On a mission to find a salt free solution

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Ifican

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Just like the title says i am on a mission to find a salt free solution. I really dont care what it is but ideally it would be something i never have to mess with. I have read far to many posts here so i know what the sentiment is; I am only starting this thread to track progress. This site always seemed to be the one place where everyone one ultimately ends up via searching so here is where i am making my home. I am only dealing with companies i find to be legitimate and ones that give money back guarantees. I live in San Diego our water is generally around 16 grains, i installed a whole house water filter about a month ago and am now albeiit slowly working my way through salt free options. I am starting with the lower end working my way up until i get to a point that something works. Either way i will periodically make notes here for others to follow as well as feel free to email me if you like. My current test bed is a couple year old shower head that has approx 25% of the individual sprayers plugged or severely restricted. The day i find a solution that clears my shower head without me cleaning or touching it is the day i will say i have a solution.

1st item i am testing is a magnetic clamp on solution, i will not mention the name as i dont think i am suppose to:

Unit has been installed for only a couple days now. I can say that pretty quickly i noticed a change in the flavor of the water. How that is possible i dont know but it did change. I plan on following up down the road and removing to see if the flavor changes back.

I also thought once or twice i noticed a difference in how the water feels, but have since set that aside as in my head. Not saying it does not feel different i am just thinking i want it to work so could easily be my brain. A good test to this will be when the wife gets home in a few weeks. I am not going to tell her its installed and just see what she says about the water.

Lastly as of right now i cant say there are less spots or anything else. No other noticeable changes. From reading this board for many months now i already know what is coming. Again this is just for information, i have found this site very informative and worth the effort and why i decided to post here. One way or another i am going to find a salt free solution. I know there is potassium and if i have to that is where i will end up. However i also know there are enough folks like myself out there or some of these companies would not still be around. So here it goes, hopefully i will find OZ at the end of the yellow brick road. If not i will do my best to bring others along the journey so they can learn from my findings or mistakes.
 
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Ifican

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Update...

Wife got home and loves the filter but has said nothing about anything else. I am slowing going to work into the conversation in the coming weeks what she thinks about water spots. I cant honestly say i can tell a differenence at this point. Though the shower head i am watching with an ever critical eye has 3 more holes slightly more plugged than roughly 3 weeks ago. You could argue at this point either way, its getting more clogged because nothing is happening or its slowly getting worse before it gets better because its working. Personally i could care less either way just looking for a solution that works the way i would like. I will update again down the road sooner or later. If there is change it will be sooner, if there is no change it will be later.
 

Redwood

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On a mission to find a salt free solution= I Wanna Get Robbed, And I Will Like It

Or, It's been 3 weeks, eventually I won't be a one or, 2 post wonder, and then I'll drop my spam link....

One thing for sure, if you are on the dark side promoting these junk devices that don't work, this post will bring out a whole bunch of Sybil's with all of you agreeing on these rip off devices being the best thing since sliced bread...

The wise one in the bunch will then cite a study conducted by the world famous Dr. I.M. Obscure Phd of Janitorial Engineering Studies at I Can Be Bought University verifying that the device is indeed better than sliced bread

My current test bed is a couple year old shower head that has approx 25% of the individual sprayers plugged or severely restricted. The day i find a solution that clears my shower head without me cleaning or touching it is the day i will say i have a solution.

Why Don't you try an objective test instead of a subjective test? Dual Channel tests of the water taken at the same time one without "Magnetic Treatment" and the other with, showing the hardness test readings.

  • i noticed a change in the flavor of the water.
  • i noticed a difference in how the water feels.
  • Though the shower head i am watching with an ever critical eye has 3 more holes slightly more plugged than roughly 3 weeks ago

All of these are subjective tests, the results are in your imagination and no where else.

If you are indeed a legitimate poster, the positive results can probably be attributed to the fact that you do not want to admit you were sucked in by a scam...

