There is NO SUCH THING as electronic, magnetic or other voodoo softening. You cannot, by virtue of an electrical current or magnetic field, change the fundamental properties of a calcium ion to prevent it from causing scale, except for the exact location where the field is located. Once that water is heated up, in your hot water heater for instance, or the water is disturbed at all (running through your pipes will do it), you no longer have any effect at all from the magnetic field and you're right back where you started. Scaling.

I find it particularly interesting that the company you are looking at does not in any way actually explain their "technology" nor do they list any companies they work with. Their pictures are bogus and unverified and their assertions are ridiculous. They are counting on the fact that most people do not know enough about water chemistry to realize their assertions are fundamentally flawed.

My credentials: Chemical engineer with 10 years of water treatment experience. I have specified treatment for boilers and cooling water treatment for anything from small commercial units to huge industrial facilities. At all times before new treatment was allowed, the perspective water treatment companies had to prove their recommendations at the facility in question. Funny thing, but all of the no-salt "softener" folks refused a real-world test, every time, without exception. They all wanted me to purchase their systems without independent verification. Gee, I wonder why? You cannot soften water without removing the hardness.

Wrapping an electric wire around the pipe may have some effect on scale build up prevention. Anti-scaling devices are very important in industrial applications for boilers, tubines and highly sensitive equipment but of little value in residential situations.

None of these have any NSF or WQA cerifications. Their biggest sales pitch is "salt-free", "environmental friendly" and "No maintenance", which arte all true but nonetheless, useless.

Anyway, if you decide to buy, go ahead and do it and after six months, please rip your plumbing apart to see if you notice any improvement and let us know.

Andy Christensen, CWS-II

Andy -- Only, possibly, at the location of the wrap. Chemical treatment and deionization are very important for boilers, turbines and other industrial applications. Anti scale devices are even more useless in industry than in residential situations because millions of dollars of equipment and production time are on the line. There was a period of time in the 60's and 70's where many of these anti scale devices were installed in industrial systems. Systems were purchased by plant managers (business, not technical people) who bought into the hype generally against engineering advise. They didn't work. Back to chemical treatment.

I am bending to your advice and experience. I stay away from these systems except for removal. I have never heard of one acceptable use for them in person.

Thank,
Andy Christensen, CWS-II

But there's still all the parts for the scamsters to buy, power cords or magnets, little blinky LEDs and the like. And they at least have to test them enough to be sure that they won't electrocute their buyers. That's really bad for business.

So coming soon: Voodoo water softening -- For the low, low price of $200, I will construct a representative model of the annoying calcium and magnesium ions in your water. And then through that model into the trash, thereby through the power of sympathetic magic all of the calcium and magnesium ions in your water will likewise be destroyed.

Genius!

The first place I noticed a difference was in the dishwasher. The calcium buildup on the inside started to go away. Our EasyWater came with a bottle of "lemonshine" to use with our powder detergent. I didn't use it at first and there were some spots on my glasses, but once I started using it they were gone. The biggest difference I have seen was in my showerhead. Water actually flows out of all of the holes now and there is water pressure. The buildup that had occurred is now gone and isn't coming back.

When I did first installed my EasyWater, I didn't like it. I felt like my hair was not as clean and was heavy. I called the company to ask them about it. They said that the actual hardness of our water had increased because the system was cleaning out the pipes and the existing scale in the pipes was being dissolved back into the water. We took advantage of the 90 day guarantee and kept the system a few more weeks. Sure enough after about 4 weeks my hair and skin felt better.

I've been very happy with my EasyWater. It has done what they said it would. I don't like the slimy feel you get from a salt softener, so I'm happy.

I didn't see you question earlier. Sorry about that. The reason softeners protect your whole piping system is because they physically remove the calcium and magnesium from the water. The brine tank does not remove the hardness - the softening resin does that. Simply put, the softener resin has a bunch of bodies ions hanging off of it. However, it has a stronger attraction to calcium or magnesium. As water flows through, the resin releases sodium and grabs calcium, leaving the water soft. When the resin has grabbed as much calcium as it can hold, a strong brine solution is run through the resin bed, overwhelming it with sodium so it is forced to release the calcium and grab sodium. This solution is sent to the drain, the bed is rinsed of brine and the softener is ready for service again.

The electronic or magnetic gizmos don't remove anything from the water, therefore leaving the hardness scaling mechanism entirely intact.

Who is "they"? The sales staff? Internet marketers? Excuse my scepticism but how do you knnow it is working fine? Have you removed plumbing fixtures for before-n-after inspections?

