Transcript of the video

What are water softeners?

A water softener addresses one of the biggest water problems that we have and that's hard water.
Hard water is made up of primarily calcium and magnesium mineral that cause all kinds of nuisance in the house.
They clog plumbing, they create scale on your shower head and that filmy scum that gets on the shower curtainor the shower doors.
It also beats up hot water appliances.

The hot water heater, that scale will get on the heating elementsand if you're in hard water territory, sometimes it sounds like the hot water heater's making
popcorn because the scale has attached itself
to the heating element and as it heats up
and expands, that rock that's now crusted
on the heating element is popping and cracking and moving.

It also does just nasty things to your dishwasher.
So a water softener is an appliance
that uses ion exchange
to remove those hardness causing minerals
so you end, you just absolutely eliminate all
of those kind of problems.

What are the components of a water softener?
the mineral tank where the resin is,
the control valve which tells it when to regenerate.
It's also counting how much water goes through it
because these are demand-initiated controllers.
That enables this unit to be very efficient.

And next to the mineral tank is the brine tank,
which is where the salt goes.
The salt mixes with the water on the bottom
and when a system needs to regenerate,
it's gonna draw that heavily brine solution,
heavy bring solution out of the tank
and run it through the resin.

Some softeners use a process called co-current brining,
which means that the brine goes down
through the resin bed in the same direction
as the service flow.

The benefit in the efficiency game from that is
when the brine's going down, it's releasing
those hardness minerals that are going
down the depth of the bed and they're getting exchanged
again in resin that hadn't been exchanged
in the first place.
So you have to use more water, you have to use a little more salt
to get the complete regeneration cycle.
Countercurrent brining means that the brine solution runs
up the bed so that you're dealing with
just the exchange sites and not having
to re-exchange resin that just got re-exchanged
in the exchange process.
So it saves a lot of salt, saves a lot of water.
That's countercurrent brining
and when you look for a water softener,
that's a feature you want to have.
But that's the basic components of a water softener.

How do water softeners work?

