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Thread: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

  1. #1
    Meat Robot Jay Decker's Avatar
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    Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    The misses asked if we could get a water softener. I am building a darkroom, so I had contain myself before calmly saying "sure, I think we could do that".

    Was a little disappointed with what I found at Home Depot and Lowes. Any recommendations on what to look for, what to avoid, brands, or suppliers?

  2. #2
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    I installed a Water Boss a number of years ago. It was easy to install, and there have been no issues with it.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    Do you have a recent water quality report? If you're on a municipal system, they have to test the water into the system frequently along with the automated monitoring equipment. If you're on a rural system, the frequency is far less but still enough to help decide what major constitutents and organic, metalic, and other compounds you want or need to reduce or remove. If you're on an individual or common well, there may have been an initial test but nothing sinse unless there were reason it should be tested.

    That's the first place to start and compare home water treatment systems, but rememer water softeners don't remove constitutents or compounds but merely exchange them through the treatment and flushing systems, so the effluent is more concentrated of those removed compounds, something not necessarily good for water treatment or septic systems. In addition, some of them use additional compounds (usually a salt compound) in the flusing process, which adds additional chemicals in the outflow.

    Call your city, county or state water quality office for any available reports. You can also check the USGS NWIS Website for water quality data (let me know where you live and your water source and I can luck it up for you - used to work for the USGS). They will take water quality samples from wells with investigations. And whatever you do, take what any sales persons says with a grain of salt and a glass of water. Good luck.
    --Scott--

    Scott M. Knowles, MS-Geography
    scott@wsrphoto.com

    "All things merge into one, and a river flows through it."
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  4. #4
    W K Longcor
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    I agree with Peter -- The Water Boss (model 900) which I installed in my home last year has been excellent. I did the installation myself -- very easy.

    Now, just one word of warning. Years ago ( ok, products have changed greatly since then so maybe this is no longer an issue) I installed a water softener in my studio. We were looking to improve the quality of our morning coffee. I began to have trouble with my black and white prints. My Kodak rep call it "edge frilling" -- the emulsion along the edge was lifting from the paper base. His suggestioneither add a handfull of epsom salts to the wash or get rid of the watersoftener. We decided to make our coffee from bottled water.

    Like I said -- this was over 35 years ago and many things have changed - both water softeners and photo printing papers.

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    Meat Robot Jay Decker's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Knowles View Post
    Do you have a recent water quality report? If you're on a municipal system, they have to test the water into the system frequently along with the automated monitoring equipment...


    Scott - good advise. (Disclosure: my background is chemical process engineering.) I did exactly what you suggested when we moved here, since I anticipated some concern from my family about the water quality. The anticipated concern was the level of radioactivity in the water since the Department of Energy Hanford Nuclear Reservation is located on the Columbia River just upstream of where we live in Kennewick, WA. By the way, the water here is well within acceptable radioactivity levels.

    I learned several interesting things about the water here. First, the source of city water is actually two sources, the Columbia River and groundwater wells. The water is harder in the summer when groundwater wells are used to supplement the water supply for irrigation. The hardness typically ranges from 100 ppm to 140 ppm, which is equivalent to 6 to 8 grains per gallon. This level of water hardness is considered moderately hard to hard water. However, some homes can have water that is over 300 ppm hardness depending upon location within the water supply network and time of the year. The most of the other typical water contaminants, like iron and organic material, are within acceptable levels.

    You can find free water hardness test strips at some home stores and water treatment system suppliers. The test are east to use, you dip a strip of paper in water, wait a specified period of time, and then compare the color the test chart which corresponds to a water hardness.

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    Eric Biggerstaff
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    We had a Culligan softner installed along with drinking water filtration for the house. Works very well, no problems and the water doesn't seem to create any issues in the darkroom.
    Eric Biggerstaff

    www.ericbiggerstaff.com

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    Daniel Stone's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    what's the primary reason for wanting to install a softener, just out of curiosity?

    lots of build-up on the shower heads or tile grime?

    if you're wondering about using it for drinking water, there's been studies done where they've attributed high blood pressure to result from increased salinity levels in drinking water, stemming from the salts used in the "softening" process.

    I'm in the process of installing a rev-osmosis system in my parents house for drinking/cooking water only. Membrane needs changing 2x a year, and works really well. You can actually taste the difference. My friend uses one as a final "bath" for holding his prints for 20min after the final wash(with tap water).

    -Dan

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    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    I had a new dish washing machine clog up in about 6 months because of the hardness of our water. The tech told me to get a softener, or he'd have to come back real soon. I'd also had some problems with stain on prints when toned. After I put in the softener, the problems went away. If you do put one in, make sure to bypass the softener with your cold drinking water line.

    Reverse osmosis filters systems are very good, as long as you maintain them. In addition, make sure to check for bacterial contamination of the system, since the RO filter will take out chlorine. New RO systems should come with a vial and envelop, which you can send off for the test.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

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    Louie Powell's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    Quote Originally Posted by W K Longcor View Post
    Now, just one word of warning. Years ago ( ok, products have changed greatly since then so maybe this is no longer an issue) I installed a water softener in my studio. We were looking to improve the quality of our morning coffee. I began to have trouble with my black and white prints. My Kodak rep call it "edge frilling" -- the emulsion along the edge was lifting from the paper base. His suggestion either add a handfull of epsom salts to the wash or get rid of the water softener. We decided to make our coffee from bottled water.
    Many years ago I routinely made Cibachrome prints (I said 'many years ago' - the process was later called Ilfochrome). For those old enough to remember, one had to establish a filtration baseline for each transparency emulsion; one of the advantages of Cibachrome over the Type R process was that once that baseline was known, individual prints rarely required filtration changes to achieve a satisfactory color balance.

    My experience was that all my baselines changed when we installed a water softener. And what is worse, I was never able to arrive at a new set of consistent baselines when I used softened water to make up the Cibachrome chemistry.

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    Meat Robot Jay Decker's Avatar
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    Re: Water Softeners: any recommendations?

    Quote Originally Posted by DanielStone View Post
    what's the primary reason for wanting to install a softener, just out of curiosity?

    lots of build-up on the shower heads or tile grime?

    if you're wondering about using it for drinking water, there's been studies done where they've attributed high blood pressure to result from increased salinity levels in drinking water, stemming from the salts used in the "softening" process.

    I'm in the process of installing a rev-osmosis system in my parents house for drinking/cooking water only. Membrane needs changing 2x a year, and works really well. You can actually taste the difference. My friend uses one as a final "bath" for holding his prints for 20min after the final wash(with tap water).

    -Dan
    Dan - there are two reasons, to eliminate hard water deposits and to improve darkroom water quality.

    Very hard water that is conventionally softened will result in treated water with a significantly increased sodium concentration. Everything is a matter of degree here, e.g., depends on the initial sodium content of the supply water and the increase in sodium content due to zeolite softening. In the case where sodium content might be an issue, or there is a water taste issue, a reverse-osmosis drinking water filtration system is a good solution - as long as the unit is well maintained.

    It will be interesting to see if the water taste worse after installing a water softener. The water is only moderately hard here, so I don't know if the additional sodium in the water will be enough to make it taste bad.

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