Water Softeners

By now you may already know that you have a limescale issue. The usual tell tale signs of limescale in your water are pretty obvious to identify with whitish scale or scale deposits from the excess limestone that the water has run through gathering around household items from kitchen taps , dishwashers , washing machines and shower heads. In hard water areas , pipework and heating systems are particularly affected with pipes becoming blocked with limescale thus causing issues ranging from minor burdens like low water pressure to pretty serious problems like corrosion of heating systems entirely. These issues result in household appliances and pipework needing to be replaced regularly at a great expense to the household.The other concern is the affect it has in bathing and showering were hard water often affects the body and hair in a detrimental way leaving skin and hair itchy and dry due to the excess limescale hardness sticking to the skin and scalp with the hair often feeling and looking dry and ragged.

In some cases , hair dressers have reported that many of their clients have experienced hair turning green or yellow in customers who have had expensive hair colouring or dyes applied. In most cases they say that this has been caused by limescale and a mixture of limescale and chlorine in the water. A water softener often solves this issue also.

When the water is tested for hardness / limescale , any reading over 100mg/l will be classed as hard water and is likely to cause some issues on appliances. The higher the reading over 100, the greater the damage you are exposing yourself to without treating the limescale.

Hardness Limescale (mg/L caco3)

Hard Water (>100)

How to best treat the limescale

There is 2 options to choose from when getting rid of the limescale damage to your pipework , appliances and body. There have been many ways over the years were systems with various valves were used with standard ion exchange water softeners. That has changed with those valves becoming inefficient in many ways from high salt usage and water wastage.

The Clack Volumetric water softener has come to the forefront of ion exchange salt based water softeners over the last 10 years as it was designed taking into consideration all existing ion exchange valves and improving all the best bits from each, and removing all the negatives from them. Due to this, the Clack Volumetric Metered Water Softener is now the most used and best water softener in the ion-exchange method of water softening (Volumetric Explanation : regenerates after a certain amount of water passes through the valve , therefore only backwashing when it needs to and only uses the salt to clean down the resin when it is needed compared to the timer systems which backwashed at a set time which was a waste of salt and water due to it backwashing whether it needed to or not!).

However, there has emerged another viable option when it comes to treating limescale. Many believe this is the future. Filtercal have designed an alternative to the traditional salt based water softeners to create an Eco-Friendly Salt Free limescale stopper. There is no salt required, no chemicals added , no regen or backwash so no water wastage and no electricity required!

The Filtercal limescale system works and acts a lot differently to a salt based water softener. For this we need to understand exactly why we want to treat the limescale. Filtercal limescale systems does not remove the hardness reading, instead the limescale simply passes through the Filtercal Media. As the water with limescale in it passes through the Filtercal limescale media the limescale attaches itself to the media and the media breaks down the limescale into tiny limescale particles , so small that the limescale can no longer stick to appliances and pipework like it used to. The limescale is still present but it can no longer cause the damage to the pipework and appliances. This green eco-friendly way to treat limescale makes a lot more sense in this day and age to people who want to protect the environment from ion exchange salt backwashes which go back into the water table and soil. The water saving benefit of the Filtercal Limescale over salt based water softeners is a huge plus for our eco systems.