Anyone Have Success With a Magnetic Water Softener?

It could effect dissolved Iron, Nickel and Cobalt fairly strongly which have a very strong magnetic affinity, and most other minerals to a lesser degree. However, in a practical sense it would only really attract iron, since that is a high enough concentration and strong enough affinity if the distance is short enough and the magnets strong enough. Usually hard water is an issue relating to primarily calcium and magnesium, though sometimes iron can be problematic also.

The issue of precipitates forming at the magnetic coils is a problem. If permanent magnets you could not remove the precipitate eaily, if electromagnets you could cut the power and back wash, but you would not want this as a magnet around a simple pipe as the iron would deposit in the pipe, so you would need a clean out valve somewhere adjacent to the magnet to remove deposits. This method could be used to remove iron, but you would wqnt the piping where it connects engineered, and the energy cost would not justify the water quality gains. You can get far more gain for the cost from exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes or activated carbon.

Woody,

In case you need another testimonial, I am embarrassed to say that I wasted my money and time on this useless junk once.

One of the devices I researched had literature that was convincing that this wonderful, innovative, state of the art device will make your water soft as peaches and cream. Rest assured, these devices are as useless as a one legged man in an a$$ kicking contest

Buy a good old fashion water softener (24,000 grain or above) and use only high quality softener pellets - you won't regret it!

If your water supply is from a well (on your property not a municipal well), a whole house filter ahead of the softener is a must.

Good Luck - KJK

As KJK said, a whole house system is best. Even if you have a 60 year old house with pipes almost clogged with minerals you can reverse and clean those pipes with a whole house system. It works just like how the minerals got in there in the first place. The softener removes the minerals that were saturated in the water and the now demineralized water begins dissolving the minerals in your pipes downstream of the softener. You would notice a significant drop in mineral content but there would still be some until all of the minerals were cleaned from the pipes.

Just hope the mineral deposits were not what was keeping it from leaking :)

Drew

I have been going upstream on this one for a while. It is to alter the water so that the dissolved minerals dont REACT. Say what??

This is a great one for the myth busters for sure, thanks for the reply. Woody

i don't know how, but what they are supposed to do is to stop the minerals reacting so the the stuff is still in the water and thats where it stays somehow.

never tried one dont know if its true or not.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+do+magnetic+water+softners+work&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=mxGJTOXxOt7U4wax2sXSBA

How does this answer help?

It shortens the search for useful links by one - or sometimes up to 20, maybe 100 in a whole thread.

As others have said this is a scam. See previous threads on CR4 where this (the magnetic petrol line product and the magnetic anti-rust vehicle shield) scams have been covered in depth.

My landlord put one into his house and it wasn't long before he disconnected it. It made large crystals that stopped up his aerators in the faucets. Now he has to deal with the same liquid rock that everyone in his rental properties has to deal with...

I've had first hand experience with the coils in Hotels and Vila complexes in Bali. They do work to a point. So do magnets, to a point. The brine solution devices choke up with the calcium there.

Washing out pipework with a 15% dilution of HCL removes a lot of the debris. Use a food color in the mix to check when it is at the endpoints of the system. Leave it sit in the pipes for 30 mins then wash out again with fresh water.

But I always have and will continue to get shot down here when it comes to this subject. I'm not going to mention vivifier shells today. :-)

Here's something but I don't think it's just magnets. I think magnets are being used as the apparent vector whereas there's something else involved in the 'magnets'.

http://waterforlife.net.au/water-for-life/testimonial/australian-strawberry-distributors-best-quality-strawberries-and-incredib

Magnetic water treatment will NOT remove dissolved solids in your water. Depending on your application it will make those dissolved solids less apt to 'stick'. Most residential and light commercial applications will not see much success with a magnetic 'coil'. It may help to prevent the solids from accumulating though. I have one on my house. It is more than 100 years old, but I have replaced the entire culinary water system with copper and PEX. For some applications a magnetic treatment solution will help to prevent dissolved solids from becoming unmanageable or costly to solve. Most residential applications that will have solids becoming lodged in the aerators of faucets or that have solids accumulating on the aerators will not benefit from a magnetic water treatment system and even with a great one on your pipes you will still see those solids collecting where they may. I have seen them work ok, with systems that are greater than 95% PEX (or any synthetic piping solution) and it will only allow you to clean those solids off easier than if you did not have a magnetic treatment system installed. I like them, but the application needs to be designed and calculated. If you use a lot of water they may be beneficial. They can be expensive though and perhaps not worth your time. Good luck.

Some swear they work while most say they don't.

The things are more popular in Europe - but then Thalomide was as well

If anyone wants one of the fool things they should just buy the magnets and install them. Paying 50 to 100 times the price for magnets is a bit silly.

Can I still buy the magnets that align the fuel molecules going into my caburetor?

The guy selling the magnets doesn't care and if you will provide a glowing testimonial they may give a 2% discount.

Some places and some people claim the things work - the other 90% plus laugh at them.

No. The free energy artists have already snapped them up....

