Water Softner & Reverse Osmosis System

Chesty LaRue

Hi, can some one help me out. I live in an area with really hard water and just discovered a leak in my attic due to corrosion of a pipe going into my water tank. I have no choice but to install a water softner. I have trawled the web for information and rang various companies. All with different offers and systems. My house is a 4 bedroom detach (mains water). Can any one recommend a particular unit? Also, one of the companies advised me to get a Reverse Osmosis System installed at the same time (they just happen to be doing a special offer at the mo :rolleyes:) because as salt is used with the water softner system the salt levels can be quite high for drinking the water. As my son has renal complications I am concerned about high salt levels. However, somebody else has told me this is complete rubbish and a std filter system would do the trick. I am soooooooooooooo confused , can any one shed some light on the matter? Cheers

wazzoraybelle

We plan on installing a softener in the new year, we intend to install it after the kitchen sink, keeping that for drinking purposes. a softener wastes quite a bit of water recycling itself but a RO system uses an awful lot more, with water charges coming down the line having both these systems may end up costing you. I thought a reverse osmosis system softened the water? would you need both?
I would recommend you go with a softener and plumb it in after the kitchen tap. Hard water tastes so much better and you can easily clean the limescale build up in your kettle with a little vinegar every now and then.
A standard filter will not remove the salt content from the softened water.

gorwanvfr

Just from my own experience we have our own well and the water is extremely hard and I mean hard. After 3 days lime scale can be seen in the bottom of the kettle, (you can even feel it when you take the last sip of tea from the cup it’s like drinking gravel). I total agree that you can clean the kettle easily with vinegar but you can’t clean your hot water tank, dishwasher, washing machine, shower heads, etc so easily. Also you can tell the difference in the shower between soft and hard water. We fitted a softener in the pump house so any water coming in to the house is softened. We have a tap directly off the well for making baby bottles, etc. No one in the family can taste salt in the water. We also have an aquarium (fresh water) that needs approx 80L of water changed every two weeks this water must be tested and right (otherwise the fish swim up side down if you know what I mean). Yes the system does use water when it is regenerating itself but I think it is a small price to pay for the protection for the whole house water system.
We got ours from a company in Portlaoise, won’t mention the name. The unit is very simple to use and does not use that much salt may be a 25Kg bag a month. I’ll be honest I just fill up the container and check it when I think about it.

aah yes

If you had a leak on a pipe due to corrosion, this is not a matter for a water softener but may be extremely acidic water causing this. Aggressive water or slightly acidic water are more the usual terms than "corrosive" water, - pH correction systems can usually deal with low pH in water.

Water softeners are very water efficient appliances and rarely use more than 4% of total annual supply if correctly sized, installed and calibrated. Clack metered systems are the most efficient currently available, and the least hungry for salt, usually 3 to 6 bags of salt per year - 20 to 40 euros per year.

Toilets use around 30% of all household water use, and leaking toilets with sticky ballcocks can easily, and I don't use the term loosely, - easily lose up to 3,000 litres of water per day (per toilet) where the average total household use for water for all uses is from 250 litres per day.

So water softeners are frugal on water (unless badly sized, calibrated, installed), - toilets can use massive amounts. The worst water softeners are time controlled, small, or undersized systems, that have too frequent a wash cycle.

As RO systems are used to supply from 1% of household water for drinking purposes, you should put into perspective that waste/usage ratios of 1:1 to 4:1 are not too critical for water usage overall taking into account the small overall supply requirement of these systems and major carbon footprint savings in not having to but bottled water.

Also, as a combined package, a water softener and RO have a negative carbon footprint equal to removing an average family saloon car off the road for each year that they are in use, for reductions of things like heating losses in water heating systems, and manufacture of bottles for bottled water use also subsequent landfill waste etc.

Google the Battelle Memorial Institute Study.

http://www.saltinstitute.org/News-events-media/Salt-Sensibility/(tag)/water%20softening

http://www.wqa.org/pdf/external_uploads/Battelle_Final_Report.pdf?CFID=3025009&CFTOKEN=40735876


There is no salt as such in treated water coming from a water softener, as salt is generally accepted as being "Sodium Chloride", and water softeners do not allow chloride into the softened supply. Work on the ion exchange principle, and chloride is not the ion they exchange.

