If you need to treat your water for hardness, or get rid of an unpleasant odor or taste, you may wonder how softeners, filters, and reverse osmosis work and which system you need. All three improve the quality of your water, but they differ in how they do it and what the final output is.
Depending on where you live, you may need to remove sediment, chlorine, nitrates, or minerals such as calcium and magnesium from your water. If you’ve never used a water treatment system before, it can be confusing to sort out the options. In case you’re unsure where to start, here’s an easy-to-understand guide for each method and what factors to consider in making your final decision.
Water Softeners vs. Water Conditioners
People often ask about the difference between water softeners and water conditioners. The short answer is that there is no difference. Most of the time they are two terms retailers use to describe the same product. If it has a resin tank, it’s a water softener — even if the brochure or website calls it a water conditioner.
That said, if you have hard water, there are two different ways of dealing with it: a water softener and an anti-scale system. Let’s look at each one.
Water Softeners
Water softeners remove hard water minerals from your water with an ion exchange process. Calcium and magnesium come into contact with your softener’s resin bed which is made up of millions of tiny resin beads. The resin beads attract the calcium and magnesium ions, exchange them for a sodium ion, and trap the hard minerals in your resin tank — giving you soft water.
Periodically, the resin bed needs to be cleansed of its accumulated minerals. That process is called regeneration and the water softener initiates and completes it automatically — usually in the middle of the night so that it doesn’t disrupt your regular activities..
A water softener is almost always the best way to go, but there are some circumstances when an anti-scale system is necessary.
Anti-Scale Systems
While a water softener removes the calcium and magnesium ions from the water, an anti-scale system merely coats them so that when they are introduced into your home, they can’t scale and can’t attach themselves to your heating elements. This process doesn’t actually soften your water and isn’t always 100% successful.
In general, there are only three circumstances where you want to use an anti-scale system.
- When you don’t have a drain for the backwash process; for example, if you live in an apartment or a house without a basement.
- When you are concerned that the softener will waste water. (Most modern systems are very water efficient.)
- When your local government doesn’t allow you to backwash your softener.
Water Softeners vs. Water Filters
Water softeners and water filters do different things and improve the quality of your water in different ways. You can, and often need, to have both a water softener and a water filter.
Common issues that can be solved by water filtration are:
- The presence of sediment and suspended solids
- Unpleasant odor or taste
- Chlorine introduced during the water treatment process
- Low pH (acidic water)
There are two categories of water filters: paper cartridge and backwashing systems.
Paper Cartridge Filters
Paper filters are designed to filter out anything that isn’t dissolved in water, such as silt, sand, or clay. A 10” or 20” paper filter fits into a plastic housing (cartridge) that is typically attached to a stud or concrete wall in your basement. The paper filter needs to be replaced on a regular basis or when your water pressure starts to drop.
Backwash Filter Systems
Backwash filters are multi-media systems designed to remove heavy sediment, things that give your water a bad taste or smell, and to treat acidic water. They run a backwash once or twice a week in order to remove everything that was filtered from your water and empty it down the drain. There are different types of filters depending on the issue you want to address.
- Multi-media filter systems use layers of anthracite, green sand, quartz sand, and other filtering media to remove heavy sediment, suspended solids, and iron from your water.
- Carbon filters are used to remove chlorine and chlorine by-products, to get rid of unpleasant odors such as rotten eggs or sewage, and to treat water that tastes bad.
- Neutralizing filters use calcite to treat acidic water. When water with low pH comes into contact with the calcite, it slowly raises the pH of the water to get it closer to neutral.
While there are visual and sensory clues for water problems, it’s impossible to know with certainty unless the water is tested.
Reverse Osmosis
In addition to the contamination you can see, taste, and smell; your water contains invisible impurities such as nitrates, nitrites, and forever chemicals. Filters can remove substances that are not dissolved in water, but they don’t remove bacteria or other contaminants. For that, the best solution is a reverse osmosis system.
It’s important to distinguish between the two levels of water quality in your home:
- Water for general household use, such as bathing and laundry
- Water that you drink and use for cooking
Reverse osmosis purifies the water that you and your family consume.
If you live in a heavily agricultural area like Maryland and the mid-Atlantic, you’re likely to have nitrates and nitrites in your tap water from fertilizer run-off. Water treatment plants are required to reduce the level according to EPA guidelines, but they don’t remove it completely.
Other invisible contaminants that can be present in your water are pharmaceuticals and forever chemicals (PFAs and PFOs). Most municipal water systems have some level of pharmaceuticals in them, including heart medication, birth control medication, acetaminophen, and others. The long term effects of PFAs and PFOs aren’t known.
Reverse osmosis removes these contaminants from your drinking and cooking water. At Carroll Water we use a three filter reverse osmosis system to deliver the highest quality water to your kitchen. Our recent blog post, “How Important is a Reverse Osmosis System?” goes into detail about our RO systems and how they work.
A reverse osmosis system will give you peace of mind about the cleanliness of your drinking water; however, before you can make a final decision on a water treatment system, a trained water expert will need to test the water, diagnose the problem, and recommend the correct application.
Make an appointment with one of our expert water treatment consultants to discuss your options.