I have seen these things in so many houses and all of them have given no noticeable improvement until the ownere just gave up.

Good luck
Andy Christensen, CWS-II

1) Researcher name. No one wants to take credit? Hardly university standards.
2) Researcher credentials. Really?
3) Research department.
4) Research sponsors.
5) Repetition of testing, which is absolutely essential.
6) Data or testing of water in or out of the system. It could be different water at each test phase. Laughable.
7) Data or testing on the scale. Chemical composition? Crystal structure?
8) Indication of how the initial scale was formed on the tube. No control of the test.
9) Data or testing to indicate the mechanism for scale removal. Just plain shoddy work.

The paper would be barely acceptable at highschool level. The "researcher" was either incompetent, or attempting to defraud consumers who are not scientifically adept. Shameful.

I do feel the system does what they say - to a degree "Remove Scale build-up". However, it all ends up in our sinks, showers, and counter tops. My wife feels she has to clean even more now then when we had a softener. The system does work but as a alternative to a water softener, the easywater and other electronic systems fall way short.

Go for the Water Softener "My mama always said a Happy Wife Happy Life"

We are heading to Lowes to buy a new softener.

Read the Expert Report section 3 viii and ix. Then read the Portsmouth U test Introduction 1st Paragraph and comment 2.

The expert says "nucleation" by a variable electric (charge?) field not the magnetic field which he says is far too weak.

The Portsmouth tester says the magnetic field causes the CaCO3 to "coagulate".

So which is it? Makes you wonder.

However my neighbor who installed an EasyWater unit says it seems to be working.

I need to install a water conditioner for my hot water radiant heat system (Radientec Open Direct")

Since you need a chemical engineering degree and decades of water treatment experience to decide, maybe someone out there can get a few billion dollars from the government bailout TARP deal and do a truly scientific and honestly independent study. In the meantime we can use the exercise. I just loaded 3 eighty pound sacks in my unit. Now where's the remote!

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/120232-easywater-system-real-deal-snake.html

Same user as this, only one post. Must be PR for EasyWater. I will stick with the science and avoid the VooDoo.
Thanks.

IF that is indeed true, then the technology should, in time- remove much of the old scale buildup inside old galvanized water lines and with so many companies making them and all seemingly using the same technology; would any one mfg. be that much better than another?

Our water isn't all that hard, but nearly 60 years of it in our house (built in 1951) has built up enough scale inside our water lines to cause a drop in pressure, so if one of those gadgets would remove even some of that buildup, it would be worth buying it, as the only alternative would be to replace the pipes, resulting in a plumbing bill near equal to what we paid for the place 41 years ago.

Otherwise, our only issue with the water as it comes from the tap is rust that causes stains and we address that with an online filter installed on the main line, set just beyond the meter. Currently, it's a single, but we will be replacing it with a triple, with coarse, medium and fine media in that order, to trap as many iron particulates as we can before the water gets to the rest of the lines.

If one or even several of the electronic gadgets, installed just beyond the filters would then help clear what is already built up in them, we would be satisfied.

Any comments from folk who have installed and used one for the same purpose in an OLDER home?

Now I'm really confused.

My husband replaced the old gavalanized line running from the meter to it's first joint with copper, but that line never held any but cold water and it was nearly closed due to rock hard scale build up.

That line was relatively easy, as it's fully exposed, but the rest are all hidden under finished ceilings in the basement and why we would find it a great boon to find some means of clearing them other than ripping out all of the ceilings to get to the old pipes.

I'm not questioning the validity of the advice offered here by those who profess to be experts and as such, suppose the answer will have to be a conventional water softener, although we will still replace the single rust filter with a triple on the line immediately after the meter. The filters are cheap, as are the replacement cartridges, especially if bought in bulk and the one we have now has proven to be quite effective at trapping rust particulates.

So I'm presuming; hopefully not foolishly; that removing most of the rust particulates before the water enters the softner might extend the life of the softener and/or the softener media.

But that still leaves us with old galavanized pipes that have become scaled up over the years and for that; I still don't know what would be the best affordable answer.

As to your rust filter, if you are only removing particles of rust and not dissolved rust, you will still have a problem with a conventional softener if your dissolved rust is too high.

It is impossible to offer concrete advice without a water test. At this point we are only guessing what could actually be in your water and the nature of the scale you are seeing in your pipes. We can only offer general information.

Our water looks clear from the tap and has no rusty taste, so your suggestion of dissolved rust would seem the most rational. It's must also be in fairly low solution, or surely we would see and taste it.

