Soft Water for Dry Skin?

Friday morning, I had an appointment with a family living in rural Alberta. They operate a trout farm and live in a log cabin - not the "typical" clients I bump in to on a regular basis, so right off I should have realized I was in for an interesting day.

The husband and wife had some concerns about their well water quality and wanted recommendations for what could be done. That always leads to a water test - without checking the chemistry and composition, its pretty near impossible to make any recommendations (regardless of what any patented "iron eater" system salesman tells you!!!)

Walking through their concerns, the home owners were unable to use their well water for cooking and were going thru a LOT of bottled water from a nearby supplier in Tofield. I tested their bottled water too and had an interesting discovery. The water tested at 17 parts per million (ppm) of total dissolved solids (TDS.) That's a measure of the purity of the water, and 17 is kind of in "no mans land." Reverse Osmosis (RO) water, off a properly-selected water source, should be lower than that - probably should be under 5 ppm. "Spring water" really isn't regulated, so its all over the place. Usually it tests higher than city water does - typically 250-300 ppm, so that leads me to believe this was "low quality RO water" the family had.

Anyway, the last company out to make recommendations had suggested putting a well chlorination system in, followed by a dechlorination system, and a filter to remove any oxidized contaminants. This family really wanted to remove chemicals from their lives, not add them in. After reading about all the carcinogens in city water (including chlorine, chloramine and the 'disinfection byproducts' like trihalomethanes and other poisons,) this family was not interested in looking at a system like that.

Our recommendation here was to go with the "Watermax" system from Hague Quality Water. Because of the type of media deployed, it would not require chlorine or any other oxidizer added to remove all the iron, and the same unit will also remove all their hardness. Hague offers what they refer to as "zero hardness" water. That is water with ALL the dissolved limestone rock and magnesium removed. Even a little bit of this will forfeit your soap savings, and start to accumulate on the skin and in clothing and linens. The rock causes soap to stick, and that leads to dry skin and eczema, something the the wife was having problems with.

Another great benefit of this system is the whole-house sediment filter. Included in the same unit is a media that filters all the home's water down to 20 microns - smaller than the human eye can perceive. This filter never needs replacement or maintenance, instead it just purges sediment each time the iron and hardness components regenerate - very slick!

I have a mini version of this system and let her try washing her hands with the tap water, then washing them after running thru the miniature conditioner. She could immediately tell the difference.

This system would do everything they need, removing all the iron, all the dissolved rock, and filtering their water down to 20 microns, and do it all without adding, storing, or handling chemicals like chlorine.

The fact that Hague stands behind the system with the industry's longest warranty - a 25 year warranty (including all the media) made this an easy decision!

To finish my visit off, they walked me thru their trout farm. I'd never seen an operation like this and I would never have guessed they had something like this going on from driving up to their home. What a neat setup!

If you've got some problem water, or just not sure what to do - give us a call at 780-410-0837 or contact us through the website: www.douglasenviro.ca -we don't charge for these analysis, so whether you are looking for a solution, or just trying to figure out what's coming out of your taps, we're happy to help!