Any thoughts about this type of system?

http://www.needplumbingsupplies.com/Aqu ... psRfrMfg=1

Sweaner,

There are several things that need to be known before you can estimate the life capacity of this filter.

1. What is the hardness feeding the filter? Estimate 20 gr
2. What is the volume in cu in of the media (Ion Exchange Softener Resin)? estimate 15 cu in
3. What is the flow rate of the water? estimate 2 gpm

With this in mind you can use the following formula to determine the life of the cartridge.
The average capacity for Softener resin (And this covers 85% of the resins made today) 19 grains per cu in.

Volume (15 cu in) x Capacity (19 gr) = 285 total grain capacity removal. So with a feed of 20gpg (grains per Gallon) 285 / 20 = 14.25 gallons life.

Again the above information is needed to estimate the life capacity. This is only an estimate.

In response to the Watts products our Water Chemist Phil Wagner states the following:

Phil Wagner wrote:If you read the first paragraph on the link listed below, I think you will see that this is probably very shaky if not out and out quackery.

http://www.chem1.com/CQ/aquacrack.html

Technologies must pass a series of tests to become accepted:

• Peer Review
• Scientifically repeatable tests demonstrating the same or similar results
• Actually applies real world science to the technology
• Doesn't rely on pseudo science gobblety gook or pseudo tech spiel.
• A host of other conditions that I have not listed here but can be found in this web site.
This technology has been reviewed all over the world and inventively it shows itself for what it really is - quackery.

The problem with this type of technology is that it betrays Newton's first law of the conservation of energy. There has to be a net loss or gain in energy to change the physical dynamics of any compound in an inert fluid. Even catalytic technologies follow certain laws of energy and fluid kinetics. If they could offer a well prepared paper that dealt with the scientific issues of crystallization technology and precipitation then there might be something to it. So far, however, it's only testimonials which is what all pseudo science balances it's claims on.

Read through this website and follow the links. This guy is a little on the Rush Limbaugh side of brashness, but his science is sound. All of us, including me, would like to find new and exciting technologies that could help give us the upper hand, but, unfortunately this is not one of those technologies.

I agree with Rod Carmer, this seems like quackery and almost as if WC Fields wrote this.

The size of the bonds is so small that they can only be seen with a microscope.

Because the ions are formed into stable bonds, the TDS is thus lowered.

What bonds? What are the anions and how is this stable, not dissolving in coffee or in acidic water?

The crystals built by us are created so that they cannot stick together and cannot
grow larger than 30 microns.

Where is there any science backing this up? I still don't understand what these crystals are.

The corrosion prevention works by adding a 30 micron protective layer to the
surface of pipes and hardware.

If they cannot stick together, how do they only stick to pipes at 30 mu? And are the pipes mandated to be Cu, Fe or CPVC?

I expected an addendum to their spiel "Listen, have I got a deal for you. I own this bridge that goes from City Hall to Brooklyn..."

Marvin with a BS in chemistry and a doctorate in the life sciences.

Hopefully this experiment doesn't fall under the category of "taking one for the (H-B) team", but I'm at the 4-month point now of using what appears to be a Watts Scale-Net conditioner.
I ordered a "MEP" system from US Water Systems, choosing them for the simple reason that, at the time, they were the only supplier I found to post the price of replacement media.
When the shipment eventually arrived, it was all strapped onto one pallet, everything right-side-up, and had come directly from a Watts site (Florida or Texas, I forget which... they all seem the same from up here in Minnesota).

There's was a one-page "instruction" sheet included with the shipment, which looked like this
http://media.wattswater.com/Scale_Net_I ... ential.pdf
except what I got was a monochrome multi-generation photocopy, not that the graphics were necessary.
This one-page information/instruction sheet had a warning at the top and at the bottom about not exceeding the rated flow, something that there was no mention of on the retailer's site (nor on Watts' site when I later looked).

The bottom line, before I ramble on too much, is: I think it works.

