Benefits of Electronic Water Descalers and Softeners
| How Hard is Your Water? | |||
| Slightly Hard | Moderately Hard | Hard | Very Hard |
| 0.3 grains | 4-7 grains | 8-10 grains | 10 grains plus |
| 17.1-51.3 ppm or mg/L |
68.4-119.7 ppm or mg/L |
136.8-171 ppm or mg/L |
188.1 ppm or mg/L plus |
Scale is a coating or precipitate deposited on surfaces that are in contact with hard water. The most common form of scale is calcium carbonate.
Scale is most visually evident as hard white deposits which build up in faucets, shower heads, toilets, bath tubs, glassware in residential houses and in commercial use such as coffee and ice makers, and in industrial use such as cooling towers, boilers, heat exchangers and evaporators.
Many billions of dollars are lost due to equipment failure or replacement caused by scale buildup. Elimination of Hard Water Problems
No More Laundering in Hard Water
Clothes washed in hard water often look dingy and feel harsh and scratchy. The hardness minerals combine with some soils to form insoluble salts, making them difficult to remove. Soil on clothes can introduce even more hardness minerals into the wash water. Continuous laundering in hard water can damage fibers and shorten the life of clothes by up to 40 percent.
No More Bathing in Hard Water
Bathing with soap in hard water leaves a film of sticky soap curd on the skin. The film may prevent removal of soil and bacteria. Soap curd interferes with the return of skin to its normal, slightly acid condition, and may lead to irritation. Soap curd on hair may make it dull, lifeless and difficult to manage.
Elimination of Problems with Hard Water in Water Boiler Systems and Pipework
Hard water also contributes to inefficient and costly operation of water-using appliances. Heated hard water forms a scale of calcium and magnesium minerals (limescale deposits) that can contribute to the inefficient operation or failure of water-using appliances. Pipes can become clogged with scale that reduces water flow and ultimately requires pipe replacement. Limescale has been known to increase energy bills by up to 25%.
Elimination of Limescale in Solar Heating Systems
Solar heating, often used for heating swimming pools is prone to limescale buildup, which can reduce the efficiency of the electronic pump. This, in turn can cause the overall system performance to deteriorate.
Restaurants
Customers will notice an immediate difference in the feel of the water. It will be smoother and silkier to the touch. Calcium scale buildup is a breeding ground for bacteria. The calcium in your pipes will begin to dissolve and reduce the risk of bacterial infections. Once the ScaleMaster is installed, you will notice many benefits that will lead to other major improvements in your establishment.
Financial: You will be saving considerable money on your water-heating bill. As scale is removed from your pipes, your water heater will work much more efficiently. A reduction of 1/4″ of scale will save you up to 40% in your heating costs. The ScaleMaster will clean pipes throughout the entire building and keep them scale-free permanently. Once your pipes have cleaned out, the water pressure will return to its maximum flow rate. Even your water will boil faster.
Bathrooms: You will notice a decrease in toilet bowl, urinal, sink stains and discoloration. Lime scale deposits will disappear forever. Mold and mildew caused by hard water will be a thing of the past. The bathroom fixtures will clean a lot easier, saving you money on your maintenance bills.
Dishes: Your dishwasher will be more energy efficient as the ScaleMaster removes hard scale that has formed on the rinse/wash jets, pumping and head raising equipment and supply lines. Spotting on dishes and glassware will be reduced dramatically. You will notice that detergent will not clot in conveyor and/or rack type dishwashing equipment. You can expect up to a 20% reduction in detergent use. All of your appliances that are in contact with water will have prolonged life spans.
Beverages: Your coffee and tea makers will remain cleaner and operate more effectively. The lines will become unclogged and the taste of your beverages will be greatly improved. The ScaleMaster will prolong the life of your icemaker, too. The overall quality of ice cubes and drinking water will be remarkably improved.
Investment: For a small, one time only investment, the ScaleMaster will be one of most beneficial purchases you will ever make for your establishment. The ScaleMaster has an expected life span of about twenty years. Best of all, there is absolutely no maintenance, chemicals or salts required.
Coffee Vending Machines
A good hot cup of coffee for its employees is a necessity for any company. Coffee vending machines supply this demand, but often require service calls to clean or replace the heating elements and to unclog the water lines that get full of scale. Coffee vending machine owners had no alternative but to absorb the cost of service calls & maintenance before the discovery of the electronic descaler, ScaleMaster.
- Reduces maintenance and service calls dramatically.
- Reduces element replacement and cleaning
- Eliminates line clogging due to scale build-up
- Improves taste of coffee by cleaning out pipes of scale and eliminating bacteria that breeds in the scale
- Improves hot water heater efficiency
Evaporative Air Cleaners
Hard water problems and scaling are never more evident than to owners of evaporative coolers. Better known as “swamp coolers”, most home owners and businesses in the western United States rely on these systems for air cooling during the hot summer months. However, hard water causes severe scaling that requires constant maintenance and replacement of the filter pads.
