What Does Tucson's Water have to do with Edmonton???

Sediment & Scale Water Damage

The municipality of Tucson, Arizona just made an announcement regarding their city water supply. The water the municipality treats and delivers to the residents is filtered and chlorinated, much like it is in most cities. One thing Tucson has been doing been doing until now, is something Edmonton had done until the year 2000 - softening the water for the town's supply.

The Arizona news story talked about the town having to do cutbacks and not being able to supply conditioned water to the residents. They stated, "...it's the city's job to make sure the water isn't going to get you sick, as far water quality and hardness, it's gonna fall on the homeowner." Until now, they had been removing hardness minerals which have been known to cause build-up and clog water pipes. Soon their levels will rise in the water and so could the damage to homeowner's plumbing, hot water tanks and fixtures.

Not having softened water, as many Edmonton area homeowners found out when Epcor stopped softening their water, leads to increased soap use, and requires higher temperatures to do an adequate job with laundry. Softened water saves between 50 and 75% of detergent usage and allows for laundry to be done with cold water - not only saving money on soaps and energy consumption, but actually doing a better job of laundry. As noted in a 2009 Battelle study,

The study found that tankless water heaters completely failed to function because of scale plugging in the downstream plumbing after only 1.6 years of equivalent hot water use on 26 gpg hard water. Softened water saves 34% of costs compared to operating on 20 gpg and saves 47% compared to operation on 30 gpg hard water.

Scale Acts an Insulator

Further, an independent report by the Water Quality Research Council showed a 30% (THIRTY PERCENT!) savings on energy usage for gas-fired hot water tanks, simply by using conditioned water. Most people don't think about it, but the hot water heater is the second-highest user of energy in a home. Since we just got word last week that energy prices are going up yet again next month, it makes sense to keep as much as possible from going up the chimney!

At least Tucson residents were publicly advised about this change and adding residential treatment like water conditioning and reverse osmosis was recommended by the municipality. I don't know anyone in the Edmonton area that remembers hearing such recommendations here - just those that started noticing a scale build up on their faucets, having to replace hot water heaters more frequently, higher energy bills (take a look if you still have your old bills!) and grubbier looking laundry.

An average family of 4 saves $1200 a year using conditioned water - even more if they install a drinking water system and stop buying expensive bottled waters.  For a link to the article referenced and a short video on the news story, please click HERE.