If you are not a legitimate poster, here is where the calvary arrives to assist you with promoting the bogus product...:cool:
 
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DonL

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Hello ifican welcome to the forum.

In response to;
"My current test bed is a couple year old shower head that has approx 25% of the individual sprayers plugged or severely restricted. The day i find a solution that clears my shower head without me cleaning or touching it is the day i will say i have a solution."

Buy some CLR, and save a bunch of time and money. Make Your wife happy...

Have a Good Day.

DonL
 
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Tom Sawyer

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Hey Red, about a grand to clamp on one o dem magnetic things just to give it a try and report back to us when he coulda just given me the money and let me do the reporting. LOL
 

Ifican

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Not trying to promote anything. Just a diy'er and new home owner. An engineer by trade so i tend to do my research ahead of time. As i said in my initial post i expected to get slammed. But as i also stated i have learned alot from lurking around this board for quite sometime now. And the sole purpose for posting my experience is so others can learn. I knew before i posted i would hear it. Does salt work absolutely, but i expect here in california it will eventually be totally outlawed. That and i personally dont like the feeling of soft water. My mission is not to find a way to make hard water soft without the use of salt or potassium. Its a mission to find a way to alleviate hard water problems. Yes yes i know many are going to say its not possible, i will find out either way its just a matter of time. Moores law teaches us that things change regularly when we try.

Now to the questions below, life is subjective. If i had unlimited funds and didnt care about turning my garage into a test bed. Once i found a solution (if one exists) i would be happy to run side by side test. However their is no need to test traditional softners as there is no debate that they work. The shower head for me is an easy one to see. All of the companies i am potentially looking at claim that their product will clear out old shower heads that are plugged from scale. I am just holding them to that. Minimally i would expect that partially plugged holes would not get any worse.

Sure CLR will work but then i wont have any way to monitor the situation. I can take pipes apart but the 30 year old copper that is there now with 30 years of hardwater are clear. I was pleasantly surprise how clean the copper was when i installed the filter.

Yes taste is subjective but i have tested with and without the current product with firends and neighbors, If i label samples A and B then remove the labels most can tell me which is A and which is B. I say most because it is just that most. I have found that i have some friends that cant tell the difference between much. I pull city water from the spigot out front that has lots of chlorine in it and they cant tell me the diff between that and the filtered water. So go figure.

So go ahead and slam me for it, berate my strategy and nit pick my own "subjective" tests. I would not be doing this today if someone had already done it and posted. I would not be doing it still if i had a product that met my needs without using ion exchange. Who knows i may get to the end after trying two dozen products and find that none work. What i think is very interesting though is i already know, even if i find something that works, which i truly believe i will but am not afraid to say i cannot and admit i am wrong. Is the fact that there will always be people that will call me a liar, promoter and snakeoil salesman. Without doing any testing however subjective. Lots of professionals out there, some willing to be open others are not. Personal experience i went through 4 plumbers before i found 1 i really like and trust. 3 did great work, 2 were reliable and the one i use now for things i dont want to do can think outside the box.

No citiing links, no selling anyting and no citing some fictitious scientist as we all know anyone can commission a study to show whatever outcome they choose. I am not giving the names of products in this post for a reason. If anyone wants to know email and i will tell you which ones i have tried. So far only this one, and to be quite honest i am not impressed thus far. I am going to contact the buisness i purchased from and ask how long should it take to show results. I can take 1-3 months, any more than that unless given a 100% unconditional guarantee i will be returning and trying another. Reason is most will only give a 90 day return policy. Let me pull out my fire retardant suit now because i know whats coming.
 

DonL

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Nice ifican.

If you are really serious, then you might want to distill water, by using the Sun, Solar. But is it worth the cost ?.

Expecting to unblock a plugged spray head, is not a very good test.

Having better water in the pipes may even break loose more junk and plug it even more.

What you are wanting to do can be done, But is it worth the Money Investing.

Like I said before;
"Buy some CLR, and save a bunch of time and money. Make Your wife happy...", That is what I would do.

