How Can a Water Softener Benefit Your Water Pipes? Insights from a Pentair Water Softening Company in Orland Park, Illinois
Hard water has all sorts of negative effects. Not only does it harm your skin and hair, but it also causes undue wear and tear on your water-based appliances. One of the costliest effects, however, is the effect that hard water has on the water pipes in your home.
Fortunately, water softening systems exists, and they can negate these effects. Are you interested in learning how a water softener can benefit your water pipes? This Pentair water softening company in Orland Park, Illinois is going to explain below.
Understanding the Negative Effect of Hard Water on Water Pipes
To understand how the water softener can benefit water pipes, it’s important that you first understand the effect of hard water on water pipes. It all comes down to calcium and magnesium content.
Hard water is rich in calcium and magnesium. Because of this, when it flows through water pipes, it tends to leave those two minerals behind. They cling to the interior walls of the water pipes, and over time, they accumulate.
As these minerals accumulate, they make the pipe narrower and narrower. As it grows narrower, water pressure in the home reduces. Eventually, the accumulation can become so severe that there’s no longer any room for water to flow through. When this happens, the pipes will need to be replaced entirely.
As you may know, replacing a full water pipe system is going to cost you thousands of dollars. Fortunately, you can avoid this by having a water softener installed by your local Pentair water softening company in Orland Park, Illinois. A water softener will remove all the calcium and magnesium from your water supply, preventing internal pipe buildup, and thereby ensuring you don’t have to replace your pipes for decades and decades.
Water softeners provide a range of other benefits as well. Not only do they help improve your skin and hair, but they also increase soapsud production, take wear and tear off water-based appliances, and allow for softer and longer-lasting clothing.
Understanding Water Softener Functionality
As you are now aware, water softeners can prolong the lifespan of water pipes substantially. What you might be wondering, though, is how exactly they work?
They make use of a scientific principle known as ion exchange. This is a process in which positively charged ions are exchanged for negatively charged ions. In the water softener’s case, sodium ions are exchanged with calcium and magnesium ions.
This is facilitated with the help of resin beads. These store sodium ions until hard water comes through the system. When it does, the sodium ions make room for the calcium and magnesium ions that are contained within the hard water. The latter two minerals cling to the resin beads while the sodium enters the water.
By the time the water has finally left the water softener, it contains small amounts of sodium, and no traces of calcium and magnesium. In essence, it’s soft.
Because it no longer contains calcium and magnesium particles, the softened water doesn’t cause any internal pipe buildup. Therefore, the water pipes in your home will function optimally for the foreseeable future.
As the homeowner, your only responsibility is to add softener salt to the water softener. Your Pentair water softening company in Orland Park, Illinois will recommend doing this every one or two months, depending on your situation.
Looking for a Pentair Water Softening Company in Orland Park, Illinois?
Are you interested in prolonging the lifespan of your water pipes? Ready to have a new system installed by the best Pentair water softening company in Orland Park, Illinois? If so, Johnson Water Conditioning is here to help. Contact us today to learn more about how your home can benefit from having soft water.