General > General Technical Chat
Residential water issues
<< < (3/3)
jogri:

--- Quote ---Would calcium sulfate be an indication that the water softener may not be operating properly?  My understanding was that should replace all calcium with sodium.
--- End quote ---

Yup, that's correct. It basically captures calcium and magnesium ions and replaces them with sodium, but you have to keep adding sodium ions in order to keep it working. Maybe you didn't add enough? Another option would be that the ion exchanger has stopped working properly because it is gummed up with other contaminants, so you could also consider changing that part.


--- Quote ---Testing for ions sounds like something worthy to follow up on.  Does that testing differentiate between different types of ions, since I assume there will be high levels of sodium ions?
--- End quote ---

You can actually do this yourself, just heat a drop of water in the (blue) flame of a gas burner and watch the colour of the flame (you should do this in the dark). It should be yellow, if it has a tint of red your water softener isn't working properly and you still have calcium ions in your water. Wiki has an article about it, but the pictures of the flame colours kinda suck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_test Sure, this doesn't replace a (properly rather inexpensive) lab test but it's a good starting point.
Navigation
Message Index
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod