Can an Easy Water System (the one that wraps around your plumbing) work on PVC pipe? How does that work? isn’t it based on magnets? If it doesn’t soften the water how is soap use affected? How many other manufacturers subscribe to the technology? – P.A.

Dear P.A. ,

I think a better question is: Does Easy Water work well on ANY pipe?  Yes, it works, but how well it works is open to question.  Buying an Easy Water System is like buying a furnace that is 40% efficient when others have 96% efficient furnaces.  Think about that and read this report before you buy anything:

http://www.uswatersystems.com/pdf/ArizonaStateUniversityWaterSoftnerStudy.pdf

Fusion Salt-Based Water Softener

Currently, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, in San Bernardino County, which provides water for  residents in the cities of Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario and Upland, along with the Cucamonga and Monte Vista water districts is trying to ban water softeners, and whether they will be successful remains to be seen.

This blog post is not to address the viability of salt-based water softeners, but rather, to make consumers aware of the feasibility of other technologies for treating water.  First of all, there are several ways that you can soften water:

1. Ion-exchange Water Softener – It replaces calcium and magnesium (hard minerals that adhere to themselves and tend to form scale) with sodium (a soft mineral that does not adhere to itself and form scale), thus the water is soft;
2. Distillation – This is where water is heated to boiling in a stainless steel chamber and the water vapor is trapped and converted into pure water while the calcium and magnesium are left behind, rendering the water soft;
3. Deionization -  With Deionization or “DI” cation and anion exchange resin remove the calcium and magnesium to create soft water; and
4. Reverse Osmosis – In the process, the water is passed through a semi-permeable membrane which rejects the calcium and magnesium and leave mostly pure water molecules minus the hard minerals to produce soft water.

It needs to be noted that the last three methods can be very costly and in fact, depending upon the water quality, they may not actually produce soft water, which is generally considered by most educated people to be water that contains less than one grain per gallon of hardness.  In fact, in cases where the water is incredibly hard, a water softener may also not produce soft water (hardness over 80-100 GPG), but in most circumstances a salt-based water softener will produce softened water at the lowest cost.

Green Wave Salt-Free Water Conditioner

There is no Santa Claus, there is no Easter Bunny and there in no singular device that is an economically practical salt-free or salt-less water softener.  There are “salt-free or salt-less” water conditioners, however.  What’s the difference you might ask?  A salt-free water “conditioner” does not remove the hardness minerals from the water supply, but rather, put the hardness minerals into a condition where they will no longer form scale.

A true salt-less water conditioner (and I say “true” because there are a lot of pretenders who make claims about being a salt-free water softener, but have no basis in fact) will change the condition of the hardness minerals in the water so that they are inert and unable to form scale.  What is does not do is as important as what it actually does, however.

A salt-less water conditioner wil not do the following:

• Make your clothes whiter and brighter;
• Enable you to use about 50% less soaps and detergents;
• Make you skin and hair silky soft; and
• Eliminate spotting on dishes and glasses.

Remember, with a no-salt water conditioner, the water hardness is still there and so it will interfere with soaps and form spots.  However, it does a terrific job of preventing scale.  If that’s what you want then a salt-free water conditioner might be for you.  At US Water Systems, we are one of the few companies who sells both products.  We just want you to be aware of what you are getting and understand the difference between the two technologies.

Watch for our Cyber Holiday Sale, whereby both salt-free conditioners and salt-based water softeners are both on sale.  Know the difference and make your decision with confidence.

I’ve read testimonials about (you fill in the name) system on the internet.  Do you have any testimonials for your product?”

The answer is “maybe, sometimes and no!”

Well, yes we do, but I can tell you one thing – all of our testimonials were written by our customers.

Every last one.

Is that a novel idea you ask?

Sadly, yes it is.

The internet has made the world a much smaller place.  Information is readily available on anything you can imagine (and some things you don’t want to imagine).   Knowledge is power.  You can learn anything you want about reverse osmosis, water softening and water filtration.  Yeah, you have to take some of the information with a grain of salt, but you can often sift through all the muck and get to the heart of the matter.

That isn’t always true when it comes to salt free or saltless water treatment systems.  There are some really “slick” marketers of salt-free water softeners, who have slick websites (which is cool), but also use “slick” tactics to dupe you into believing things about their product which are simply untrue.  This whole industry is being given a black eye by a total lack of regulation.

This is not to forum to name names, but if a company’s website really is focused ONLY on selling saltfree water softeners (that’s what some call them, but “conditioners” is a more accurate word), you should be extremely careful about what you believe.  This is especially true when reading testimonials.

I have been to a website where the same person has written literally what seems like hundreds of testimonials.  What’s up with that?  Do your homework and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

 ”identify credible alternatives to ion exchange water softeners that would provide consumers with the ability to reduce the impacts of hard water without creating the negative salinity impacts.”

There were four (4) No-Salt Alternatives tested in this study:

• Capacitive Deionization
• Electrically Induced Precipitation
• Template Assisted Crystallization
• Electromagnetic Water Treatment

The testing procedure was as follows:

• All four devices were tested for 21 days each on three different water qualities by running water around a heating element (much like a water heater).
• After the 21 days, the bath and heating elements were cleaned using an acid solution.
• The sacle removed was then weighed and the scale dissolved was measured using the EDTA complexing method.

The water quality ranged from 180 mg/l (10.5 gpg) to 250 mg/l (14.6 gpg).   The results were astounding.   While all of the devices were somewhat effective at removing scale,  the TAC (Templated Assisted Crystallization) method was proven to be dramatically superior to any other treatement method.  It consistely removed over 90% of hard water scale. The devices where wires were wrapped around pipes did work to some degree, but didn’t even reach a level of being 50% effective!

Would you want a salt-free water conditioner that is less than 50% effective or something that is nearly 100% effective?

The template assisted crystallization (TAC) media is a name associated with nextScale Stop,  Watts One Flow and Scale-Net systems, but in my opinion, Filtersorb SP3 Media, Watts E-Treat Media and Green Wave Media are the same in function while different in nomenclatere.   In my opinion TAC and MEP are one and the same in theory, function and operation.

The TAC and MEP devices on the market, use a tank with media inside which gives the calcium and magnesium a “physical matrix” by which they can attach, lose their electrical charge and render them inert.  If you want to prevent scale to any major degree without salt, the TAC and MEP Methods beat the competition HANDS DOWN!