Water softening system for a cottage

Water is considered hard when it contains too much calcium and magnesium salts

If you see scale in your kettle, that means you've got a problem. If water enters a private house through a well or groundwater well after mixing with clay or limestone, it will most likely be hard.

Hard water means a lot of trouble

Electric kettles, steam cookers, boiler, washing machines and dishwashers suffer the most.
Due to the scale formation on the heating elements, household appliances consume more electricity, then overheat and fail.
Hard water causes scale build-up on plumbing fixtures and stains on the washed clothes or washed dishes.
In hard water, soap, shampoo and washing powder do not foam well.
Hard water tightens and dries your skin, damages blood vessels, causes dandruff, hair loss and kidney stone disease.

Water softening methods

Water softening means that hardness salts are removed.

Boiling. The easiest and cheapest way to soften water. However, it leads to the formation of stubborn limescale.
Liming. An affordable way to remove hardness salts by adding lime to water from a well or a groundwater well. As a result, the water gets a bit softer, but is still not suitable for drinking or washing.
Magnetic and electromagnetic water softeners. They remove calcium and magnesium salts by exposure to magnetic or electromagnetic field. The disadvantage of such systems is that their efficiency strongly depends on the water temperature and flow rate.
Household filters. The basic technology here is ion exchange. Filters contain ion exchange resin that replaces calcium and magnesium ions with sodium ions. Over time, the resin exchange efficiency decreases, and then it must be recovered with regular table salt.

Reverse osmosis systems remove hardness salts completely and do not need to be recovered.

Water in the filter passes through a semipermeable membrane that cuts off all impurities larger than 0.0005 microns: hardness salts, bacteria, viruses and other contaminants.

This cleaning and softening process is the most extensive among those described above, but it takes a lot of time and therefore pure water needs to be collected in a large storage tank.

Standard solutions

Water in our summer house is very hard. Our kettle needs to be descaled too often. What is a way to soften the water?

Ion exchange filters are really helpful in water softening.

For example, the AQUAPHOR S550 comprehensive water treatment system removes hardness salts at concentrations of up to 24 mg/L, while the AQUAPHOR S1000 system works with concentrations of up to 34 mg/L. In addition, all AQUAPHOR comprehensive water treatment systems remove dissolved iron and manganese, while the S P1 series also reduces hydrogen sulfide. The AQUAPHOR S1000 A system is also effective against high-molecular-weight organic compounds. Compared with other water softening systems, AQUAPHOR S systems provide more comprehensive impurity removal and use significantly less water and salt during resin regeneration.

See catalogue of softeners.

There is a lot of sand in water in our house, and it tastes bitter. How can I purify such water?

Probably, your water tastes bitter due to the high content of hardness salts.

To eliminate bad taste, use water softeners and reverse osmosis systems. Use pre-filters to remove sand. For example, you can install a pre-filter AQUAPHOR Gross. It removes sand, rust, silt and other impurities up to 10 microns. Test your water and ask an expert to help you choose the right solution.

How can I remove lime from water?

Lime actually consists of calcium and magnesium salts. They can be removed with ion exchange softeners or reverse osmosis systems.

Drinking water machines effectively remove lime from your drinking water — for example AQUAPHOR RO-101S, which removes excess calcium and magnesium salts, as well as iron, bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, pesticides and organic compounds. After passing through this filter, the mineral balance of water is restored, and now it can be used for preparing baby food.