Water Softening Salt
Water Softening
Hard water is water that is overly rich with minerals like calcium, iron and magnesium. It is a fairly common problem for home or business owners and its effects can be seen and felt in almost every aspect of your life where water is involved. If you have hard water in your home or business, you are likely experiencing:
• Red tinged water
• Hard deposits on and around fixtures
• Rings around tubs
• Spots on glass shower doors
• Dingy clothing
• Dry or itchy skin after bathing
• No lather when using soap or shampoo
• Foul-smelling water
• Deposits in clothes and dish washers
• Reduced water pressure from shower heads
How to Solve Hard Water Problems
The most common solution to hard water issues is installing a water softener in your home or business. The minerals in hard water can wreak havoc on your plumbing and also damage your appliances and fixtures if the problem is not handled promptly and correctly.
A water softener system uses a process called ion exchange. The system has resin beads or Zeolite in it. Each resin bead or zeolite crystal is negatively charged and has space to hold on to positive ions. The fresh media starts by holding on to the weaker charged sodium ions. As hard water passes through your water softener tank, the stronger charged calcium or magnesium are pulled to the media like a magnet. Since the hardness minerals have a higher positive charge than the sodium, they will knock the sodium ions off and take their place.
All the hardness minerals stay trapped inside the water softener tank while the H2O, with a few sodium ions, disperse throughout your home for use. No more scaly build up!
It’s important to remember that soft water is not salt water, it only contains a small amount of sodium due to the ion exchange process. Typically less than eating two ounces of cheddar cheese!
In the animation below, you can see how water flows from the external source, through the media that removes minerals, and then provides your home with softened water.
Regeneration and how it works
Regeneration is how a water softening system cleans and recharges itself so it can continue providing your home with soft water.
All water softeners will come with some kind of secondary storage tank. This is where the home owner will need to add water softener salt. Water is added to the tank to create a salt solution called brine. Therefore, this component is known as the brine tank.
During regeneration, the water softener will take the brine solution into the softener tank and the ion exchange process happens again, only this time in reverse.
The media gets a bath in the salt solution. Hard minerals caught in the resin (or zeolite) are released and the media gets replenished with sodium ions. The water softener is also cleaned and disinfected during regeneration. Finally, water containing the hard minerals and other waste gets flushed out of the system and into the sewer system.
Water Softening Options
To combat your hard water woes, you have a few options:
• Water filtration: Water filtration can make the water you drink and use for cooking taste better and will remove some of the calcium and magnesium from your water. However, if you have extremely hard water with very high calcium and magnesium levels, water filtration will not make a large impact.
• Salt-based water softener: Salt-based water softeners are superb for most home needs though they do require maintenance.
• Descaling: Descalers not only soften the water that comes into your home but also address the buildup of mineral deposits; these are often advertised as salt-free water softeners.
No matter how hard water affects your life, call a water softening expert in your area to help you decide on the best option for you.
Benefits of Water Softeners
Water softening can and will reduce the mineral levels in your water that make it hard. When your hard water becomes soft once again, you will begin to notice many benefits:
• Cleaner clothing
• Better tasting water
• Increased appliance performance
• Cleaner dishes
• Increased water pressure
• Cleaner feeling skin and hair
Don’t live another day with hard water. Call your nearest water softening installation experts today and enjoy clean, healthy water again! Call Chicago Salt Company Inc for your salt needs 708-906-4718
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