The Benefits Of Water Softening Without Salt
Hard water left untreated will lead to sub par laundry results, spots on dishes and soap not foaming up when bathing. On top of this calcium in the form of scale will destroy fixtures, shorten the life spam of appliances and finally destroy the plumbing in your house. People with hard water know of these concerns but not very many know that there is a non salt alternative.
For 50 years the debate has been whether Mpls. based Lindsay Miracle Water (now ECO Water) or his MN competition Bill Culligan invented water softening. Water softening is the ion exchange of sodium for calcium resulting in no calcium in the water and some level of sodium. The discharge of the byproduct water is brine which has come under growing scrutiny since the late 1980′s. Chloride discharge regulations have been instituted in both large county districts such as Los Angeles County or Livingston County in Michigan, as well as small municipalities. The sodium going forward has drawn the scrutiny of the Mayo Clinic and removal of the calcium hardness itself by the government of Finland. Sodium and soft water even without softening are risk items for circulatory system issues such as blood pressure and stroke.
Spurred by the relative ease of the internet as a research tool and a general increase in health awareness in general, the push has been intensified to find non-salt water treatment alternatives. One emerging option has been the combination of oxygenation and copper ionization in a single system. Ionic copper and natural copper systems revert calcium carbonate (CACO3) to calcium bicarbonate (CA2H(CO3)). Additionally, the process provides for a filter to remove the iron that has been oxidized without the use of salt or other chemicals. According to Mike Dewar, a regional manager in the water treatment industry, “Yahoo science and Stanford University legitimized these systems by defining calcium bicarbonate in 2001.” Dewar concedes that the acceptance of the technology has faced some resistance. “We still fight some chemical engineers and professors, typically those who earned PHDs prior to 1980, who refuse to believe bicarbonate calcium exists.”
New wells in Canada are today required to under-go bicarbonate testing and EPA approved methods of testing in the United States are now available to show that the hardness of water can be temporary or permanent. Bicarbonate testing is done by water industry leaders such as Culligan Labs in Los Angeles, California and Watercheck in Cleveland, Ohio. Bicarbonate calcium leaves a powdery residue not hard scale and is cleaned up without the use of chemicals. The root electrolysis used in these ionization and oxygenation systems was originally used by NASA during the Apollo Space Program and developed by 3M. The low level copper residual, ionization, is healthy to humans but deadly to mold and bacteria. The oxygenation was used as scale control in the Apollo cooling systems.
Dewar cites residual bacterial control as additional benefit of the core technology. “This feature is important if you filter out the chlorine of city water or recognize a high percentage of wells develop Coliform through the natural ecosystem.”
ECOsmarte has non-salt, non-chemical water technology installed in all 50 US states & 100 countries. In 2010 ECOsmarte received the Water Quality Association’s GOLD SEAL designation for its municipal whole house water systems.