If she is happy You are happy, "If momma is not Happy, no ones Happy", True Statement...

I have a engineering discipline also, But I would never subject my wife to my long term experiments"
UN plugging that shower head may never happen, She will clean it , if you don't and blow your experiment out of the water.

Stick around, Don't let others burst Your Bubble.
And don't get to upset if you get a few Negative Comments.

Have a great Day.


DonL
 

Ifican

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Ok to add a little more info and i am open for ideas outside of ion exchange. Its not just shower head, shower head is actually the least of my concerns i just think its a good thing to watch and judge against equally. I do also agree as i alluded to that it could be getting more clogged short term because its working, we will see. Though i got started late in life, we are now a new home owners. Its kind of a blessing it has taken this long because with a successful career we are in a postion we can remodel now. Having gone with and still planning on going with higher end appliances (tankless, fridge, clothes and dish washer). The main point to finding a solution is to help protect all water using appliances as long as i can. Also we have 3 bathrooms thats just 1. I make sure i take a shower in that bathroom everyday so it gets consistant usage. Yes keeping momma happy is a high priority as well, but i give in on what i consider to be crazy expensive tiles and unecessary remodeling and she compromises on complete bathroom waterproofing and my twisted sense of enjoyment when it comes to finding solutions to things that are otherwise solutionless. One of my quirks is when i latch on to something i cant seem to let it go until i fix it or prove to myself its not going to work.
 

DonL

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I guess I missed something ifican. ( and I can, maybe I did )

You said;
"1st item i am testing is a magnetic clamp on solution"

Then You said later;
"i am open for ideas outside of ion exchange"

Did You give up already ?

I assumed that was what you were trying. Guess You are only attracting the IRON in a pipe, with your "magnetic clamp on solution."

What did I miss ?


DonL
 

Ifican

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no not at all, have a list, literally i am working through, some are fairly inexpensive and some not so much so. That comment was simply based on a comment you made about its doable but maybe not worth the expense. I am open to trying just about anything. expensive dictates what order it goes in. I have no problems spending the money for a solution that works that way i want it too. Because if i can get there, i will ultimately save me in the long run and thats what i am really after. Appliances are not cheap, the longer life i can get out of them the better off i am.
 

DonL

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Hello All,

I still say distilled Water.

Then when the flood waters come, You can have Distilled water too drink.

Then even save the salt and put it in your water softener.

That may even help with the radiation in your water, Don't know, never tested that.

You could also make your own fuel using a distillery.
Just don't make Your own Moonshine. Or the Distill Police will get You.


DonL
 

Tom Sawyer

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Go here, read this, all of it. www.chem1.com/CQ/

I know what these "products" you are testing cost. Why would you be willing to spend that kind of cash on something that NOT ONE SINGLE CREDABLE SCIENTIST has endorsed or for that matter offered definiative proof that it worked?
 

Ifican

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unfortunately am up late working tonight. I have probably read whats on that link but wont know for sure until i look at it. Cost is relative, if it works, cost to a point doesnt matter. As i was saying in my first post. I am only dealing with companies that will take their products back if i am not satisfied. If a company will not do at least that than in my opinion its not a company worth dealing with. The company i am dealing with now i know to be great with customer service as i have dealt with them in the past. I actually am trying out this product on recommendation from them. If i am not happy they will take it back and all i am out is shipping (about 10 bucks). Every product on my list is a product that is "guaranteed" to work, if not they will take it back. Some are only 90 days, but they tell me i will see results within 30. So i feel comfortable borrowing the products and trying, if all it is costing me is some time and shipping. I am ok with that. Will let you know what i think of the article when i get a chance to read and think about it.
 

Akpsdvan

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Why and try to remake the Wheel?

I have seen them come and go over the last 20 years..

But it is your time, if you like doing some thing like this great, but in the end .... time is money and how much more time are you going to be remaking the wheel and get on with other things in life.
 

