Water Softening

What is Hard Water?

Hard water is water that contains invisible dissolved rock, principally calcium and magnesium minerals. Rain water begins as soft water, free of these minerals. As rain water passes over and through the earth, flowing into lakes, rivers, streams and ground water, it absorbs the hardness minerals. While some of these minerals may be harmful to your health, they do affect the properties of water and its effectiveness for washing and cleaning.

Pictorial representation

What does hard water do?

A study in the United States found that it took 40% more time to clean a house with hard water than it took with soft water. Hard water makes simple household tasks more difficult and time-consuming:

	Soaps and laundry detergents don't lather as well.
	Glasses and dishes are left with spots.
	Clothing feels coarser and colours look duller.
	Hard water is also tough on washing machines, making them wear out up to 30% faster.
	Clogs faucets and plumbing fixtures and wears them out faster.

Softening water is a 4-step process.

	The body of a water softener is a tank filled with resin beads. These beads are covered with sodium ions. As hard water passes through, the resin beads act like a magnet, attracting the calcium and magnesium ions (hardness) in exchange for the sodium ions.
	Eventually the resin beads become saturated with mineral ions and have to be "re-charged." This process is called regeneration, and is conducted by the control valve on the top of the tank. The control valve is the brain of the system.
	During regeneration, a strong brine solution is flushed through the resin tank, bathing the resin beads in a stream of sodium ions which replace the accumulated calcium and magnesium ions (hardness).
	The brine solution, carrying the displaced calcium and magnesium ions, is then flushed down the drain by fresh water. The regenerated resin beads can be used again and again.

The two crucial components of a softening system are the resin tank and the control valve. Pentair softeners consist of special STRUCTURAL tanks made in their Goa factory out of world class fibre reinforced plastic to ensure strength and durability. FLECK automatic multiport valves, which too is a Pentair brand, ensure that the operating system is fully automated. The consumer therefore needs to add salt at a prefixed interval and the Fleck valve ensures that the resin regeneration happens automatically - a huge move-on from the manually charged home water softeners.

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