All I have so far is anecdotal evidence, but it is generally promising. To wit:
We lived with a conventional cat-ion (salt-based) water softener (Kinetico for the curious) for over a decade. We had it removed last summer, and ran off straight city water for a half year. During that half year, the dishwasher got a film on the inside, the glass shower doors got foggy, and most noticeable to me, my variable thermosiphon restrictor (red knob) got gummed up faster than usual:

Its (the red knob's) normal behavior (with a water softener) is to get sticky within 2 or 3 months of de-scaling and to get almost impossible to turn after 5 or 6 months. So I did a de-scale about a month before the installation of the MEP/Scale-Net system (which was late March of 2011). Five months later, and 4 months of "anti-scale", and it still spins like a top.

The conditioning system looks like this:

A sediment filter (1), a carbon filter (2), and the anti-scale bottle (3).
The anti-scale media doesn't tolerate much chlorine, so many of these systems come with a large carbon filter. Our water isn't particularly good tasting, so I didn't mind paying for a large carbon filter to replace my small carbon filter (blue fuzzy thing).

Getting back to anecdotal evidence... the glass shower doors are less foggy. The dishwasher is not a good indicator, yet. Last fall the dish detergents stop coming with phosphorus, but not all inventory moved in synch. For a while the dishwasher appeared cleaner, and then with a change in detergent brand (both sans phosphorus) it didn't.

In my efforts to get an explanation of the flow-rate warnings that were shipped with my MEP system, I discovered that Watts is now selling a different anti-scale system, called OneFlow.
http://media.wattswater.com/1915998.pdf
It's even sold by a different division than the one selling Scale-Net (Scale-Net from Watts WQP (Water Quality Products), OneFlow from Watts Water Safety and Flow Control).
There are three differences that I noticed:
- No warning about exceeding the flow rate is present in the OneFlow instructions.
- Chlorine allowable for Scale-Net is 2 ppm. For OneFlow it's 3 ppm.
- Minimum input temperature for Scale-Net is 34F. For OneFlow it's 40F.

Adding to the confusion, there are "commercial" versions of Scale-Net. Supposedly the only difference from residential is the amount of media in the bottle:
http://media.wattswater.com/Anti-ScaleSys_WQP.pdf
I don't yet know if there is a commercial OneFlow product line.

I'll post more observations in a few months. One of the "observations" I need to make is to dump out the MEP tank and see if there is any media in it. I'm sure my peak flow rate exceeds the nominal flow rating, although the peak doesn't last but a matter of seconds.

-Ed

Well, some bad news on the anti-scaling scene.
My bellwether, the valve on the thermo-siphon return, still spins like a top, indicating no scale build-up on the shaft. But the rest of the thermo-siphon return (and probably the feed line as well) has completely scaled up.
Without any dis-assembly or further investigation, I can only surmise that the anti-scale/de-scale effects only work at maybe less than 150F (+/- a bunch). The shank on the valve would be the coldest thing in the thermo-siphon loop, being brass and having a generous ratio of exposed surface area outside the valve. And what little of the shank is inside the valve isn't directly in the flow, being a gate valve.
So all indications so far are that ScaleNet may work as advertised for normal household plumbing, but not in elevated-temperature applications.
-Ed

decaf_Ed wrote:I ordered a "MEP" system from US Water Systems, choosing them for the simple reason that, at the time, they were the only supplier I found to post the price of replacement media.

At the risk of saying the obvious, next time check the specs while you're looking for prices. The Watts website says the ScaleNet system only works up to 150F (Since their posted test results didn't go past 120F, I wonder what the 150 is even based on). http://media.wattswater.com/Anti-ScaleSys_WQP.pdf

There's two (at least) parts to the magic. Part A is when the water is conditioned, passing by the media. Part B is when the water goes elsewhere and doesn't leave scale attached to what it passes through. The specs I vaguely remember seeing alluded to Part A (inlet water temperature) being limited to around 140F, but made no allusions to part B. So I gave them the benefit of the doubt (i.e. ran an experiment to make up for the lack of information) and tried it for myself.
Meanwhile, the dishwasher and shower doors are looking pretty good.
-Ed

Marshall said - . . . only works up to 150F . . .

Don't you think that is the temperature limitation of the water being treated by the Watts system? After all, their literature says:

Calcium creates scale in pipes, on appliances and other plumbing surfaces. This leads to higher heating and energy costs and expensive repairs to appliances, such as ice machines, coffee makers, dishwashers and cooling towers in commercial buildings.

I came close to buying one of these systems also but the "show stopper" was that there was no means of measuring the ongoing effectiveness other than "is there a scale buildup".