Right Tool for the Job

I was asked to come out and check a rural home's water system this weekend. The owners have been trying to keep it going since they purchased their acreage, but have dealt with staining and bacterial build-up in their plumbing, as well as a rotten-egg odour in the home.

They had someone come to replace the "Birm" media in their iron filter in 2008 and have since had their water tested by the County. Even after their air injector, mixing tank and birm filter, they were still getting 0.74 parts per million (ppm) of iron through their plumbing - more than double the concentration where staining starts to be visible on fixtures.

I tested their raw well water as well as their water at the tap. I confirmed the system was only removing about 1/2 the iron coming from their well. The main problem is that there was H2S (hydrogen sulfide) gas present in the water. Some of it was being oxidized by their air injection system, but birm is specifically not suitable for treating water with H2S present. This is either a case of some overzealous salesman extolling the virtues of his magical "chemical free" iron filter, or perhaps a case where the water chemistry had changed and the birm system simply wasn't capable of keeping up.

Its unfortunate the technician that replaced the birm media in their filter seems to have neglected to test the water. The owners complained of rotten egg odour to him and that is an immediate reason to check for H2S gas. If it is present, there is absolutely no point in replacing the birm media - it simply won't work on that water. Period. Instead, the technician charged them around $700 for a service call and left a system behind that had no chance of working for his customer.

Perhaps ignorance, perhaps arrogance - but there is no excuse for what happened there. If you have water problems, especially with well water, you need to ensure you are dealing with a professional, not just some slick sales guy that may not be properly trained on how to treat different kinds of problem water. I left some recommendations for new equipment using a media called manganese greensand that will work and keep him going for the life of the property. Hopefully they take me up on the offer to help - spending more money trying to get the wrong system going is throwing good money after bad!

When Would Whole Home Reverse Osmosis Make Sense?

Having represented the Hague Quality Water brand for years and having had nothing but success deploying their solutions, it seems odd that I would be suggesting a GE product for a client we're working with for an acreage near Sherwood Park.

The clients live in a high-end acreage in a beautiful subdivision in the Edmonton area.  They just purchased the home and are finishing the basement, as well as performing some other renovations.  With the steam shower they are installing and the high-end fixtures, it only makes sense to have high-performance water feeding their home's plumbing system.

Initially, due to the high flow rates, we were looking at either a dual residential softener system or a single commercial unit, depending upon the client's needs.  The WaterMax system has the highest flow rate of any residential water conditioner or water softener at 13 Gallons Per Minute (GPM) but that still may not handle the high-end, multiple nozzle steam shower with body sprayers the client is getting installed.  In order to effectively soften and remove the chemicals and chlorine, two units need to be installed in parallel, effectively doubling the maximum flow to over 20 GPM.

The down side to this is cost.  Clearly, for more performance, most people expect to pay more money.  In this case, instead of a traditional water conditioner plus reverse osmosis drinking water system, we explored a whole-home reverse osmosis system by GE - a new system called "PureOFlow."  This cabinet-style system will soften all the water and remove chlorine and chemicals for the whole home - without the need for additional plumbing to run lines to separate faucets for a traditional reverse osmosis drinking water system.

With this configuration, all the home's water would be purified, leaving all existing taps delivering bottled-water (or better!) quality throughout the home.  This is accomplished without the use of salt, a necessary addition to a traditional softener or water conditioning system.  In terms of price, it actually cost about $1000 less to go this route, and as a bonus, the repressurization system included with this PureOFlow system will deliver up to 22 GPM of water flow to the home - enough to run the steam shower unit without any additional hardware.

It turns out once again that it pays to work with a water professional that keeps up on technology and offers multiple solutions - not trying to force the same answer to solve every problem.

Savings are Crystal Clear

Independent research has confirmed something people with water softeners have known for years - soft water just plain works better!  Not only do you get the less-tangible benefits of softer skin, using less (if any at all) moisturizer and less itchiness, soft water has proven effective at helping every household's bottom line.

According to independent research done by the Water Quality Research Foundation people with soft water can cut their laundry and dishwasher detergent costs by 50% AND switch to lower temperatures -saving money on energy and making homes friendlier to the environment as well.

