WATER SOFTENER vs SALT FREE SCALE CONTROL – Sudbury MA

Feb 28, 2018 | Salt Free Scale Control, Water Softening

 WATER SOFTENERS are often installed where water hardness levels are over 3 Grains Per Gallon or around 50 PPM. Water sourced from private wells or municipal water, sourced from groups of wells, is often considerably harder, even up to 10 to 12 GPG. MA towns such as Natick, Wellesley, Needham, Sudbury, Wayland, Holliston and Concord all have hard water. Over time, calcium and magnesium will build up inside pipes, water heaters, plumbing fixtures and appliances, forming hard scale. The results are lowered energy efficiency, early appliance failure, crusty scale buildup on faucets, shower valves & heads, etc. Hard scale can even etch shower glass, as well as ruin the polished surfaces of marble and granite. Considerably more soap and detergents are needed with hard water. Water softeners remove hardness minerals, as well as iron and manganese which cause yellow-brown and black staining on plumbing fixtures. Your laundry becomes softer and brighter. Softeners have a resin filled tank with an electronic control valve head and a salt reservoir tank. All softeners regenerate every 1 to 2 weeks by rinsing the resin in the taller resin tank with salt water from the shorter salt reservoir tank. This entirely automatic process is set to occur at 2:00 am and takes 1.5 hours. During this time, your water will flow, but will not be softened. During regeneration, 50 to 100 gallons of water has to be discharged to either outdoors or into the home’s waste pipe. Some of the discharge water is salt brine and some is rinse water. Ma. plumbing code prohibits salt water discharge into a septic system.

During installation, we supply homeowners with 8, 40 lb. bags of softener salt. For smaller families, without excessively hard water, this will last up to a year. Depending on water usage, hardness levels and other factors, up to 12 or more bags per year are sometimes needed. Regenerations will discharge 3000 to 4000 gallons of water each year. With municipal water, this will add 2% to 3% to an average family’s water bill. Approximately 2 or 3 bags of salt have to be added to the reservoir every 2 to 3 months. Very little additional maintenance is needed.

SALT-FREE SCALE CONTROL SYSTEMS The water purification industry has worked diligently to overcome the need for salt softeners. A process known as Template Assisted Crystallization or TAC has solved the problem of hard scale build up without actually softening the water. In this process, water flows through a tank with millions of highly specialized resin beads. Hardness minerals are attracted to the resin and build up on the surface, similar to a water softener. Micro clusters of minerals are formed, but are unable to stay attached to the resin and fall away into the water. These calcium and magnesium micro-clusters have now lost their ability to attach a second time to piping, faucets, water heaters and plumbing fixtures. These micro clusters have actually been proven to help remove existing scale. With TAC, there is no salt, no backwash or wasted water, no electricity needed, and no homeowner maintenance.

After 3 years or 300,000 to 400,000 gallons, the resin must be replaced as it looses its charge and function. The patented resin cost $148.00 per liter x 5 liters in a standard 10×54 tank seen here. With the TAC resin costing $740.00, the whole service runs near $1,000.00 or $333.00 per year. In comparison, salt, averages around $100.00 per year. Of course, you have to pick up the salt, carry it into the basement and keep up with the salt reservoir levels. ( unless we deliver it to your home )

TAC Technology is proven and used worldwide. It is often recommended for municipal water, but less often for well water due to high iron and other conditions beyond its capacity. These TAC systems leave the same exact amount of minerals in the water that entered the tank. They do not soften the water.

These same TAC systems are often private labeled and falsely advertised on the internet as “salt-free water softeners“. At present, there is no such thing as a salt free water softener. Besides a very costly Whole House Reverse Osmosis System, only a salt softener can give hard water that slippery soft water feel, by removing all the calcium and magnesium mineral content.

TAC Systems are tremendously beneficial for newly installed modern heating equipment, piping, valves, faucets, shower heads, dishwashers and plumbing fixtures. Its important to know that some scale will still be visible but it wipes 100% clean with a damp cloth. Glasses will rinse cleaner in the dishwasher. Some homeowners have reported slight improvements in the water’s feel and soap sudsyness. Others have noticed no difference. Sometimes its a difficult choice. With hard water, a salt softener will dramatically improve your personal experience with water, give you silky hair and keep your pipes clean. TAC Scale Control is really about the control and prevention of hard scale buildup.

Wether a traditional salt water softener or a TAC scale control system is used, a sediment filter must be installed before these units. With chlorinated town water, carbon filtration must also be used. Both salt softener media and TAC scale control media will fail without effective chlorine removal. We hope this information has clarified the issue and will help you decide what is best for you.

For all your water purification/conditioning needs, call us at 508.272.6636 or email sales@thinkpurewater.com