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!

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!