Fortunately, one aspect of water filtration I do understand is that of using media from coarse through very fine in decending order and plan to apply it to the supply coming through the main. As I previously wrote; they are cheap, as are the cartridges and fairly effective, so anything that might eliminate most if not all of the dissolved rust before it hits the softener and after that the furnace humidifier and WH would be a benefit.

I wish we could test the water to see what caused the buildup to begin with, but can't. The original supply was via a well on the property that was capped when the connection to a municipal supply was made in 1969 and the municipality that supplies the water installed new wells about 10 years ago. So what is coming from the tap now may not have the same properties.

Regarding "one aspect of water filtration I do understand is that of using media from coarse through very fine in depending order and plan to apply it to the supply coming through the main".

Do you also understand that along with the initial pressure and flow rate drop across the installed inline housing that as the filter clogs and as you install filter elements capable of removing smaller and smaller particles you will experience additional flow and pressure drop?

The filter housing and installed elements must not adversely effect the SFR (service flow rate) of the water supply.

In many instances, two 20" big blue filter housings should be installed in parallel and, IMO, pressure gauges should always be installed before and after filter housing so pressure drop can be monitored and the filter elements changed as soon as a significant pressure drop across the filter elements are seen.

Water filtration is but one aspect of water treatment and in some cases filtration merely treats a symptom but does not cure the disease.

Water treatment, especially on well water, should always begin with a comprehensive water test by an independent lab. On a well that should also include a bacteria test at a regular interval.

With those test results you will know what is in your water and a comprehensive plan can be designed to treat what you deem necessary.

That line is new copper, installed just last year. The line from the hydrant was replaced about 5 years ago. (The line was cheap compared to the guy with the backhoe.)

The real problem is in the lines connected to that new copper pipe, which is exposed, so was fairly easy to replace. The remaining ones are still galvanized and hidden above finished ceilings, and why I would have been thrilled to find a device that might have helped clear them without the need to tear out all of those ceilings.

The water originates from a public well, is treated by the municipality that supplies us and is presumably tested by our states' EPA, as all public water supplies in my state are regulated by that agency. Nevertheless, I will follow your suggestion and send a sample to an independent lab for testing and compare it to the EPA report, just to be sure.

I do regular water tests myself because I keep tropical fish, not because we have ever believed the water wasn't safe to drink, but that's why I know it's hard coming from the tap and have a small RO unit in my basement fish room and another, much larger unit in my greenhouse hatchery.

But now my husband is on a salt restricted diet, so if we do have to install a conventional softener, I expect another RO filter will follow, below the kitchen sink. He draws water from the RO unit in the basement for his coffee maker, but drinks the water coming from the refrigerator tap, so I can see yet another source that would need to be treated to remove salts.

There must be an easier solution but alas, as much as the electronic filters are hyped; from what I have read here, it appears they aren't it.

Hardness above 1-2 grains per gallon is considered hard and will result in all the things people complain happens with hard water. Calcium deposits, stiff clothes, spots on dishes, and earlier failure of faucets, water heater, and generally making life more difficult for anything the hard water gets to.

Those on a salt restricted diet can use potassium chloride (KCl) instead of sodium chloride as a regenerant in the softener. Costs more than salt but so does a coronary bypass.

Soften the water to the whole house and put an RO under the kitchen sink to feed a dedicated faucet and the fridge.

As far as no salt or electronic or magnetic softeners or conditioners you can achieve the same results by just wishing your water soft.

Sorry dude, you sound like an infomercial.

AliceInWonderland has a lot of credibility on this board - and you will need to post a lot more real info before you start casting any doubt on that.

The bottom line is that there is never a good, solid explanation of how these systems are supposed to work or any valid research to show that they work in general. Neither is there specific information on the effectiveness of a particular unit.

I'd like to see some real research on this stuff. If a magnetic field really causes some change in the water - how strong does that field have to be? Does it have to alternate? At what frequency does it need to alternate to for optimum effectiveness, etc. etc. I would want to see some analysis of the water that has been treated that would actually measure the level of "conditioning" and I would want proof - with a control group - that there was some useful benefit to this "conditioning".

I'm a reasonably intelligent guy and this has "voodoo" written all over it.

Now I understand... the Easywater does not soften water it makes the water think it is soft.

Why bother with an Easywater? Just sit down at the water meter and have a long heart to heart with your water. Explain to it that soft is better and if your water really wants to it can be soft. Tell your water to close it's eyes, click it's heels three times and say... there's nothing like soft, there's nothing like soft, there's nothing like soft.

