We Knew Ahead Of Time: Hard Water

Bought the place Spring of 2012. Getting moved there from Missouri Ozarks stands as a most involved story for elsewhere, (it involved a truck we bought, a U.S. Marine, etc.). I knew the pitfalls of desert groundwater, going into the proposition, so "wrote that off". Now, we have learned the truth: Our water is supplied by a privately-owned water company (no problem there), which pumps groundwater from deep wells. The "well-field" serving us is visible through our kitchen windows, and has 4 giant tanks for holding the water to be distributed to customers.

A "free" water testing offer brought a guy to our house last year. Of course, he tried to sell us "water-conditioning" equipment. Most importantly I wanted to avail him of the free water test, which he performed, concluding our water's hardness was 38 grains per gallon, pretty danged hard, but more importantly, it's total dissolved solids measured 1700 parts per million (ppm). So, about 1/2 of our water's true hardness was the traditionally measured stuff, about 800 ppm. The rest is dissolved stuff not usually considered in "hardness" considerations. Maybe Arsenic, Lead, Iron, Copper, Aluminum, could be anything depending on the mineralization underground, through which the well-water flowed.

I have vowed, in view of the fact that we cool the domicile almost exclusively by evaporative cooling, which process removes all the dissolved minerals from the water, and "plates" them out on the parts of the cooler exposed to water, just about everywhere, to not endure yet another wonderful experience next winter of scraping, swearing, cleaning the coolers. Given my druthers, I'd feed the coolers distilled water. Given water consumption by a "swamp cooler", ~ 10 gallons per day, buying distilled is ruled out. There's the history.
Do any of you have ideas pertaining to my plight, or experience with hard water intervention? Maybe some in the Desert Southwest also use swamp cooling, and also could use input.

I would post pics of the cooler pad holders, if I had them. Suffice to say, great amounts of alkali are scraped off amidst plenty of unhappy, deranged comment. Plus, some of the deposits are not only affecting usability, but rather also seem to cause rusting away of the flimsy housing materials used to build these demons.

Frank

 

Sorry, Frank, but your post reads like a transmission from a Martian colony, to me. Is the unit on the roof, or on the side of your house? Is it like the picture? What do you do for drinking water?

 

@Joe Riley Great presentation! My "thousand words" disappear within your one picture! I bought a large swamper, 6500 cubic feet per minute (air movement), the pictured one would be less than half that size. First summer it stood outside the patio door, blowing into the house through the screen. That winter, I cut a hole through the wall of our bedroom, directly across from the doorway into it. Thus, the cooler now blows through the entire length of the house, exhausting the huge draft of airflow out of the farthest windows away from it. It is a side-draft type, as opposed to the roof-mount type, which usually blows directly downward into ductwork under the roof. Downdraft design is a bit better, in that it uses 4 pads, compared to the 3 of side-draft type.

Swamp coolers are derided by many, as being ugly, and imply they typically represent "hill-billy" existence. The alternate A/C method is far more expensive to operate.

Now, for the water problem.....Frank

Add: We drink the hard water without consequence, cook with it, but I have always personally preferred the taste of distilled water. The real Frank Sanoica severely reprimanded me when told of that preference. He claimed our bodies need the dissolved minerals!

 

I had an older friend, who liked to brag that every morning, when he got up, he drank a tall glass of hot water, from the tap. He claimed it held beneficial "minerals". Anyone who has seen the inside of a hot water tank, might question that practice.

 

Interesting thought, Joe! I think, though I've often run it through my mind, that the water flowing into the water heater is pretty much exactly the same as that leaving it enroute to the faucet. Here's what I think, but won't dispute the questionability of drinking water out of the water heater: Main stuff producing the "scale" both in my coolers, and water heaters, is Calcium Carbonate, which is plain old Limestone. Cold water will hold it dissolved in the liquid much more readily than hot water. So, as the water is heated in the water heater, (and I THINK the effect is more pronounced in electric water heaters, than gas-fired), the water adjacent to, touching the elements, is heated beyond the saturation temperature for the amount of carbonate dissolved, and some of it "plates out", precipitates and collects in the tank. That which comes out as scale, does not re-dissolve; why? I don't know! Generally speaking, colder the water, the more "stuff" it will dissolve.

 

Below, our big cooler with it's pad-holders removed.



How a new pad looks. The metal pad holder has many louvers through which the air flows, on the side opposite the pad side shown. All of the air must flow through the pad, which is long shreds of Aspen wood.



Pad material close up. The pads are kept soaked with water constantly, which flows through them from the top. Since the air is moving quite fast through the pad, it "picks up" water through evaporation in the form of water vapor, thus cooling the air. Same effect as when a wet finger is blown upon, or you get out of a tub of water and feel "cold".



The white deposits are the "scale" deposited on the pad-holder, very hard stuff, difficult to scrape off.



