Water softening

How to soften your domestic water supply?

Our domestic water always contains a certain amount of calcium and magnesium salt in solution.

These minerals unfortunately have the tendency to form a very hard to remove layer of salt (calcium) on your bathroom equipment and that beautiful glass shower door.

The amount of these minerals differ in different parts of the country.

There are several gadgets on the market claiming that they are the final solution to these scaling problems. That is not entirely true. Magnets indeed let the minerals clot together for a short time. But this process is easily reversed, the minerals going into solution again and the whole process starts over.

The only effective way (at present) to get rid of these minerals is to replace them by another mineral that does not cause scaling. For that we use ordinary kitchen salt.

How do we do that?: We use a special material ( a kind of plastic) in granular form, held in a container where the water flow is directed through.

These granules have the pleasant capacity to bind minerals in solution. And even more pleasant they prefer to bind calcium and magnesium salts over normal kitchen salt.

The granules are prepared for action by soaking them in brine thus saturating them with kitchen salt.

When the water to be treated passes amongst them they bind the calcium and magnesium salts and release the kitchen salt. That process is called "ion exchange". ions are amongst others salts in solution.

The amount of kitchen salt that is released is therefore equal to the amount of scaling salt that is removed from the water. Under normal conditions so little that it can not even be tasted.

If you let that water evaporate you will see a white soft scaling that is easily removed with a dry cloth.

If the kitchen salt is completely used, the system regenerates by flushing the granules with brine. This is an automatic process. The brine forces the granules to release the scaling salts and to saturate themselves again with kitchen salt.

The "hard" water is flushed in the sewer (automatically) and the softening process can continue.

This regenaration proces can be time- or volume driven.

• Time driven: The proces starts at a pre set time (i.e. three o clock in the morning every two days).
• Volume driven: The proces starts when a certain amount of water passed the system. 

The capacity of the system that is most suitable for your situation depends on the following:

• The number of persons in your household
• The hardness of the water you use.

On this site you'will find some examples. We advice you to get in contact with us to calculate the best system for your situation.

please contact us at: +31 13 5213 268 or send an e-mail to harry.oosterbeek@Hydrotense.eu