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david1948_gw

Hard water and electric coffee makers

david1948
12 years ago

Good morning all... I have a Bunn counter top electric coffee maker... I also have hard water...

In the water heating portion of the CM there is a build-up of scale, whick plugs the siphoning mechanism that drips water thru the coffee filter and brews the coffee..

Cleaning weekly is becoming a real chore...

Question.. Has anyone used a water conditioner, filter, reverse osmosis, that eliminates this problem.. i.e. Brita, Zero water etc..

There are no visible particulates in the water.. just lots of dissolved solids like calcium and what ever else is in hard water..

I posted here not finding any other topic that seemed appropriate...

Dave

Comments (15)

  • Caddidaddy55
    12 years ago

    Our whole house is softened and we have carbon filters on the drinking water. WE make at least 1 pot a day of coffee in our Cusinart coffe maker which we have had for two years and have never had to clean. We replace the carbon filters once a year. If you do not soften the water first you will be replacing filters frequently and RO filters are not cheap.

  • Nunyabiz1
    12 years ago

    I would say a water FILTER is more needed than "soft water"
    We have hard water which I MUCH prefer and can not stand soft water for anything especially showers.
    But we fill up our coffee maker "Keurig" with the water from our Refrigerator that goes through a nice filter.

    Never have any problems with scale.

  • asolo
    12 years ago

    Except for RO and ion-exchange softeners, no filter or other process removes or alters hardness minerals. The "nice filter" Nunyabiz1 uses will do nothing for your problem.

    If the coffee maker is your only concern, would suggest buying bottled "drinking water" for this minimal usage. Total dissolved solids of that is typically 20-40 parts per million and your scaling will likely drop dramatically by using it. It is RO water with some trace minerals added back for taste.

    However, I'd like to suggest that the coffee maker shouldn't be your only concern. If your coffee-maker is doing this as rapidly as you seem to say, that's a pretty good indicator of the effect of your mineral-laden water on everything else that water touches in your house. Suggest you may want to consider this.

  • Nunyabiz1
    12 years ago

    RO is best of course (as far as reducing the TDS) but there are just filters that reduce calcium and magnesium enough to cut back on scaling, especially the whole house type filters.

    Also unless you are talking distilled bottled water then the TDS in most of those "Drinking waters" could be anything from 25 up to 250.

    Our plain old tap water in our city at least this last month was 114 PPM TDS, I think technically "hard water" is classified as something like between 125-180 TDS.
    Ours is usually below 130 although I have seen it up to 165.

    I think the biggest contributor is actually what city you live in.

    I absolutely hate soft water, I find it disgusting, horrible to drink, taste like sea water, horrible to shower in feels like oil.
    Plus all it does is replace the calcium and magnesium with salt & potassium.

    But if the water where you live is Hard with a capital H like over 200PPM then you probably need to do something about it or it is going to screw up everything in the house quicker not just the coffee maker.
    Should run a whole house filter system.

  • asolo
    12 years ago

    TDS and hardness are not the same thing at all...completely different measurements and considerations. I've not seen any "drinking water" sold anywhere measuring 250 ppm TDS. You don't know what you're talking about.

  • david1948
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I've read up on Zero Water and it sounds interesting to say the least... Unfortunately it sounds expensive also... I was trying to avoid bottled water as it is expensive and a pain to haul from the store...
    We make about 4 pots of coffee a day and I think I am out of luck on an easy, less expensive choice.. Maybe vinegar is the lesser of the evils... Thanks, Dave

  • asolo
    12 years ago

    There are some folks over on the plumbing forum that know a lot about water. Might try posting your concerns over there for mo/betta responses.

    Agree toting bottles from the store is a pain. If you're into good-tasting coffee and you like the taste of your present water, perhaps routine de-scaling of the coffee-maker would be the lowest cost alternative. Decent RO systems that would dramatically reduce your TDS level and solve the problem by that means start at the several hundred dollar level.

  • Nunyabiz1
    12 years ago

    "TDS and hardness are not the same thing at all...completely different measurements and considerations. I've not seen any "drinking water" sold anywhere measuring 250 ppm TDS. You don't know what you're talking about."
    ===================================================

    Actually TDS and hard water are one in the same, TDS is what makes HARD water HARD DOH!

    Sometimes it is referred to as GPG (Grains per Gallon) but it is the same thing they are measuring, "Minerals in the water" Both units of measurement refer to the amount of hardness in the water tested.
    Simply put, multiplying a GPG hardness reading by 17.1 will tell you what the hardness is in PPM and conversely, dividing a PPM hardness reading by 17.1 will yield the hardness in GPG.

    As for drinking water, Perrier for instance since it is "mineral Water" is actually around 450 PPM

    Fiji "artesian" drinking water is 210ppm

    Arrowhead drinking "spring" water varies between 81 up to 260ppm

    If you get bottled water that states "purified" then it will not be more than 10 PPM

    But spring water can be up to 260+ PPM
    Mineral water can go all the to over 1000PPM

    So there are many types of bottled water and TDS in them.

    Me thinks you might need to take a chill pill with some of that pure drinking water.

  • asolo
    12 years ago

    I said "drinking water" and put it in quotes to distinguish it from other bottled waters. I did not say "artesian" or "spring" or "mineral" waters. I stand by what I said. Also stand by the part about your not knowing what you're talking about.

    If you have a water softener that is working properly, it will deliver passed-through product at zero grains hardness. However, the TDS will be pretty much exactly the same as it was before passing through.

    "doh" yourself.

  • Nunyabiz1
    12 years ago

    Although the TDS can be skewed if a large part of those Total Dissolved Solids is SALT because salt does not add hardness to the water.

    n General however TDS is darn near the same and is a good scale of hardness.

  • Nunyabiz1
    12 years ago

    Ahhh wasn't aware that spring water or atesian water etc were not "drinking water".
    What exactly are you supposed to do with those waters then?

    All the softener does is transfer the calcium and magnesium ions into sodium. I cant imagine why anyone would want basically sea water on tap.

  • asolo
    12 years ago

    Perhaps some day you will have accumulated enough actual experience to compare with and amplify your reading that your posts will do somebody some good. Apparently not today.

    Hope the fellow solves his coffee problem.

    Over and out.

  • Caddidaddy55
    12 years ago

    The salt in a water softener is only used to regenerate the softening media. If the softener is set properly and is a good softener there will be very little salt resedue in the water. The system is backflushed to remove the salt afer the brine has regenerated the softening agent. We have a well and a lot of iron in the water. I don't mind the taste for drinking but it makes lousy coffee. The inespensive carbon inline instapure filter available at your local big box home improvement store for $9.95 will remove the little bit salt residue and the rest of the iron taste. I am with Asolo on "However, I'd like to suggest that the coffee maker shouldn't be your only concern. If your coffee-maker is doing this as rapidly as you seem to say, that's a pretty good indicator of the effect of your mineral-laden water on everything else that water touches in your house. Suggest you may want to consider this." We have the F&P duel wash drawers and I have never even filled the built in softener. We only use a tablespoon of dish detergent and it works perfectly. All the neighborhood kids always said we had the best tasting water.

  • david1948
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thanks everyone for your time... heading over to plumbing to see what kind of trouble I can stir up there... SMILE :)