How Our Salt Based Water Softeners Work
Buying a water softener can be a confusing business.
Read this guide to see how they work.
Water softeners that use salt as the softening agent (nearly all softeners) work in the following way:
Hard water contains a high concentration of calcium and magnesium compounds, mainly Calcium Carbonate and Calcium Magnesium Carbonate (otherwise known as Dolomite). A combination of these two compounds is more commonly known as limescale. It is a hard, white/brown and troublesome solid that we are all familiar with, and it sticks to pipes, washing machines, wash basins and taps.
A water softener contains one or more chambers which contain thousands and thousands of special tiny beads (which look a bit like sand) made from a special and completely harmless resin. When washed in salty water, these resin beads are "charged up" with sodium which clings to the surface of the beads. This process is known as "regeneration". Your incoming water supply is passed through the chamber, passing into contact with the special resin. The sodium on the surface of the beads swaps places with the calcium and magnesium in the hard water. The water is now softened (the calcium and magnesium are removed) and the surface of the resin gradually becomes coated with calcium and magnesium "ions". Softened water leaves the softener for use in the house.
The resin now needs "recharging" with sodium. To do this, the chamber is shut off to stop it feeding the house, and salty water floods the chamber, the resin becoming once more fully charged with sodium, ready for another cycle. The rinsing "regeneration" water now contains all of the removed calcium and magnesium, and a valve is opened to flush the waste water down the drain. This is the end of the regeneration cycle, and the resin chamber is once more opened to fresh incoming water, ready to start its softening process again.
In a single chamber water softener, regeneration is usually timed to happen once every 24 hours (often in the middle of the night) by an electricaly operated timer. In this this way, regeneration takes place when it is unlikely that water is being drawn by the householder. The disadvantage to this system is that the resin may well be regenerated before its sodium supply has been fully used up, so a little more water than is necessary is used up to regenerate the resin in the chamber before it may actually need a "refresh". The plus side of this system is that the water softener is simpler and therefore less expensive to buy, but will be more expensive to run than a more sophisticated softener as it may use up more salt and water (the water wasted when regeneration takes place).
In a twin chamber softener, there are two identical chambers of resin. Water that enters the softener is "metered", another word for measured. In this way, the manufacturer can build the softener so that it knows exactly when to recharge the resin in the chamber (they can calculate exactly how much water should pass through it before the sodium in the resin is exhausted and needs recharging or "regenerating". Shortly before this point is reached, the first chamber is shut off and undergoes regeneration. Meanwhile, the other chamber takes over (having already been regenerated), and so the supply of softened water is completely uninterrupted. The advantage of this is that the water softener operates at maximum efficiency, and uses a minimum of both water and salt. The disadvantage is that the initial cost to buy is somewhat higher.
All water softeners sold by HardWater.co.uk are made to the very highest standards in the UK. Whichever you choose you can be sure of many years of solid, dependable service and the delight of truly soft water together with all the major benefits that brings.