I have 30g hard water, an ion exchange water SOFTENER, and a 13 year old water heater when the neighbors are replacing their water heaters every couple years and I can't remember ever replacing a faucet cartridge or bib washer.

You're right. That is exactly what EasyWater does. That is why salt softener companies are going out of business daily. Thats why the owners of salt softener companies are trying to join EasyWater's dealer network so they can get some business. You actually should call up Sam Walton, you know the founder of Wal-Mart, and tell him that the thousands and thousands of dollars he has spent on puting an EasyWater in every Wal-Mart in the country, has really been spent on "snake oil" or "voodoo softening".
Don't knock something you have no clue about.

"You actually should call up Sam Walton, you know the founder of Wal-Mart...". I don't believe Sam Walton is taking calls... he died in 1992

Here's some (not too technical) reading to help you sort out your confusion click here to learn

Note the Water Quality Research Council's Water Supply Classifications with hard water starting at 1 grain of hardness.

Some people just open their mouths to change feet.

Here endeth the lesson.

"Slightly hard" is not hardly soft. The inclusion of the word HARD denotes a level of HARDNESS. Hardness of SOME level begins at 1 grain per gallon.

When you're a hammer you treat everything as a nail... The Easywater apparatus DOES NOT SOFTEN WATER. When you can run hard water through an Easywater apparatus and show the level of hardness has decreased to 0-1 grain(s) per gallon give us a shout.

Till then, your posts for Easywater should be on eBay where they belong... or perhaps Ripley's Believe It or Not would be more appropriate.

Softening water... LOOK IT UP

I don't need luck with my "whole salt softener thing" because chemistry and physics are on my side.

In the absence of actual data and facts to support your position you revert to name calling... now that's 21st century marketing at it's best and the way to convince potential customers that your arguments are sound and your product actually works.

Now go sit in the corner... you need a time out.

1. "With EasyWater, the hardness minerals, calcium and magnessium, are not removed."
*** This is a true statement

2. "Alot of these so called chemists, which I truly am,"
*** Highly suspect, given this individuals apparent lack of understanding, demonstrated in this post.

3. "Those hardness minerals have a positive charge to them. Remember from high school chemistry that anything with a positive charge is attracted to a negative. In this case the negative charge is your pipes and water heater. Those hardness minerals group together and form what is known as lime scale."
*** Here, you are mixing up ions and minerals and generally making a mess. Calcium and magnesium ions have a positive charge, true, but they are not just sticking to your pipes on their own. In fact, they are dissolved entirely in your water, along with their negatively charged counterparts, typically CO3 ions. When calcium or magnesium combine with CO3 to form calcium or magnesium carbonate (when the water warms up and they combine and crystallize out of solution) the resulting crystals look basically like a spiky ball. While the initial microscopic layer of scale is attracted to the pipe wall by weak magnetism, the formation of subsequent scale layers is because lots of itty-bitty spiky balls hitting each other will stick together. Additionally, crystals form on crystals, thickening the scale layer.

4. "With EasyWater, that positive charge is removed. What then happens is those hardness minerals no longer have the ability to group together and stick to your pipes."
*** Here is where I start to have some real heartburn with this explanation. The Frieje system claims to cause super-saturated hardness ions to combine with other mineral ions and fall out of solution. I would have assumed that meant the formation of calcium or magnesium carbonate. However, the website refers to larger IONS, not larger molecules - HUGE DIFFERENCE.
Additionally, super-saturation of dissolved hardness is not typical as water enters your home - it is stable at this point. As the water is heated up in your water heater, right before it starts to form crystals, you will have a super-saturation situation due to the reverse solubility curve of calcium/magnesium carbonate, but Freije claims to work at the cold inlet to your home and somehow have a lasting effect throughout your water system, ignoring the fact that hardness scale doesn't form in cold systems anyway.
The positive charge of an ion is neutralized by combining with a negatively charged ion to form a neutral molecule - Calcium (positive) combining with carbonate (negative). The Freije system does not claim to do this. It claims to change the DISSOLVED minerals, which are not a problem anyway. It is the crystallizing minerals in you hot water system that are the problem.
So, if I assume they said what they meant to say, they are lying. If I assume they really meant to say molecules and not ions, they are stupid.

5. "Don’t believe everything you read on the internet"
*** Irony at its finest.

Look, there are some very smart people on this forum. If there is a new plumbing product or method on the market, it will get vetted here.

We don't all agree on everything and people have their biases and areas of interest. That said, a logical, educated and rational response is what will win people over, not BS, not FUD and certainly not personal attacks.

