A Saltless Way to Soften Water + Filter Out Contaminants

What Is Hardness in Water?

Hard water is one of the most common water quality concerns reported by consumers in the United States. The hardness of water is determined by the calcium and, to a lesser extent, magnesium carbonates naturally dissolved in it. As the concentration of the dissolved minerals increase, the water becomes harder.

Across the U.S., there are waters that are very soft (low in carbonates) and waters that are very hard (high in carbonates). If your water contains substantial amounts of these minerals, water is said to be hard because making lather or suds is hard to do. Soft water creates the opposite result, making lather or suds easy to do.

Problems Caused by Hard Water

Hard water can be a nuisance in many ways. Most directly, you notice it on your skin and hair since you bathe in water frequently. Also, very hard water leaves calcium scale or mineral deposits behind. Beyond that, you may notice an accumulation of white or chalky deposits on items such as plumbing, tubs, sinks, pots and pans. Other things you may notice include:

• increased difficulty in cleaning and laundering tasks
• decreased efficiency of water heaters
• white spots on glassware
• white spots on your car after washing
• soap scum on bathtubs, shower tiles and basins
• accumulation of hard, cream colored deposits around fixtures, dishwashers, clothes washers and inside pipes

How to Remove Hard Water

Removing hard water can be accomplished in a few ways:

• for drinking water, the water can be softened using filters designed to remove hardness, distillation, reverse osmosis, adding a packaged chemical softener such as powdered borax or sodium carbonate
• for showers, baths, ice makers, refrigerator water dispensers, washing machines and dishwashers, you would need a whole house water softener

What Is a Water Softener?

A water softener system removes excess calcium and magnesium ions from the water “hardness ions”. Conventional water-softening systems intended for household use depend on an ion-exchange resin (typically salt) in which hardness ions are exchanged for sodium ions. Another option is Filtersorb, a no salt softener catalyst media that transforms the dissolved calcium and magnesium carbonate into non-charged neutral chemical bonds (calcite crystals). When the crystals become nanometer (microscopic), they detach and are carried away by the water flow.

The Problem with Drinking Salt-Softened Water

Water is a universal solvent. Most materials, especially metals, are partially soluble in water. If that water is heated or softened with salt, it becomes much more aggressive at leaching metals from water lines. Lead in soldered joints and copper in pipes are particularly vulnerable, and these are two of the heavy metals that should not be present in significant amounts in your drinking water.

Also, most water softeners for homes can increase your sodium intake, which is particularly important to people who must watch their sodium intake for health reasons. Enough sodium left in perfectly functioning systems has been found to meet the daily value of sodium after drinking two 8-ounce glasses of water. A bigger problem is that most water softeners use sodium chloride, which is an unnatural chemical form of salt that your body recognizes as something completely foreign. This form of salt is in almost every preserved food product that you eat; therefore, when you add more salt to your already salted food, your body receives more salt than it can possibly dispose of.

Because commercially available salt crystals are totally isolated from each other, in metabolizing these crystals, your body sacrifices tremendous amounts of energy with very little results. Plus, inorganic sodium chloride interferes with the body’s ideal fluid balance and can overburden the elimination system. That happens because in the body’s effort to isolate the excess salt, water molecules must surround the sodium chloride to break them up into sodium and chloride ions in order to neutralize them. To accomplish this, water is taken from your cells in order to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.

What Is the Best Water Softener?

The best water softener is a no salt water softener using Filtersorb. CuZn has created a smarter, smaller salt free water softener option to remove up to 25 grains of hardness, and, unlike other home water softener systems, also removes other contaminants from your water. Their patented Foam Technology allows them to combine multiple filtration medias in a Big Blue cartridge with minimal pressure loss. This unique system comes in a double split-flow unit that is available in 45,000 gallon 10″ or 80,000 gallon 20″ refillable tanks. This innovative water softener and water purifier system includes:

• Filtersorb SB3 to condition and soften your water up to 25 grains of hardness.
• CuZn’s patented fast flow GRA (Granular Radial Axel) media with KDF55 and the highly rated Acid Washed Coconut Shell Carbon to remove chlorine, disinfection by-products (DBP’s), herbicides, pesticides and other inorganic and organic compounds.

Click here for more info about salt free water softeners

How to Measure Water Hardness

The two most common units of measurement for hardness are grains per gallon and milligrams per liter. Some appliances, such as dishwashers and washing machines, have a setting to adjust for the hardness of the water. Usually the hardness setting for these appliances is in grains per gallon.

In grains per gallon, the hardness in water is classified as follows:

• Less than 4 grains per gallon is considered to be soft
• 4 to 7 grains per gallon is considered to be moderately hard water
• 7 to 10 grains per gallon is hard water
• greater than 10 grains per gallon is very hard water

If your test for hardness is given in parts per million (ppm), you can convert it to grains by using this formula:

17.1 ppm = 1 grain

Divide the ppm by 17.1 for the total grains. For example, if your hardness is 250 ppm, 250 divided by 17.1 = 14.63 grains of hardness, with is quite hard.

CuZn Salt Free Water Softener can handle up to 25 grains of hardness. If you have more than that, call us toll free at 866-875-4386 for more information about a custom salt-free water softener solution.

How to Test the Hardness in Your Water

Watersafe® Drinking Water Tests Kits are an affordable (less than $25) revolution in home water testing. They are a fast — results in 10 minutes start to finish — comprehensive in-home water test method. And they provide professional lab-quality results that appear right before your eyes.

The Watersafe Drinking Water Test Kit contains everything you need to find out simply and accurately if your water contains unsafe or undesirable levels common contaminants in city or well water.

Watersafe® City Drinking Water Test Kit
City water kit tests for bacteria, lead, pesticides, nitrates, nitrites, chlorine, pH and hardness, 8 of the most common and potentially hazardous contaminants found in drinking water.

Watersafe® Well Water Drinking Water Test Kit
Well water kit tests for all 10 of the most common types of harmful contaminants found in private well water, including iron, copper, lead, bacteria, pesticides, nitrates, nitrites, chlorine, pH and hardness. If your home draws from private well water, regular testing (recommended yearly or more frequently) is the only way to ensure the purity of your water and safeguard the health of your family.