Scale build-up on evaporative cooler system on the Gila River Housing Authority, an Indian Tribe in New Mexico. The filter pad is completely scaled up in just one month and needs to be cleaned or replaced periodically. When the pad is clogged up, the air flow reduction increases humidity which reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of the air cooler. The corrosion rate increases with scale buildup, causing considerable depreciation of all cooler parts including the blower, brackets and pumps.
A Solution…By simply installing the SM-25 ScaleMaster unit on the recirculating line, you can enjoy these benefits…
No longer do you have to climb up on your roof every month to clean or exchange the filter pads.
Save $$$ on service calls, cooler parts and filter pads.
Stops bleed line from clogging up which causes higher TDS levels and more scaling.
Allows the air cooler to function at its maximum potential all the time–providing you with maintenance-free cool air!
| DESCALING….By Jeffrey M. ConwayApproximately 85% of the World experiences hard water. Water hardness is a common quality of water which contains dissolved compounds of calcium and magnesium and, sometimes, other divalent and trivalent metallic elements. Hardness prevents soap from lathering by causing the development of an insoluble curdy precipitate in the water. Another problem associated with hard water is scale. |
Several new technologies have hit the marketplace in the past few years that claim to soften the water and remove scale. We will look closer at the cause of scale, common evidence of scale, summarize the four basic technologies available to control the effects of hard water.
What is Scale?
Scale is a coating or precipitate deposited on surfaces that are in contact with hard water. Water that contains carbonates of bicarbonates of calcium or magnesium are especially likely to cause scale. When water is heated or evaporation takes place, scale minerals precipitate layers of rocklike deposits inside pipes, water heaters, equipment, and on fixtures and glassware. While most common scale is a result of calcium carbonate, other combinations of ions commonly found in water offer a variety of scale.
Common Evidence of Scale
Scale is most visually evident as hard white to off white deposits which build-up in faucets, shower heads and drains. Scale leaves deposits on dishes, glassware, sinks, countertops and on vehicles that were just washed. Most scale formations are hard and very difficult to clean. Visual references also include fixtures such as toilets, bath tubs, showers and appliances like coffee and ice makers. Swimming pools and spas can experience scale build up on tile and pump equipment. Cooling towers have tremendous scale problems that cause that industry alone a billion dollars a year to remove. Evaporative coolers, boilers, car washes, irrigation systems, processing equipment, paper pulp mills all experience scale problems. Unfortunately, because scale forms a “coating” it can significantly effect thermotransfer and reduce the flow of fluids. The increase of fuel cost due to scale build-up is highly significant.
COMBATING HARD WATER AND ITS EFFECTS
There are four basic technologies available to control the effects of hard water.
Ion-Exchange – Water softening by ion-exchange removes calcium and magnesium ions and replaces them, usually, with salt. Ion-exchange systems require a tank filled with exchange resins, a mechanism to regenerate the resins and a tank to store salt brine used for regeneration. Ion-exchange water softeners combat the effects of hard water by removing the calcium and magnesium nutrients.
Phosphates – Polyphosphates are used as a sequestering agent to control iron and hardness, and as coating agents to control corrosion by formation of a thin passivating film on metal surfaces. Polyphosphate crystals are placed inside a filter housing; as water flows through the filter the polyphosphate crystals slowly dissolve and are thereby introduced into the water stream. In essence, polyphosphates bind calcium and magnesium in solution where they are less likely to precipitate and form calcite. Phosphates are preferred food for bacteria which offer greater potential for bacteria growth. Polyphosphate crystals must be regularly replaced as they dissolve into solution.
Permanent Magnets – Of all the products available today in the water industry, none is more controversial than that of magnetic devices. The fact is, permanent magnets use a fixed energy field which, under controlled conditions, effect the crystal structure of calcium. Controlled conditions is the key factor to the effectiveness of permanent magnets. Pipe size, flow rates and levels of hardness may effect the magnets ability to perform if not properly sized.
Historically, the performance of permanent magnets have been ultimately reliant on controlled conditions, such as flow rate; their energy levels and power fields are fixed. Unfortunately, improper sizing has happened more than once, and when coupled with false claims from the manufacturers and dealers, bad word of mouth spreads. The truth is however, magnets have been used widely, and successfully, in the Soviet states and parts of Europe for many decades both in residential applications and in industrial/marine applications. Many manufacturers claim to have thousands of satisfied customers.
Electronic Conditioning – Electronic water conditioning is a relatively new technology which evolved from the use of magnetic fields in water improvement. The advent of these systems introduce both variable energy and frequency changes. Electronic treatment is based on the principal of creating an oscillating electro-magnetic field of energy with the use of low frequency radio or square waves. As water passes through a pipe delivering variable frequencies and energy levels, a physical change in the preferred crystal structure of calcium and magnesium occurs changing the crystalline structure of aragonite rather than the random crystalline structure of calcite. Aragonite is a form of calcite crystallizing that stays in solution and does not adhere to surfaces. This action stops any further build-up of scale and because the solubility of the water is increased, existing scale is taken back into the water and gradually removed. Like the magnets, precise energy and frequency fields are required in order for the electronic water conditioners to work properly.