You dished out a lot of BS - Big Time. And when people called you on it, you resorted to personal attacks. You actually did more harm than good to your marketing efforts because you failed to provide any explanation or unbiased documentation for how these things allegedly work.

In the post-industrial age it's a market place of ideas - if you want to participate you need to have some and know how to present them.

EasyWater does not soften water.

No one would ever argue with you on this. That is because you're right. Only salt softners soften the water. This was not Indygals question though. She asked if EasyWater would work for her. The answer to this question depends on what she is trying to accomplish with her traditional salt softener. If she would like to protect her plumbing and appliances from hard water build-up, then yes, it will work. If she is trying to remove existing hard water build-up from her plumbing and appliances, then yes, it will work for her. If she would prefer to get a better lather with her soaps then regular hard water lathering, then yes, it will work for her. If she would prefer to get a better feel with her water than what regular hard water feels like, then yes, it will work for her.

If she likes the slick slippery feel that you get with a traditional salt softener then, no, EasyWater would not work for her.

Salt Softeners are not a bad thing, and they are a good option in some situations, but lets be honest here. This EasyWater technology has been around for awhile now and it's been proven to work for thousands of happy customers. There are hundreds of plumbing contractors all over the United States and Canada that recommend EasyWater because the results are there.

The company offers a 90-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not convinced within 90 days, return the system for a full refund. They don't even charge to ship it to you. If you return the system, the company will even pay the return shipping. How can you argue with that?

I didn't believe it either at first but I talked to a rep there and they referred me to a well-known plumbing contractor in my town. This plumbing company has been in business for over 100 years. They install EasyWater systems regularly and the results are dramatic. They put my EasyWater in and it does everything they advertise. That's all that matters to me. How do they do it? I couldn't care less. I don't know how a TV works either but when I turn it on I see results.

First, the research from the Univ. Portsmouth seems legitamite. According to the links posted by aquagenesis, a (perhaps "the") US distributor of scalewatcher -http://www.aquagenesisusa.com/IndepResearchSW.html - Vincent Hogan did some basic tests. He is indeed a lecturer at Univ. Portsmouth (http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/mde/staff/title,3888,en.html).

Second, scalewatcher claims the electric field causes the ions to crystalize within the activated area (where the coils are attached) and that such crystals will not attach to pipes. The additional claim is that the now ion-free water will better dissolve existing crystal build-up. This seems plausible, but if what alice says is true, how can these crystals not be the "spiky" kind that just stick anyway? Is it the crystalization caused by the electic field variance vs. the standard heat-acceleration from water heaters? I also wonder what happens if the water sits anywhere in the system for enough time (say overnight) if the scalewatcher induced crystals disolve again, reintroducing the problem (especially if you have a big water heater) - so is the benefit "temporary" or "time sensitive"?

Third, there seems to be a real lack of reviews/commentary/research even though these products have been available since 1991. If they don't work, that could be proven just as easily, yet no such research exists. Why?

Fourth, none of the companies selling these products (with the exception of Vitasalus - http://www.equinox-products.com/HardnessMaster.htm - which is selling stuff from equinox international which was successfully prosecuted by the feds for illegal business practices) seems to be fraudulent or have bad customer service. As a matter of fact scalewatcher has been selling for some time and seems to be favored by the BBB (although a 3 month accreditation is very short, even if no complaints have been filed).

I even found a review where scalewatcher apparently did refund at leat 75% of the product price (the 1 year quarantee does levy certain conditions for installation, upgrade, and length of usage), even though they apparently felt that the leak was not "their fault" (http://www.legalspring.com/Articles/uk-legal/20040519/900092_Scalewatcher-didnt-w.html). Seems upstanding enough as the customer in this case was probably too hot-headed to really work with them.

What gives me the most pause (oddly enough, although I would think the lack of any real evidence after 15 years of operation should) is the apparent professionalism of the company - a shoddy website spouting religious phrases is not a sign of success in my mind. I did find a claim that in UK 15000 units are shipped monthly (one of scalewatcher's own press releases) which is pretty significant. Couldn't they afford a decent UX designer? I happen to be in an eCommerce software company, and this seems unconcienable to me.

Still, I almost feel like for $500 I wouldn't mind being a test case.

"The Electronic water softener unit is composed of a signal cable that is wrapped several times around the pipe and an electronic unit that sends out a complex, dynamic current to produce extremely small, time-varying oscillating fields inside the pipe. The current that produces a oscillating field is known as Ampere's Law.