Chloride is in fact the salty tasting ion from the two types of ion produced when dissolving salt. Sodium ions have no taste and are therefore not classed as salty tasting and therefore are zero salty tasting.

The only level of sodium left in softened water is around 80 ppm to 160 ppm when hard waters from 200ppm to 400 ppm are softened. Bottled waters like Tesco still and San Pellegrino have 90 ppm to 135 ppm of sodium + the salty tasting chloride at another 50% above the respective sodium levels. Supermarket milk has 300 to 500 ppm of sodium, and again another 50% above these figures for chloride.

As sodium chloride salt in total can only be tasted by most people at levels dissolved in water at the 3,000 ppm level, it is very hard except for the super sensitive to taste or sense trace levels of "salty" chloride in water at around the 100 ppm level as with the likes of bottled waters. Softened water of course does not have chloride so is not salty tasting at all.

Lo-salt supplementary table salts and reduced sodium salts have potassium chloride as the main ingredient, and are as salty tasting because of the same chloride content.

Leo Demidov

Anyone know anything about the Merus ring, what it does or how it works. I'm told its a water softening system that clamps on around your mains supply.

aah yes

Snake oil of the highest quality.

These things are nonsense with stilts on, pure pseudo science quackery sold by charlatans to the hopelessly misinformed.

They don't work, as they do not soften water (remove limescale) and it is highly unlikely they produce any results to avoid scale sticking to pipes.

You would be better strapping a carrot on to your pipework.

There are probably firms out there that sell high frequency pipe carrots, and offer instructions like "strap the carrot tightly on to your mains pipe" and "make sure the carrot is pointing in the direction of the water flow" etc.

seaside911

Hi Mate, I just read your thread, I installed a 3 stage reverse osmosis drinking water undersink filter system and I have to say the results were spectacular. I live in Dublin and bought the system to filter fluoride and especially Hot-Particles from Fukushima from the water I and my family drink.

I drink a lot of tea and immediately noticed the softness difference the water was fantastic . The R/O system was purchased from a German company called Wiltec on ebay for less than 60euro delivered. It took the plumber 15 minutes to install it. The carbon and sediment filters need to be changed every 3-4 months and the main Reverse Osmosis filter every 6 months.

You dont need to spend a fortune to protect your family from the Government

STOP WATER FLUORIDATION . Research whats happening at Fukushima

aah yes

Hi Seaside, if you are changing cartridges every 3-4 months on mains water then your filter system should have been offered free of charge, and maybe a years worth of cartridges offered free, I wouldn't have paid 60 euros.

The life of RO pre-filter cartridges on colder climate waters such as Irish mains schemes with lower levels of chlorine than our hot climate counterparts, should be in the range of 1 to three years, and the main Reverse Osmosis filter (membrane) every 3 to 6 years depending on hard water pre-treatment.

Its just a matter of checking periodic sediment filter dirt ingress, and secondary carbon filter chlorine removal ability with DPD 4 testing tablets. The RO membrane can be checked with TDS monitors.

RO filter change costs in Ireland can be balanced out at €10 to €20 per year for RO pre-filters DIY, and a similar cost for membranes DIY depending on hard or soft water feed.

I have monitored over a 1,000 RO systems over 7 years in Ireland and have seen typical performance to be in the 1 to 2 year range for pre-filters and 3 to 7 years for membranes, where it is important to show cartridges are able to perform within their parametric removal levels and the final product water quality to meet EU and HSE guidelines without having to change filters too often, ie, under one year or less.

If you are buying sets of filters, say 3 standard pre-filters @ €40 every 3 months, costing €160 per year and 2 lots of RO membranes @ €50 to €75 each costing from €100 to €150 per year DIY, then your annual RO running costs are going to be a crazy €260 to €310 every year.

That is massive sheer wastage of filter cartridges, and a massive kick in the wallet thats going to leave you in tears.

Further underlying losses that you may not account for using basic RO systems as opposed to 'water on water tank systems' such as Next-RO or Aquaphor Morion, is that basic RO systems used on cold water temperatures (5 to 15 degrees) in Ireland, have a typical 10 to 1 waste water ratio rather than the optimum 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 factory figures for perfect temperature (25 degrees) and perfect membrane pressure (60 psi).

