What's this Build Up??

I visited with a gentleman yesterday in Sherwood Park. He called me over out of frustration. He's lived in his home for 20 years and has constantly been battling scale build-up, especially in recent years. Edmonton's water (Sherwood Park gets its municipal water from Edmonton) used to be quite a bit softer, but in the 1990's, that changed and the water is, according to the Water Quality Association, hard. But what does that mean???

Hardness in this area is mostly dissolved limestone rock. Water, a "universal solvent," picks up a bit of everything it comes in contact with. As it runs over the rocks in mountains and all the way here via the North Saskatchewan river, it picks up limestone and dissolves it in the form of "water hardness." Hardness is measured in "Grains Per Gallon" -an old measurement of weight, but the one still used today in industry. 7000 grains is one pound, and by comparison, an aspirin tablet is about 5 grains.

Testing his water, we found the hardness in his home to be 10 grains per gallon, or for every gallon of water going through the home, about two aspirin tablets worth of dissolved limestone rock. With two people in the home, and an average of 150 gallons per day of water being used, that's about 1/5th of a pound of rock going through the home's water system every single day. (That's more than 75 pounds a year!!!)

Dissolved calcium is a bit of a different creature - unlike most things dissolved in water, it actually is LESS soluble with increased temperature. That means that when water is heated, it causes even more of the dissolved rock to come out of the water both coating anything it comes in contact with, and building up in the bottom of things.

If you've ever had to change your hot water tank, you know what I'm talking about - one small person can carry in and install a new hot water tank, but because of the several pounds of rock that builds up in the bottom of a "used" hot water tank, it takes two grown men and usually a cart to remove it...

Anyway, his staining and damage from hard water was quite extensive. His humidifier, which had just been cleaned recently, was already caked with white scale. The floor under his humidifier (beside the furnace) also had white rock formations on it, as did the inside of the furnace where the water connection was made.

He also pulled out the aerators on his faucets and showed me the little white pebbles and chips that were getting caught there. This is another area where hard water buildup can accumulate - not just as the white pearly/seashell kind of effect you see around most sinks and faucets. These are all evidence of hard water damage. He showed me how his faucet would sputter and spurt as the water fought to get through the clogged up system.

The prognosis here was quite simple, we discussed two options to fix this issue. The Watermax City Water Conditioner, as well as the "Puratech" system - basically the Watermax's little brother. Both will do an excellent job and remove all the hardness from the water going through all the plumbing in the home - this will eliminate the cause of the buildup my client was concerned about. The Watermax goes a step further and removes all the chlorine and disinfection byproducts that come from the chlorination of water. Health Canada has shown this to be cancer causing at certain exposure levels. Unfortunately, most municipalities don't test for these levels, and those that do test them, NEVER publish them.

In this case, the gentleman's concerns were strictly over maintenance, not specifically over health, so we decided on the Puratech system which will solve the problem and do it using the least amount of salt and water possible. PROBLEM SOLVED!