Electronic water softeners signal produces a unique square wave current that sweeps all the frequency responses from 1,000 - 12,000 Hz at a rate of 20 times a second. When the strength of the oscillating field varies with time and changes direction, an induced current is produced inside the pipe, a phenomenon known as Faraday's Law of Induction.

As the induced electric field oscillates, all particles which have an electrical charge are affected by the induced field. This causes the unstable mineral ions to precipitate or collide with each other to the point where the calcium carbonate crystals grow until they become so large that there are no more surface charges left to stick to the pipe walls. These calcium molecules precipitate into an aragonite form and flow through the system. As a byproduct of this "snowball" effect, freed water molecules become available to remove existing scale, molecule by molecule."

If this is accurate, can 2 inches of wrapped pipe really keep flowing water in an electric field long enough to create "aragonite" crystals? Hmmm.

The second post explaining how this works is total BS. Really.
It's like a Talking Head's song, where the phrases almost make sense, but not really.

It's this sort of nonsense that seals it for me.

1) The test setup is poor, very poor. Water at 80 C (176 F)is pumped through the heating coils to heat the test water to 60 C (140 F). This is not the way a water heater works. Immersed coils are heated directly, either electric or gas. The surface temperature of those coils would be much higher, causing more scale and harder scale.

2) The coils pictured have the appearance of mechanical cleaning.

3) No analysis of the water - neither the water IN the coils nor the water being heated. This is important as scale inside the coils will drastically affect the test.

4) A depth micrometer was used to test scale thickness - not the accepted method for determining pipe scaling because it requires that scale be removed mechanically to allow the spindle to touch bare metal. This mechanical removal introduces considerable error by either failing to reach bare metal or by removing some of the metal.

"I am not a scientist" - Sorry, but that is abundantly clear from your entire post. You have misused so many terms and concepts and made so many logical errors that I lost count.

Look, I have had it with the mumbo-jumbo, the pseudo science and the emotional environmental appeals.

I want some real science, an actual explanation, and some empirical testing by real scientists. No more BS. If this is real and works, there should be abundant research and independent testing available - not only for the technology as a whole, but for a given device. Let me know when that happens.

Also note that softening water and rendering hardness ineffective are two different things!

There is much dispute to effectiveness of certain devices, but the technology is real.

The problem is that it is not simple to apply the technology, water quality standards bodies have been "geared" towards ion exchange systems as they were the most effective in the past.
But we are more energy conscious these days, and hollistic, salt water softeners are wasteful but effective, we don't want wasteful but we want effective.

As for evidence, you can find it if you look, and a dilligent consumer will find it apparent, that this is one of those technologies that has not fully matured yet and is difficult to implement in a "general" way..

smallwonder.info/research.html some college evidence..
Also british gas did a study on hydropath technology.
Onspex did a report on hydropath technology.
The german government actually has a standard DVGW Standard W 512

The Oil companies have been using this technology on their oil platforms for years.
The technology is in manufacturing plants and industrial facilities across the globe, yet we still haven't seen strong adoption in the residential markets...

WHY?

It's not the "general" easy solution that modern consumers look for, but when you take a closer look at the product offering in the residential water treatment arena, it's quite clear that all water treatment device's suffer configuration woe's. And there just seems to be less solutions to these woe's in the electronic water conditiong market, mainly in my humble opinion, because it is hard for the electronic water conditioner market to combine their products with traditional device's while still maintaining the validity of the general marketing scheme, that this is the "only" device you need..

Freije doe's a good job of applying industrial solutions, it will be interesting to see how their easywater unit doe's.

It's sad that the water treatment industry, seems to be the greatest impediment to finding better ways to manage our resources, and to continue field research on the systems. There is pleny of commercial field evidence. And although the device's don't always perform to efficiency, they perform...

Not a question.

And jake2007, thanks for the apology.

Thanks.

By the way, how does the electric field penetrate copper pipes? I thought that it stayed on the surface of conducting metals. I'm a little rusty (no pun intended) on my electrodynamics.

Two problems:

1. As has been demonstrated here already, people with a financial interest in selling this snake oil will pose as customers.

2. Even real customers will often not give a fair evaluation because they don't want to be believe they've been "had" and because of the placebo effect.

By all means buy a Freije -- in fact buy several.

WQA Magnetics Task Force Report: In March of 2001, the Water Quality Association (http://www.wqa.org) published a two-year study called the "WQA Magnetics Task Force Report." The report detailed 34 of 106 scientific test results on magnetic water treatment that met the task force's scientific criteria. They concluded that many of these magnetic processes were valid and worked to soften water, but in order to spread the technology more research is required and the industry should be held to a certification standard concerning water treatment.

