fresh unsoftened supplies for these purposes. The salty alkaline regeneration waste is also bad for the environment!

If you just want to avoid furring up the electric shower, and the combi boiler (or the thermal store) heat exchanger, then what you want to fit is a polyphosphate-type unit to the mains water inlet. These units dose the raw mains water with parts per million of food-grade polyphosphate that prevents the formation of calcium scale on heated surfaces, without actually removing the calcium. It remains (invisibly) in suspension. You usually have to renew the crystals - or swap the cartridge - annually. And that's it.

I've fitted dozens of these and the only problems have been when cartridges have not been renewed for over a year and a half.

By the way, from personal observation, I do not actually believe that the 'electronic' or magnetic wrap-around 'water conditioners' really work - neither do the catalytic type work either! Or if they do, not effectively.

 

[just-william]

Thanks Guys some good thoughts there. All more to ponder on. cheers