I have been watching this for 20 years and watched a hotel trash the chw and domestic system in under 4 years. I have what I consider the best watertreatment consultant in the country. The goal is to stop to disolved minerals from scaling on the pipes and especially any heat transfer equipmment. The electro magnet, according to my expert will work when the velocity remains above 20fps. It doesn't remove the disolved minerals, it prevents the from forming what is basically concrete( lime and silica). Domestic water supplies never appraoch this velocity and vary continuously in use. In hot water chilled water hvac systems the developed head would require much more pump hp and the rate of heat transfer diminishes as you go past 5.4 fps (reynolds 2500). We need the turbulence at this level for ideal heat transfer. Above 20 fps would erode the pipes. Bottom line, there is no magic. My advice is to spend your time researching to find the best equipped expert and let him advise and install. I watch owners pay Culligan and the other big names only to have the same problems and continue wasting salt. Whenever I bring in Randy they thank me and ask why I didn't send them to him before they wasted the time and money. Sometimes the problem is not hardness(calcium carbonate) but some other problem. A quick inspection and a lab test on the water($75) and he has always been dead on.

Wow, need a huge amount of electrical energy to power an electromagnet that effectively modifies calcium cations and silica anions moving at approximately 20 fps (not very fast for magnetic separation). What is supposed to happen to these ions when they leave the strong magnetic field. Electronegative anions at a high velocity will tend to follow a path that bends in one direction at a right angle, and the electropositive cations would follow a path bending in the other direction while in a strong field and at a high velocity, but as soon as they beign to leave the field the ions mix again in the turbulent water flow (or for that matter they would mix in just static water). Iron, Nickle and cobalt on the other hand would tend concentrate near the magnetic coils and the increased concentration would cause it to precipitate (it would begin to re-dissolve as soon as it left this concentration gradient).

BTW that scale in your lines actually protects your water system, as it minimizes the corrosion to the water lines. You actually want a certain concentration of calcium and carbonate in the water to maintain a thin layer of lime along the surface of the metal pipes.

RCE- Completely agree with your analysis. At higher velocity scaling appears to be inhibited naturally but I can't think of an application that calls for such high speed flow with water. Our most common problems are the result of fresh water make-up in evaporative cooling equipment and they are easily managed with proper maintenance and the aid of good chemists. The real problem to me is the fact that people seem to want to beieve in magic. They don't want to think for themselves so the salesmen, politicians and media sell them the magical cures to common problems. Your response is informative and refreshing to me but not likely to be read by most of the people I have to deal with. My customer base is mostly larger corps. and I know that 2 of them are considering the benefits of this modern magic. I only listen when they mention it because I know people in general want to hear what they want to hear. Why would they look for boring of chemistry and physics when they can hear about magic from a huckster.

"Wow, need a huge amount of electrical energy to power an electromagnet that effectively modifies calcium cations and silica anions moving at approximately 20 fps (not very fast for magnetic separation)."

The magnet does not have to be an electro-magnet. A permanent magnet can be used if the required field strength is not extraordinarily high but, on the other hand, rare-earth magnets (samarium-cobalt, neodymium, et al), can be extremely powerful -especially the larger ones. They're also very expensive but, over the long term, so is electricity (and getting more so).

What sort of field strength does this electromagnet produce and how big is it, physically? Do you know the field strength/how many Gauss/Tesla? How is it shaped and where are the poles located? Do you have pix of this thing in application?

Sorry for all the questions but I find this intriguing.

The magnets are intriguing, but don't believe the scam. Read my post above, do a little reading into how water dissolves minerals and find out for yourself if this is a scam or not.

Drew K

Drew, I'm more curious as to Conwaymech's assertions about the magnet his consultant uses and its effects. Has Conwaymech run experiments (with a control and hopefully double-blind), and what were the results? Can the results be duplicated independently by others, that sort of thing. Plain ol' curiosity.

In my opinion, there is not enough theoretical evidence to warrant physical investigation. You can perform some research of your own using rare earth magnets and a small recirculating water system if you really want to.

The biggest problem I have with this (if I remember from when I read this the first time) is where do the dissolved minerals go? If this is in a pipe and has no collector for the dissolved minerals where do they go? Ordinary water softeners require that you change the consumable parts regularly because they collect and remove the minerals.

Drew K

About 10 years ago I listened to a manuf rep of the wire wrap around devices give his standard speech along with several others. I was quiet until he was almost finished and asked him how the "energy can pass through the metal water pipes". He was much taken aback that someone would challenge him but continued to praise the units. I then told him several scientific reasons, in plain language, why the things were "snake oil". As the group was leaning more towards my explanations he promised to send me the independent research paper on the units.

After several months I finally received the literature and it contained even more BS than he did. Even a high school sophmore could deduce that these units were fake.

This is the short story of why Home Depot no longer sells these things.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+does+magnetism+affect+plant+growth&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=DICKTLHgNoOQjAey4fySBg

intresting

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+does+magnetism+affect+humans&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=lICKTJ61Jti4jAeXy8DMBg

Funny part about these 'water softeners' is that suckers buy them and some people, rather than admit they are a failure, try to get others hooked on them.

I guess for some it is just that they don't check the results and assume the units do something while others are just asses and want others to be equally screwed!