Our Salt Free Water Softener Experiment

This experiment was performed at the home of Tony & Carol. Tony and Carol live in Kitchener, Ontario in a very old house (80+ years). This location was chosen because it represents a challenge to the system being tested. The city water in Kitchener is very hard - more than 25 grains per gallon (430 mg/L). Combine this level of hardness with this age of home and you can imagine the scale that probably exists within the plumbing system. A conventional salt-using water softener had been used intermittently at this location since Tony & Carol moved in (about 5 years ago). An inspection of the plumbing revealed that some of the original galvanized (black pipe) plumbing had been replaced with copper but it's not possible to know if it was all replaced since much of the piping is hidden behind walls. It's probably fair to assume that some galvanized still exists. All of these factors (hardness, age of home, presence of galvanized) make this a very challenging de-scaling/softening venue.

The Salt Free Softening Equipment

For this experiment, we used an aQuatell catalytic salt free water softener. It should be noted that in the blog we often refer to the system as a "salt free softener". To be more precise, it is a "conditioner" or "de-scaler". Our use of the word "softener" only reflects the way this technology is commonly (although incorrectly) referred to. The components of the system are as follows:

An 8" X 44" Enpress Fiberglass Tank (this is where the "softening" takes place)
6.5 liters of Filtersorb SP3 de-scaling media (this accomplishes the "softening")
A Clack In-Out Head
A Vortech distributor (sits at the bottom of tank and distributes the incoming water)
A riser tube (connects the In-Out Head with the distributor)
A top basket (connects to In-Out Head and prevents media from leaving the tank)

Here's a schematic that shows how the pieces fit together and how the water moves through the system:

Salt Free Water Softener Schematic

Water enters the sytem through the orange inlet and is directed to the bottom of the tank through the riser tube

Water is pushed through the purple vortech distributor to evenly distribute the flow

Water passes through the Filtersorb catalytic media (yellow circles) where dissolved hardness is transformed to insoluble nano crystals

Water is passed through the top basket (blue triangle) to prevent any media from exiting the tank

Treated water exits via the red pipe

It needs to be noted that the heart and soul of this system is the Filtersorb SP3 media. The rest of the equipment is necessary but of secondary importance. It's also important to note that although we are calling this device a "softener" it does not soften in the conventional sense. The Filtersorb SP3 media was designed as an anti-scaling technology. It is claimed that hard water that's treated with this media loses it's ability to deposit on surfaces such as water tank heaters, toilets, bathtubs, etc. The water that is treated will also supposed de-scale existing hard water deposits. Again, to be clear, there is no claim made that this media will remove hardness from the water - it won't. The theory is that by transforming the dissolved hardness causing minerals to an insoluble form, you remove them from the chemistry of the water. So the minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) are still present but in a different form. This allows the water to act like "softened" water. Of course, our experiment and observations will be the true test of these claims.

Here are some pictures of the assorted bits and pieces of equipment used to build our system:

TANK WITH INLET/OUTLET CAP:

Salt Free Water Softener Tank A