How Water Softeners Work

Have you ever wondered how water softeners work? It’s quite simple, and the idea is based on turning ‘hard’ water into ‘soft’ water. Hard water causes all sorts of problems and is the main source of scale that appears inside pipes, kettles and water heaters, a substance comprised of magnesium and calcium that is left over once hard water has evaporated. Because calcium and magnesium react with soap, scale builds up, and pipes can become blocked.



The best way to solve this is by reverse osmosis, otherwise known as ‘distillation’.





What is Distillation and Reverse Osmosis?



The way water softeners work is by a process known as ‘reverse osmosis’. Essentially, this removes calcium and magnesium from the hard water by replacing them with sodium ions. The benefit of sodium ions is that they do not react with soap, so you get no build-up of scale as a consequence of washing dishes or having a shower.



Ion replacement is done via a special set of plastic beads soaked in ‘sodium ions’ combined with a chemical component known as zeolite. As the hard water passes through the beads, the calcium and magnesium ions are replaced by sodium ions. But what can you do once all the sodium ions have been used up?



Put simply, water softeners wash hard water through a resin bed to remove the hardness (calcium and magnesium deposits). The calcium and magnesium ions are replaced with trouble-free sodium ions (ion exchange). The small amount of sodium added to the water equates to a lot less per glass of water than is found in many foods.





Using Water Softener Salt Tablets



Sodium chloride is salt. By washing the calcium and magnesium soaked beads with a special water softener salt tablet, the zeolite is once again regenerated and charged with sodium ions. The water softener is now ready to change hard water into soft water.