According to the study, soft water users, using 50% less detergent and switching from 100 degree to 60 degree water temperature achieved the same results OR BETTER than traditional setups. 

The fact that softened water combined with the least amount of detergent and lowest temperature provides the highest degree of whiteness compared to increased hardness with the highest level of detergent and temperature is a noteworthy finding.                          -Pauli Undesser, Water Quality Association (WQA) Director of Regulatory and Technical Affairs and Toxicology Manager for WQA’s Gold Seal Certification Program 

The same or better stain removal and whiter whites!  The same savings goes for dishwashers - less soap, less energy and little if any rinse agent chemicals (like "Jet Dry") needed to get spotless dishes.

This is something we've known for years, conditioned water doesn't cost money, it pays!

For more information and an overview of the study, please see: www.wcponline.com/pdf/1103Undesser.pdf
 

C. Difficile Infections

Another recent outbreak of "superbugs" has the media's attention and is cause for alarm across the country.  This time, the culprit isn't MRSA, it is a clostridium strain of bacteria called "C. difficile" (often referred to as "C. Diff" or pronounced "see diff.")   This germ is named for it's notoriety as being hard to treat and kill once it infects someone.

One of the reasons we chose to work with activTek Environmental many years ago was because we can very effectively PREVENT these types of infections from occurring in the first place, using patented "active" air purification technology.

Historically, UV light has been used in health care and other indoor air environments to provide continuous decontamination. UV light is a “line of sight” technology and does not provide the most effective means of control. Ideally, a system for continuous decontamination would produce antimicrobials which reduce contamination on surfaces and in the air.

The Photohydroionization Cell, incorporated into all our "active air purification" systems, produces oxidative gases that inactivate microorganisms in the air and on surfaces. These gases can reach all surfaces in health care and related environments.

Lab Testing on Assorted Microbes

Broad spectrum sanitizing of air and surfaces is offered 24/7 using this patented Active Air technology.  It requires no upkeep and ensure clean environments in between regular cleanings performed.  Effective against bacteria, molds, yeasts and even viruses, testing has yet to find a microbe that can withstand the technology, even while maintaining safe, healthy environments suitable for 24/7 occupancy by people, plants and animals.

In March 2010, a study specifically on the efficacy of killing C. difficile was performed at Kansas State University's "Food Science Institute" confirming this is a great solution to protecting environments from this, and so far any other Superbug known.


For more information or to obtain a copy of the information regarding C. difficile sanitization, please contact Greg Douglas at Douglas Environmental Solutions.

Sulphur in the Water

I just had a client that I met 19 months ago call me up to come re-test her water last week.  First time I'd been out to her place to check the well, it was pretty standard well water - 25 grains of hardness and 3 parts per million (ppm) iron.  TDS was around 500 - nothing too outrageous or difficult for us to treat.

We discussed her options and she decided to go with the Hague WaterMax well water conditioner, model 62-AMQ.  This can handle up to 10 ppm of iron and a compensated hardness of 90 grains before needing any expansion or further treatment equipment.  The beauty of this system, and the reason she chose it over a conventional well water filtration system is that it is modular; it's expandable.

So here we are 19 months later and she has a "rotten-egg" odour in the water.  A quick test confirms that her well, like several in the Strathcona County area has become contaminated with sulphur.  Normally this requires an additional system to treat, but the modular nature of the Hague WaterMax allows us to simply open the service port, load sulphur treatment media ("SulfurStat") into the vacant upper chamber of the WaterMax, and close it back up.

Not only is the time required to complete this service call short (under 20 minutes) this upgrade will actually reduce the amount of regenerant (in this case, plain sodium salt for the brine tank) by about 30%.  The SulfurStat media will not only filter out the sulphur, but also a good portion of the iron, lessening the burden on the fine mesh resin that would normally be tasked with removing those from her well water.

All it took was a 20 minute service call, and a total cost of less than half what would normally be charged to install a new, dedicated sulphur treatment system - and she will use less salt now, AND the whole system including ALL the media is covered under the factory 25 year warranty.  How sweet is that?  (not to mention she doesn't have a second system to maintain or something like potassium permanganate (KMnO4) to stock and mess with in addition to the salt the system uses to clean itself.)