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!

My Well Water is Bad & the Well is Going Dry - Help!

I received a call last week from a person that was in a panic about their well water. They have a lot of hardness in the water, but have another problem - many wells in the area are going dry. They've noticed that running water constantly for an hour or more depletes the well and are concerned about the trend in the area.

The water is so hard, they have to replace their fixtures about every two years. They have made arrangements for a trickle system to be installed (this is a set up where city water from a nearby municipality is delivered at low pressure and flow rate into an atmospheric holding tank at the property, from which the water is then pressurized and delivered much the way someone with a cistern's is.) The problem is, that water is at least a year away, and when it comes, it still will be hard water, and will have the added problem of chlorine. What to do, what to do???

We visted the gentleman on Tuesday afternoon and tested the water. Sure enough - its very hard water. There wasn't much for iron or other contaminants, but there was a fair amount of sediment coming thru. This made the diagnosis rather simple - a Hague Watermax water conditioner.

The system recommended for this gentleman will filter out sediment down to 20 microns (smaller than the eye can see) for the whole home using a built-in "Ultra-Fil" module - whole-house dirt and sediment filter that never needs replacement filters or maintenance; it cleans itself automatically each time the conditioner regenerates - slick, eh?

Using Hague's patented "Zero Soft" approach, all hardness will be completely removed by the fine mesh resin, and "Bacteriostat" inhibits growth in the resin bed, keeping the Watermax fresh and clean for the life of the appliance.

Next year, when they migrate from their well water to a city water supply, "Chlorostat" is added to completely remove the clorine, and activated coconut shell carbon will be installed into the empty media chamber to remove organics and disinfection byproducts - an unwanted result of the chlorination system that has been linked to cancer.

The nice thing about working with the Hague line-up is the flexibility. With this system, when water conditions or even water supplies change, there's a good change Watermax can change with you. Two days after the initial visit, he had spoken with the other water companies in the area (I was the first one to come out) and liked what he saw with Hague. We're welcoming him to the Hague family next Friday when his system is going in!

Cisterns: But I Have City Water, Right?

I was doing a routine reverse osmosis maintenance yesterday for a client of mine in Strathcona County. Anyway, they do a lot of water testing for this facility as they rent this particular hall out for parties, weddings and other group gatherings. They were having problems passing the microbiological tests because the water in their cistern (for those not familiar with this concept, if you don't have municipal water piped into your home and you don't have a well, the alternative is to have a buried storage tank that gets filled by delivery trucks filled with city water to run your property) kept showing bacteria.

The client had been performing regular cleanings (something most cistern owners rarely do) and they have spent a LOT of money sealing the cistern so leaves, dirt, bugs, mice, etc don't find their way in. Despite these steps, the tests kept coming back FAIL... Douglas Environmental Solutions was called in a little over a year ago to make recommendations.

The client initially was inquiring about ultraviolet (UV) sterilization to take care of this. Sounds good, but there are certain water quality requirements that must be met for that to work. The water must be:

- filtered to finer than 5 microns - sediment creates shadows and places for bacteria to "hide"
-there cannot be any colour, turbidity, iron, H2S or manganese present. (This is normally not a problem with city water supplies.)
- less than 7 grains hard (Edmonton/Sherwood Park water is HARD, between 9 and 12 grains, so that won't work)
- there must be minimal "turbidity" (basically a murkiness in the water) that prevents light from passing through and can inhibit UV's effectiveness at killing germs.

Needless to say, since raw city water doesn't meet these requirements, if they wanted UV, they'd need to filter and soften the water. Because of particular installation confinements at this facility (its so incredibly tight) we opted instead to create a potable water supply using reverse osmosis. This treatment would filter, soften and clean up the water effectively removing bacteria from the supply.

As added protection, we incorporated a UV sterilization chamber for the product water - just in case something physically happened to the RO system, the UV would still be there as back up and sterilize any germs.

The system has been operating for over a year now and even though the cistern is continually cleaned and the seal on the cistern rivals the one my grandma used when she made jelly, "stuff" is still getting into the tank.

How do I know? When we change the filter, you can see all the organics that are trapped by the prefilter. When new, these filters are pristine and white. The post filters (final stage of filtration before the water goes to the faucet) still look nice and white - although when wet, you can see the black carbon behind it, kind of like when you get a t-shirt wet - but that's another story...

Anyway, we've had to cut the filter change time in half for this facility and we're still getting a great deal of staining on the pre-filter. That's what its there for though - you can see by the post-filter the organics are not making it through the system.

We employ Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Monitoring at this location as well. TDS is a measure of purity of the water. A meter reads impurities in the water and gives a number. The closer to zero the number, the better the water. When we installed the system last year, we were getting ZERO TDS water; indicative of very high quality. A year later, the meter still reads ZERO. The system is still doing its job - despite all the 'stuff' in the cistern.

I literally cringe when I hear people telling me they can drink water from their cistern because its "pure city water." Those people have, I guarantee you, either not cleaned their cistern, or not WATCHED the cistern getting cleaned. What comes out of there is enough to make you sick - just by looking at it. Its not uncommon to see frogs, mice and all kinds of organic material just decaying in there. That is running into your home and out the tap - unless you take measures like our clients!