"Fortunately, the goal of this task force did not include and evaluation of science applied to specific technologies, processes, or devices or a determination of "whether megnetic and other physical water treatment processes work." The thirty-four papers that met the task force's criteria for being scientifically valid did not address that question. In that body of literature, there are indications that physical water treatment does work, that it does not work, that it may work, but only in certain circumstances, and that it may work in conjunction with or as a result of coincidental trace chemical or ionic leaching mechanisms or other combination technologies."

The fact that these products are out there without a shred of legitimate research demonstrating their effectiveness in residential settings speaks volumes.

bwilli, how is yours working out for you?

Now that's a ringing endorsement or a disclaimer that will be in fine print.

I'm not the water softener expert - there are a couple that I can recommend who contribute here: aliceinwonderland_id & andy_c. There may be others as well that I'm missing... my apologies to them. On the other hand, I do have a basic background in physics, chemistry and electricity and a pretty good nose for BS.

You've specifically dismissed anyone who has an education and the fact that there is no legitimate research supporting specific manufacturers' mercurial claims or the use of this technology in residential water treatment in general.

Good luck.

While not a chemist, I am a BSN trained RN, so I do have a background in chemistry, and the basic claims simply don't add up. You cannot change an ion's charge with a magnet. As Alice has stated, that is a matter of chemistry, not magnetism; unless someone changed the rules of physics while I wasn’t looking. And constant reference to Faraday's Law smacks of obfuscation. Faraday's law is a very complicated mathematical equation describing the creation of an induction field. Period. This does not explain HOW Faraday's Law is applied to the technology. Referencing Faraday’s Law and explaining HOW IT APPLIES are two totally different things. I have yet to see where Easy Water does the latter. And, while this may be splitting hairs, Ampere’s Law is a law, not a generated field, as claimed by the Scalewatcher site. Poor grammar and poor application of terms, greatly adds to my skepticism about a site’s veracity. It makes me think that the writers don’t even understand what they are writing about.

All of this, along with the scale build up we have had on our dishwasher already and having to use CLR and a needle to clean out the spray head on the sink faucet, within our first month in the new home, makes me highly skeptical of the claims. Keep in mind this is a brand new house with brand new plumbing, no old scaling to be removed. I have spoken with the contact person at the power company about my concerns, a PhD trained chemical engineer, who said she also questioned the claims initially but wanted to give it a shot, and we are currently investigating other technologies for replacing the system.

That being said, Freije has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and continues to sell lots of systems. Of course, the BBB is largely a matter of how you deal with customers, and who wouldn’t feel better about a "No Maintenance" and non polluting system which offers you the world?

Bottom line is, I still see scaling, I don’t see any scientific studies which would survive the first round of a peer review, and the science simply doesn’t add up. And I REALLY WANTED THIS TO WORK. I was hoping that my limited chemistry and electrical engineering background simply made it beyond my understanding. A system which eliminates the salination caused by current softeners would be a great thing. Unfortunately, that has not proven true. For me the evidence indicates that this system doesn’t do what it says. Perhaps I will be proven wrong one day.
Actually, I hope I am.

If your untreated water has a hardness of 2 grains or more you should be able to see some differences in these tests. If you are on a municipal water supply you will have access to their hardness testing and other water quality data. Where I live this data is included in my city utility bill one time each year, and my hardness level is just below 3 grains pretty consistently. That's not very hard, but you can tell the difference.

Now there may be some very slight contamination of the distilled water in the gallon jugs but I can assure you its hardness will measure very close to zero and certainly below 0.5 grains, and probably below 0.1. In short there will be very little if any hard water minerals in it so it will provide a good test. (Alice please comment on my statements here.) If you have doubts then buy some and take it to a local lab for testing, and/or boil it dry in a covered pan and look for any calcium or other residue left over. Do make sure that you get distilled water and not spring water or mineral water or just filtered tap water. The gallon jugs should be clearly marked as "Distilled Water" and will most likely mention steam distillation in the fine print.

Once you have the distilled water your first test will be very easy. Rinse your hands and forearms thoroughly in untreated tap water but don't dry them, and then gently rub your hands together, and rub your hands gently down each forearm. You will notice a bit of stickiness, or perhaps the "squeakiness" associated with being "squeaky clean". Unfortunately for you and anyone else who believes in "squeaky clean", what you are actually feeling is the hard water mineral residue left on your skin by the hard water.

Next use the distilled water and once again thoroughly rinse. You will have to be thorough here and keep in mind that when showering you're probably under the water for at least 5 minutes, and keep in mind it will take a certain amount of rinsing and physical hand action to remove the hard water minerals you just felt from the untreated water.

