Salt Free Water Softener

If you have hard water supply at your home, you must be aware of the plethora of problems that come with hard water. Mineral deposits can play havoc with your appliances and pipelines. Scale formation can drastically reduce the life of your home appliances and may cause you to prematurely replace your pipeline. Moreover, the consumption of soaps or detergents also doubles up, as you need to use more soap to get the desired amount of lather. Water softener systems are used to minimize the problems caused due to hard water. These water softeners are mostly salt based and come with their own set of problems. It is estimated that one household deposits about 500 pounds of salt (resulting from the use of salt based water softeners) in the ground every year. This can be particularly detrimental for the environment. Salt free water softeners on the other hand, provide a 'green' solution to this problem. How? Let us find out.

Salt Free Water Softener: How Does it Work

Regular softeners like potassium chloride water softeners prevent scale formation by forming salts with compounds like magnesium and calcium. The chloride atoms react with magnesium and calcium to form their respective salts. In this method, water is made to pass through resin beds, where magnesium and calcium switch places with potassium or sodium to form a salt with chloride. The water that leaves the resin bed is thus free of any mineral depositions.

In salt free water softener, there is no chemical reaction at the molecular level. In fact, it works only by changing the crystalline nature of the deposits, so that they become ineffective. An electric charge is used to alter the crystalline composition of calcium and magnesium. Thus, a salt free water softener does not remove the mineral deposits as such, it only changes the composition so that hard crystals are not formed.

The scales that we normally see are the crystalline compounds of calcium called calcium carbonate or limescale. Calcium carbonate takes various forms, such as marble which is very hard but brittle or chalk which is soft and friable. Limescale is both, very hard and extremely difficult to break. Limescale that is deposited by hard water has long, thread like crystals called dentrices. These dentrices interweave to give limescale its characteristic properties.

An electromagnetic field can successfully alter the crystalline form of limescale. It prevents the formation of long, thread like crystals which weave together. Instead, the crystals resulting after an application of electromagnetic field are small, round and smooth. These tiny crystals can be easily washed out of the water system. They also do not settle upon the surface of the appliances, hence protect them from wearing out.

Salt free water softeners can be only used for running water in water systems or pipes. It has no effect upon stagnant water. Hence, water in your reservoirs, boilers will not inhibit scale formation. Also, the effect of electromagnetic field lasts only for about 2-3 hours. Hence, running the application frequently becomes inevitable to effectively inhibit scale formation. The water treated by salt free softeners does not show any change in the chemical composition of the minerals. Hence, its effectiveness is often challenged by many. Although, salt free water softener reviews greatly tout it as an effective solution, its effectiveness can be hardly compared with conventional water softeners.

Thus, salt free water softeners can be your choice, only if you intend to use it for running water. Else, conventional water softeners can be your best deal.