Water
Scale Inhibitors
About
Scale
Problems
with water softeners
Solutions
to Limescale
What
is Scale?
If
you live in a hard water area scale
can be a real issue
Scale
( limescale ) shows up as that nasty greyish flakey
deposit in your kettle. Or as that powdery whitish
grainy stuff when you are ironing your clothes.
Besides
covering the top of your tea or coffee with that
brownish film - which looks "scummy" and
not very appetising - scale is a problem because
it shortens the life of your expensive equipment
like dishwashers, washing machines and - probably
most costly - your water heater.
Scale
also makes these machines less efficient - which
means they cost more to run and so are less
environmentally friendly.
Problems
with water softeners
The
traditional remedy for scale has been the water
softener
These
work by changing the actual composition of your
hard water through a process known as 'ion-exchange'.
This is achieved by slowly releasing salt into the
hard water.
You
have to fill it wit salt on a regular basis at an
average cost of £100 a year or more.
The
actual softeners cost between £800 to £1500
- we have heard of people being tricked into paying
considerably more by door-to-door salesmen types.
To
fit them can cost at least £200 for a plumber
and probably more as they need to have their own
plumbing system.
The
main problem though is that the water is not suitable
for babies and some adults - notably the elderly
or people with heart problems - to drink. A separate
drinking water supply is required by law.
Another
downside is that the waste water they produce is
environmentally unfriendly.
And
the units are usually quite bulky and requires a
lot of space, which can be an issue.
For
these and other reasons many people look for other
solutions to hard water problems.
Solutions
to Limescale
Magnetic
/ Catalytic / Ionization Devices.
You
may have seen these "magic box" type of
gizmos advertised. They usually fit around your
water pipe and claim to remove scale.
We
used to sell these but the problem is their performance
can vary greatly depending on local water quality.
As we have seen there is a great variety in water
quality even within a few miles. So while some people
were happy with them , too many people complained
that they weren't effective. So we continued to
search for a better solution.
Drinking
Water Anti-Scale Solutions
If
you are only concerned with removing scale from
your drinking water ie stopping your kettle
furring up, and removing that film of scum from
your tea / coffee then there are two solutions we
can offer.
The
first and more expensive is reverse
osmosis. These are high quality water filters
that remove a large number of contaminants from
drinking water.
We
sell ours for £197 - these are exactly the
same units that other suppliers sell for £400
to £500 !
But
another cost to bear in mind is that about 70 to
80% of the water that goes through the reverse osmosis
process is flushed away ie rejected. This is both
environmentally and financially costly.
Read
more about reverse osmosis here
Budget
Solution
A
more pragmatic and cheaper solution is to have a
special anti scale cartridge in our master purifier
water filter.
This
not only purifies your water to a high standard
but also removes the scale.
(This
is what we have in our own office kitchen).
The
whole unit costs £79.95 including delivery
and VAT.
You
need to change the filter cartridge every 6 months
at a cost of around £23
Read
more about the anti
scale water filter cartridge now
Whole
of House Scale Solutions
If
you want to deal with scale throughout your house
then check out our whole of house filter.
This
is fairly new on the market and is selling very
well because of its compact size, zero maintenance
requirements (including no power supply required)
- but particularly because of the very high level
of water filtration achieved in every tap in your
house, while greatly reducing the scale problem.
You
can read more about our whole
house water filter here
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