Once you do thoroughly rinse with the distilled water, and feel your hands and forearms as above you will feel that slippery feeling that the EasyWater promoters are referring to as "slimy". If you're used to hard water it will feel odd at first, but that is the true feel of your clean skin without the layer of hardness. If you're doubting this think about the fact that you are essentially using the most pure water you can get without your own distillery. If pure water leaves your skin feeling this way then you should realize that's how you want your skin to feel after handwashing and/or showering. This fact also tells you that anyone referring to the feeling you get from 100% pure water as "slimy" is ignorant at best, and more likely slimy marketers trying to prey on the fact that many people are unfamiliar with the feel of truly soft water.

Your next step is to repeat this same test with water "treated" with EasyWater. If you have a hard time being objective you may need to perform a blind test, where someone else puts distilled, untreated, and EasyWater in 3 unmarked containers for your use. Just remember the slippery (not "slimy") feeling is what you should feel. If you doubt this talk to a dermatologist or other skin expert about whether "squeaky" is clean or healthy.

The next test uses liquid soap in small quantities. You may have to experiment with the quantities of liquid soap and water, but you will essentially be performing the same test as above where you use untreated, distilled, and EasyWater.

You will need to make sure you can measure the soap precisely so the foaming container kinds are out. If you don't have a graduated dropper of any kind try using a child's medicine dropper to get 0.5 to 1 mL of soap and dropping it into exactly one quart of water. The water must be in a closed container so it can be shaken, after which you will estimate the amount of soap suds you get.

Note that the water container and the dropper for the soap must be very clean to avoid contamination and spoiling your results, so I suggest a thorough rinsing of all 3 (or interim rinsing of the 1) with distilled water before any testing is done. Again remember that distilled water is very pure relative to tap water.

What you will find is that the distilled water produces more lather with the same amount of soap, and there will be little or no difference between the tap water and the EasyWater. Even if you don't quite understand the previous slippery vs. squeaky test the soap lather test will directly contradict EasyWater's "use less soap" claim. If there is a lot of soap in all 3 such that it fills the empty space in your containers (and thus makes differentiating difficult) you will need to reduce the amount of soap used in all 3 and/or increase the quantity of water.

For yet one more test try using a portable cool vapor humidifier. With distilled water you will see no residue left on your evaporating "filter" element. With tap water or EasyWater it may take a few fillings but you will see the hard water buildup in a fairly short time. Just make sure that no cleanings, additives or other features of the unit are actually softening the water or otherwise masking the true results.

My own personal story is that I have had a salt water softener for about the past 9 1/2 years, and it has a diverter valve I use to bypass the unit when watering. I don't always remember to undo my bypass after watering, and upon showering with the unit bypassed it doesn't take me long to realize that my water isn't soft. The now dreaded squeakiness is obvious. My water tank is also almost 11 years old now with no problems.

Obviously these tests can also be followed up by comparing distilled water with water treated by a "conventional" salt softener like those sold at Lowe's, Home Depot, Sears, and elsewhere. What you will find is that the softened water behaves just like the distilled water.

As for sodium or salt from softeners affecting water quality and/or contributing to problems in streams or rivers, I'd be interested to see if there is an objective source making this claim. As for ingesting extra sodium because your water is softened you do have the option of running an untreated line to your sink or refrigerator for drinking purposes.

I hope this helps anyone out there who really has doubts about which way to go.

The induced electromotive force or EMF in any closed circuit is equal to the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through the circuit.

See also here:

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Faraday%27s_Law

There's nothing about "molecular agitation". As an Electrical Engineer I can tell you you're either inducing ("causing") a current with a magnetic field or you're inducing ("causing") a magnetic field with a current.

In addition to stating that "molecular agitation in the water" is Faraday's Law, the EasyWater site claims that "Electronic frequencies (not actual electricity) pass through the pipe". Just now is actually the first time I've read this on their site and I can assure you it's total bunk.

Almost all copper plumbing systems are grounded, and the grounded copper would not only immediately shunt any electric current to ground it would also act as an extremely effective shield against any sort of "electronic frequencies" which one would have to assume refers to RF energy of some sort.

I seriously doubt there's any hope left on the magnetic field end of things, but EasyWater is not even claiming it's the magnetic field.

I guess they only stay in business because Barnum, errrr, David Hannum, was right.

Been using it for about 15 years on 30g hard water.

No negatives other than costs more than NaCl but at one bag per month I can handle it.