Close-up of scale. After operating for several months, sufficient scale builds up on the pad material to reduce it's ability to function gradually. When dried out, the wood shreds are white and sharp. Rubbed across the back of the hand, one would think an abrasive was slicing away their skin!















Soft water containing little dissolved mineral content will not produce the unwanted effect shown. Such use would allow for great pad life. Really "bad" water requires pads be replaced more than once each season.

When I was growing up in the Midwest, I never saw an evaporative cooler, or "swamp" cooler, because they are very inefficient due to the high relative humidity almost always present. Swamp coolers rely on low humidity, which is typical of arid, or desert climates. On my first trip out West, I wondered what the heck those funny-looking boxes were on all the house roofs!

So, my quest continues for a means of "feeding" our two coolers (one in my shop) softer water. Best way? Only a few weeks from now, we will be wanting that cooler running a few hours a day!

 

@Yvonne Smith Yes, vinegar will dissolve calcium carbonate pretty well. But not the stuff I have, which I believe contains also, silicates which even 50% hydrochloric acid (pool acid) will not dissolve! The stuff adheres to metal like no alkali I've ever seen. My wife runs vinegar through our coffee maker fairly regularly; if she does not, it gets slower and slower......

I would very much like to know more about your distiller, can you give me more info? How much does it make in a day? Is it run by electricity? Thanks for any info! Also, for the distilled water link. I may be back, haven't looked at it yet. Frank

@Yvonne Smith Yvonne, I don't know if @... works on edits, will find out. Excellent article in your link! One thing not mentioned, is important. Distilled water produced under vacuum conditions, that is, the water is never allowed to contact air, is pure water, having a Ph of 7.0, that is, Neutral, neither acid nor alkaline. However, most distilled water, yours included, contacts air until it is capped up in bottles or jugs. Truth is, as soon as air contacts distilled water, Carbon Dioxide in the air dissolves in the water. This process creates the chemical known as "Carbonic Acid", HCO3, which is an acid. This gives the "distilled" water a PH of around 5.0 to 5.4, considerably acidic. For comparison, you know how "acid" tomato juice is, it's Ph is about 4.2. Typical brewed coffee is 5.0. So folks who do not tolerate acidic foods well, should be aware of the trickery played by distilled water. I love it, and have no problem whatsoever, except it's cost! Frank

 

@Yvonne Smith Users of steam boilers have known for several centuries, since Steam Locomotives depended on good-working boilers, that distilled water if not Ph-adjusted upwards, boilers would quickly be eaten internally by the acidic distilled water. Thus, it is possible to add alkalinity to the water via something like Baking Soda, then quickly cap the containers to exclude air. Our Wally-World in Salem, MO, had a nice 4-piece stacking set of stainless steel pots for $17. I used three of them to build my own distiller. First pic shows the pots as sitting separately. The top one, biggest, was covered by the lid with a couple of small holes in it, the heater-pot sat on top of the lid, the third pot, upside down, encircled the heater pot, and sat on the outer edge of the lid. The condensed steam dribbled down the inside of the top pot, through the holes in the lid, and collected in the big bottom pot. My heating element was a replacement electric water heater 120 volt element.



Below, the set-up, ready to use.

 

In my friend's case, he was drinking city water.

 

When I lived in Nevada and Arizona I would often clean swamp coolers and get them ready for the summer months just for some extra money.
I've seen some pretty bad stuff and sometimes I found myself sanding the scales off but that didn't help the damage that would occur to the pads nor the inside of the spiders during normal operation. I found a product called Scaler but now it's referenced as D Scale. With a little soaking everything came pretty clean. Even the old pads would come clean if the customer didn't want to get new ones. (cheap)
You can even run it through the entire system and then dump the sump and start with clean water. Best advice is to disconnect the fan and just run the water pump. The chemical does have an odor so you don't want that going through your house for any length of time.

Now, what to do after you get it clean? A good in-line water filter costs about 150 beans which works well until you have to replace the filter itself which is about $20. To me, a good old rock salt water softener is the best bet. I'm sure you can probably pick up a used one for a song and a dance but otherwise they are about $200.

And then, if ya want to get a little cheaper for the time being, there is a product out there (can't remember the name) in a tablet form which you put in the tank and it helps the system stay clean.

Hope this helps.......you do have some problems there I see.

 

@Bobby Cole Thank you, Sir! It may help immensely! Last season I bought a small tubular device which essentially operates like the TAC ("Template Assisted Crystallization") softeners, installs in-line with the water feed. They were $22, are about the size of the center cardboard tube in a paper-towel roll. They did remove some gunk, which back flushed out with water under pressure. The water in the trays was somewhat cleaner, but scale formation about the same as without them. I'm leaning towards a small salt-resin based softener to feed only the 2 coolers, if we do not go with a whole-house unit. If we choose the latter, shorter-duration showering will become the norm! Frank