If you have just recently moved to Jacksonville, FL or to any of the areas in the northern part of the state, you will have experienced hard water and the need for water conditioners.
Understanding Hard Water
Hard water means there is a significant mineral content in the water which leaves a film on everything, including your dishes, clothes and even your body and hair. The minerals get into the water because water travels through limestone and layers of chalk, made of calcium and magnesium carbonates, and the minerals leach into the groundwater. These minerals are then deposited as a film on everything, including your dishes, clothes and even your body and hair.
Through the use of a very simple process in water conditioners, those hard minerals are exchanged for neutral particles which do not have any ability to stick and cause all the problems that the calcium and magnesium can. Most water conditioning systems do not take out tastes or odors, they simply exchange the harmful minerals, on a molecular level, for those that are neutral.
How They Work
Many people have a lot of misunderstanding about water conditioners and how they work. It is really a very simple process, but it does involve a few different steps, all automatically handled by the system itself.
The water from your well or from the city water supply comes into your home and into a tank. This tank is filled with beads, which are known as resin, and which are also negatively charged with sodium on an atomic level. The water comes into this tank and the positively charged ions of calcium and magnesium are attracted to the resin beads, just like positively and negatively charged magnets attract and hold each other.
The weakly held sodium is exchanged for the stronger attraction of the calcium and magnesium, providing water that is considered “soft” as it is free from the hard and damaging minerals. Then, when the resin is saturated with the hard minerals, the system flushes with a salt brine to remove the positive ions and replace the sodium, and the cycle continues.
With the water conditioners used today, there is very little sodium in the water after the process. There are even no-salt water conditioners available that actual change the structure of the magnesium and calcium in the water so they cannot stick, which is ideal for many people in Jacksonville, FL as well.
To learn more about your options in water conditioners in the Jacksonville, FL area see us at American Well & Irrigation. You can also learn more about our products and services online.