What this means is that if you have a basic 50 dollar unpumped RO, and you use 10 litres of RO water a day, you are going to pretty much use over 100 litres of waste water every day based on typical Irish feed waters, and this figure would be higher if optimum membrane pressures are not met on water schemes with lower pressures, as opposed to under half or a third this waste water level using the 'water on water' tank designs.

If you have a basic 100 dollar pumped RO, then you can factor in an extra €20 to €50 for electricity costs per year, based on the production of 10 litres of RO water a day on basic RO models, where 100 litres per day will need to pass the pump, at a rate of around 1/20th litre per minute final production water, over 3 hours daily pump run time. (check pump wattage - 100 / 200 watts etc)

The old idea of a basic ebay RO for €50 DIY for money savings is really a long term slap round the chops.

Sorry to hear about your seemingly initially low cost deal, but good luck with the fluoride and Fukashama stuff.

tievebrack

aah yes wrote: »

Hi Seaside, if you are changing cartridges every 3-4 months on mains water then your filter system should have been offered free of charge, and maybe a years worth of cartridges offered free, I wouldn't have paid 60 euros.

The life of RO pre-filter cartridges on colder climate waters such as Irish mains schemes with lower levels of chlorine than our hot climate counterparts, should be in the range of 1 to three years, and the main Reverse Osmosis filter (membrane) every 3 to 6 years depending on hard water pre-treatment.

Its just a matter of checking periodic sediment filter dirt ingress, and secondary carbon filter chlorine removal ability with DPD 4 testing tablets. The RO membrane can be checked with TDS monitors.

RO filter change costs in Ireland can be balanced out at €10 to €20 per year for RO pre-filters DIY, and a similar cost for membranes DIY depending on hard or soft water feed.

I have monitored over a 1,000 RO systems over 7 years in Ireland and have seen typical performance to be in the 1 to 2 year range for pre-filters and 3 to 7 years for membranes, where it is important to show cartridges are able to perform within their parametric removal levels and the final product water quality to meet EU and HSE guidelines without having to change filters too often, ie, under one year or less.

If you are buying sets of filters, say 3 standard pre-filters @ €40 every 3 months, costing €160 per year and 2 lots of RO membranes @ €50 to €75 each costing from €100 to €150 per year DIY, then your annual RO running costs are going to be a crazy €260 to €310 every year.

That is massive sheer wastage of filter cartridges, and a massive kick in the wallet thats going to leave you in tears.

Further underlying losses that you may not account for using basic RO systems as opposed to 'water on water tank systems' such as Next-RO or Aquaphor Morion, is that basic RO systems used on cold water temperatures (5 to 15 degrees) in Ireland, have a typical 10 to 1 waste water ratio rather than the optimum 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 factory figures for perfect temperature (25 degrees) and perfect membrane pressure (60 psi).

What this means is that if you have a basic 50 dollar unpumped RO, and you use 10 litres of RO water a day, you are going to pretty much use over 100 litres of waste water every day based on typical Irish feed waters, and this figure would be higher if optimum membrane pressures are not met on water schemes with lower pressures, as opposed to under half or a third this waste water level using the 'water on water' tank designs.

If you have a basic 100 dollar pumped RO, then you can factor in an extra €20 to €50 for electricity costs per year, based on the production of 10 litres of RO water a day on basic RO models, where 100 litres per day will need to pass the pump, at a rate of around 1/20th litre per minute final production water, over 3 hours daily pump run time. (check pump wattage - 100 / 200 watts etc)

The old idea of a basic ebay RO for €50 DIY for money savings is really a long term slap round the chops.

Sorry to hear about your seemingly initially low cost deal, but good luck with the fluoride and Fukashama stuff.

Can you recommend a good water filtration system?

aah yes

tievebrack wrote: »

Can you recommend a good water filtration system?

see

aquaphor.com

or

aquaphor.ie

anheneti

Can you recommend a good water filtration system?
Try these guys I found them very good
munsterwatersofteners.com

tievebrack

thank you!!