Water softeners work on a principle called ion exchange.
And it's a tank full of resin
that looks like that and each one
of these little beads is charged with a sodium ion.
Hardness minerals, as it flows through this tank,
they're in an ionic form
and they will be attracted to these resin beads
and the resin bead will grab a hold of them
and let loose the sodium ion.
So as the water flows through this column of resin,
it's removing all of that hardness mineral.
What do water softeners remove?
What do water softeners remove?
Water softeners remove hardness causing minerals.
That's calcium, that's magnesium.
It also will attract and hold
onto any positively-charged ion
and that could include things like iron.
Iron is a stainer, it's an annoyance type of thing.
If you've got iron in your water, you know it
because you've got stains.
You've got stains in your toilet,
you've got stains in your sinks and tubs.
And a water softener can actually grab that iron as well.
Now the iron has to be in solution,
which means if you hold a glass up,
you can't see any iron in there.
It'll grab a hold of that iron as well.
So anything that's in the cation family
can be removed by a water softener.
Are water softeners necessary?
Water softeners are necessary
because they remove damaging hard water causing minerals
from the water supply.
Things like your dishwasher,
your shower, your laundry, any hot water using appliance
in your home gets beat up by hard water.
It creates scale, makes them harder to work,
heating elements don't work quite as well,
and there's a great benefit to taking showers
or using soft water to bathe and clean with.
You don't have to deal with scale, soap scum,
and a lot of other nuisance type problems
that hard water creates.
So the quick answer to are water softeners necessary,
if you've got hard water, you bet it is.
Are water softeners safe?
Are water softeners safe?
The question about water softeners being safe refers
directly to the amount of sodium
that softeners will reintroduce to the water supply.
In the ion exchange process, the resin beads are grabbing
ahold of those hardness-causing minerals
and they're releasing sodium ions back
into the water stream that's going into your house.
It's not as much as people think.
For example, if you have moderately hard water,
say five grains per gallon, it's going
to add 37 milligrams of sodium per quart of water.
Well, that doesn't seem to be very much,
especially when you compare that two slices of bacon,
for example, is 150 milligrams of sodium.
The amount of sodium added is directly linear
to the amount of hardness minerals being reduced.
So, in that ion exchange process,
for every milligram of hardness,
it's gonna release two milligrams of sodium,
but it's not that much.
If you have extremely hard water
and let's say you have a doctor telling you,
"Hey, lay off the sodium,"
it would be beneficial for you to add, say,
a reverse osmosis system for the water
that you drink and cook with,
which is not only gonna take care
of the sodium the softener adds,
but it's also gonna take out any sodium
that might naturally be there in the first place.
What is a salt-free water softener?
A salt-free water softener doesn't exist.
A process that's not ion exchange,
but it uses a media that creates little microcrystals
that actually wrap around the harness causing minerals
so that they don't come out and create scale,
we sell a product called ScaleNet that does that.
It's not a traditional salt regenerating water softener,
but it's an anti-scale device
and it works by keeping the hardness minerals
from coming out of solution and creating scale on products.
But it's not a water softener.
It doesn't give you the same benefits
that removing the mineral,
which is what a water softener does,
it doesn't give you the same benefits.
So you don't get to save you detergent amounts.
You don't get to have really nice, brighter laundry
because the minerals are still there.
Can water softeners leak
How do you fix a water softener leak?
and what do I do if they do leak?
Water softeners can leak
and just like any other water-using appliance,
a lot of that happens during the installation
or service time.
Depending upon your maintenance,
it's possible that you can move something
or jostle a fitting that would cause it to leak,
but leaks really occur primarily
at the point of installation.
So taking your time to make sure
that your threads are well done,
that if you're using push to connects,
that they are seated properly,
and normal wear and tear, the water softener
or those types of appliances shouldn't leak,
but leaks can happen.
If you bump into the appliance
and you jostle it and it pulls the fitting apart,
those kind of things can happen.
So to prevent it, make sure you install the product
in a place where it's very, it's not very likely
that something's gonna bump into it or move it.
If you're in a, for example, if you're
in an earthquake part of the country,
you might want to strap it so that if the house moves,
it's gonna stay standing up and not fall over,
tearing plumbing up.
How do you install a water softener?
How do you install a water softener?
The best way to install a water softener is
to locate it where you're treating or softening
all the water that's going into the house.
It's beneficial, especially for the hot water side
because hardness is the worst on the hot water side.
It'll destroy your hot water tank,
it'll destroy the dishwasher
and things like your shower head will get all clogged up.
So we want to make sure that the location
of the water softener is treating especially the hot water,
but all the water going into the house.
Most softeners have a bypass built into the inlet
and the outlet so by turning a valve,
you're able to bypass the softener in case you have
to provide some kind of maintenance to it
or even while you're working on it to put it in.
Now, if the softener you choose does not have a bypass,
it's a great idea to actually build one out of plumbing
to bypass the equipment for that very reason,
in case you have to maintain the unit.
Do water softeners need to be replaced or repaired?
Do water softeners need to be replaced or repaired?
Water softeners needing replacement or repair,
it's possible, but it can be avoided
if you properly maintain the system.
If you make sure the softener never runs out of salt,
make sure that if you have iron or manganese
in the water supple, that you're taking steps
to protect the resin from those elements.
There's resin cleaners on the market
that adding to the regeneration process
will help relieve the resin beads
of those kinds of things.
Iron and manganese can actually embed themselves
and eventually foul the resin
to where it won't function as an ion exchanger anymore.
That would require you to replace the resin bed.
So if you take care of the resin,
don't let it run out of salt,
always maintain it as best you can,
resin could quite frankly last anywhere
from 18 to 25 years.
In fact, I've seen homeowners on really hard water
still 30 years down the road from the installation
and that dude was still working like a charm.
So resins and water softeners can last a good long time,
many years if they're properly maintained.
Now, you still might have to perform service
once in a while.
A good rule of thumb I always like is
to put a sediment filter in front of the appliances
to help keep the screens and the injectors
that are inside that control valve from getting clogged up.
Well there was some of the most frequently asked questions
that we get about water softeners.e music)