CableSCES
New Member
Hi Water Experts!
I've been lurking here for the past couple weeks while doing research for the purchase of my home water filter and softener/conditioner system. I have 3 questions at the bottom, if you want to skip my whole intro. But here's a little background and research.
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I'm a licensed civil engineer by trade, specializing in structures, and so I ofcourse want to know the physics, chemistry, research and testing that's been done on the systems like this that I buy, especially at price tags over $5000. I would install it myself, but I know my limits, I'm no plumber, so I want an expert to do it, with his liability and insurance and guarantee. I'm cautious of snake-oil salesman, but also understand that science is updating all the time and new technologies are continuing to improve our world.
I’m in Southern California, and started off by getting 6 different water purification specialists to come to my home and give me concept designs with quotes. I've narrowed it down to 2 of them. One is hard selling me on saltless that he “installs on Hollywood homes and for hospitals and cancer facilities,” and telling me that salt is bad for me and for my home plumbing. The other is hard-selling me on a salt ion-exchange system and that saltless doesn’t work. Prices are about the same including labor and taxes.
The saltless consultant "salt-free since 1979" proposed a "catalytic core device," one at the street, and one at the GAC+ filter tank. I had no idea what he was talking about, so down the rabbit hole I went.
I wanted to post the compilation of my research for the past couple weeks, so that anyone else doing a search for this stuff can have a single place to find out more information. I've posted my research with links in the first reply to this thread.
MY CONCLUSIONS:
1) There is no evidence to demonstrate that Catalytic Core conditioner devices work, beyond anecdotes which are flawed (as Mr Cartwright demonstrates).
2) There IS evidence that TAC, MWT, and CDI are effective at reducing scale, to varying degrees and varying durations.
3) Traditional salt-based ion exchange is the most effective, since it literally removes the calcium and magnesium particles.
4) Chloramine in water is bad all around, on health, on soil, and ruins copper piping.
MY QUESTIONS TO YOU
1) Does anyone have countering evidence or claim that the Catalytic Core systems do in fact work?
2) If I did go saltless, TAC seems to be the way to go. But how do the different manufacturers compare? One of the purification salesman is telling me that the original TAC from Belgium/Germany (Melstream Spectrosoft) is 20x more effective than the knockoffs made and sold out of Florida (Filtersorb, Watt, Next). Can anyone vouch for or against this? The experiment for the CA waterboard was done with Next ScaleStop, with between 90-97% reduction of scale. I looked up Melstream and they have very very little internet presence or information published.
3) The same salesman told me that putting a salt-based softening system in a house that has been piped for years with Copper Piping “is literally pouring salt on an open wound” and will result in tons of leaks in my home copper piping. I couldn’t find any research to this effect, in fact, there was tangential research that sodium (hydroxide) can reduce copper corrosion.
Is his claim true? Do sodium-chloride (or potassium-chloride) softeners result in leaks in copper plumbing that has long held hard chloraminated water? Does anyone have experience with this?
4) What are the true honest downsides to using a salt-based resin exchange system? When should I actually consider salt-free conditioning instead?
====
Thanks everyone for all your posts on this forum that I’ve learned so much from, and thanks in advance for your answers to my questions! Hopefully this will help more people than just myself.
My water:
pH ~ 8.2 per test
Cl/Br ~ 3 per test
Hardness ~ 21 gpg per test, 16.4 gpg per municipal water district report
Chloramine Residual ~ 2.1 mg/L per water district report
(Attached is Water District Water Quality Report PDF for 2018 water)
I've been lurking here for the past couple weeks while doing research for the purchase of my home water filter and softener/conditioner system. I have 3 questions at the bottom, if you want to skip my whole intro. But here's a little background and research.
====
I'm a licensed civil engineer by trade, specializing in structures, and so I ofcourse want to know the physics, chemistry, research and testing that's been done on the systems like this that I buy, especially at price tags over $5000. I would install it myself, but I know my limits, I'm no plumber, so I want an expert to do it, with his liability and insurance and guarantee. I'm cautious of snake-oil salesman, but also understand that science is updating all the time and new technologies are continuing to improve our world.
I’m in Southern California, and started off by getting 6 different water purification specialists to come to my home and give me concept designs with quotes. I've narrowed it down to 2 of them. One is hard selling me on saltless that he “installs on Hollywood homes and for hospitals and cancer facilities,” and telling me that salt is bad for me and for my home plumbing. The other is hard-selling me on a salt ion-exchange system and that saltless doesn’t work. Prices are about the same including labor and taxes.
The saltless consultant "salt-free since 1979" proposed a "catalytic core device," one at the street, and one at the GAC+ filter tank. I had no idea what he was talking about, so down the rabbit hole I went.
I wanted to post the compilation of my research for the past couple weeks, so that anyone else doing a search for this stuff can have a single place to find out more information. I've posted my research with links in the first reply to this thread.
MY CONCLUSIONS:
1) There is no evidence to demonstrate that Catalytic Core conditioner devices work, beyond anecdotes which are flawed (as Mr Cartwright demonstrates).
2) There IS evidence that TAC, MWT, and CDI are effective at reducing scale, to varying degrees and varying durations.
3) Traditional salt-based ion exchange is the most effective, since it literally removes the calcium and magnesium particles.
4) Chloramine in water is bad all around, on health, on soil, and ruins copper piping.
MY QUESTIONS TO YOU
1) Does anyone have countering evidence or claim that the Catalytic Core systems do in fact work?
2) If I did go saltless, TAC seems to be the way to go. But how do the different manufacturers compare? One of the purification salesman is telling me that the original TAC from Belgium/Germany (Melstream Spectrosoft) is 20x more effective than the knockoffs made and sold out of Florida (Filtersorb, Watt, Next). Can anyone vouch for or against this? The experiment for the CA waterboard was done with Next ScaleStop, with between 90-97% reduction of scale. I looked up Melstream and they have very very little internet presence or information published.
3) The same salesman told me that putting a salt-based softening system in a house that has been piped for years with Copper Piping “is literally pouring salt on an open wound” and will result in tons of leaks in my home copper piping. I couldn’t find any research to this effect, in fact, there was tangential research that sodium (hydroxide) can reduce copper corrosion.
Is his claim true? Do sodium-chloride (or potassium-chloride) softeners result in leaks in copper plumbing that has long held hard chloraminated water? Does anyone have experience with this?
4) What are the true honest downsides to using a salt-based resin exchange system? When should I actually consider salt-free conditioning instead?
====
Thanks everyone for all your posts on this forum that I’ve learned so much from, and thanks in advance for your answers to my questions! Hopefully this will help more people than just myself.
My water:
pH ~ 8.2 per test
Cl/Br ~ 3 per test
Hardness ~ 21 gpg per test, 16.4 gpg per municipal water district report
Chloramine Residual ~ 2.1 mg/L per water district report
(Attached is Water District Water Quality Report PDF for 2018 water)