Tom Sawyer

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I'm still in the "why bother" camp. For the zillionth time, they don't work, they can't work and there has NEVER been a shred of real proof that they do work from any credable source EVER.
 

DonL

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Very cool website Tom, Thanks for sharing.


Have a Great Day.


DonL
 

Redwood

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Well seeing as the Calvary hasn't showed up and no links are going up too the product I'll take you statements at face value ifican...

We have become a hardened bunch over the years against the people promoting these products and it is very easy to assume when a new poster shows up discussing them that it is indeed one of the products promoters. It's just the way they do business! They do it on every forum on the web and they keep doing it!

The threads are numerous and you can count the ones on one hand that are a legitimate single poster asking questions about a useless product scam...

The thread at this link is a fine example...
One of the many....

Notice all the one and 2 hit wonder posters that showed up....
They seemed to have an amazing familiarity with the subject and with each other...
Notice how the postings are very similar in that thread and the others on the web in the Google search below...
Amazing coincidence.... LOL

There are many on the web...
Just google salt free water conditioner scam....

Notice how the promoters in forums promote it as a water conditioner yet the website selling them claims they are an anti-scale device...

Anti-scale is the only place where these devices have shown even a hint of working but that only happens with limited effect in a closed loop multi-pass system which your home's potable water system is not.
 

Ifican

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I have read alot of that link and have to admit i agree with most of it. Let me try to sum this up as best I can on why. Besides the quirkyness as explained earlier. History is filled with "why fix it if it isnt broken". If we continued to think that way forever we would never make anything better because we have things that work just fine now. Yet as a people we continue to evolve, continue to make better, faster, smaller and easier. I may not have a scientific background but i read alot. I am open to change and approach things from an logical yet analytical point of view. I am going to get off topic for just a moment but follow me here. At its very root our computers, the ones we have in out cars, the ones we use to respond to posts on this forum, the ones the forum runs on and even the phones we use to view all of this on the go. What do they all have in common, they work on very fast changes in voltage that are interpreted into 1's and 0's which are then interpreted into what you see and hear. For the longest time lots of things that we now take for granted were deemed impossible. What am i getting at? In a different but significant nutshell molecules are all electrically charged. Even if they are electrically neutral they have significance to other charged particles. It is how traditional softners work. I simply believe that it is possible to affect this water in ways that will help me with my hardness. How? I cant rightfully say at this point and i have given it alot and will continue to give it alot of thought. All i know for sure is this, magnets can be used to generate fields that affect molecules in ways we previously never thought possible. Its how MRI's works, just recently it was discovered magnetic pulses can be used to manipulate our brainwaves from outside of the body. I could go on an on here but wont, simply if this is possible why cant magnets or electrical impulses that essentially create fields affect water to generate an outcome that i am happy with. I believe we are onto something and i believe i will find a device that will. However that is yet to be determined. In lieu of actually getting some work done i am going to stop for now.
 

Ifican

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Anti-scale is the only place where these devices have shown even a hint of working but that only happens with limited effect in a closed loop multi-pass system which your home's potable water system is not.

If i was not completely clear this is all i am really after. I understand completely, i have read those scam posts and dont doubt any long term members intent. I will also agree that at this point in evolution outside of ion exchange their is no way to create soft water. That is not my intent or even my desire. I would simply like to find a way to deal with hard water problems without the use of ion exchange. I am also kicking around the idea of installing a hybrid closed loop system on the tankless. My average wait time for all but 1 faucet is less than one minute, however i have also been considering this route as a possible solution to create a multi-pass environment on the hot water line. I know its only the hot but that is the one place i am more concerned with because super heating water quickly can also affect how water acts.
 
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hj

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Very few, if any, solutions will UNDO any current problems. And additional blockage could be what would normally occur given the original water quality. Why do you think companies which make those devices rely on "testimonials" instead of objective tests? It is because the users WANT the devices to work so they convince themselves that they are, among other things by convincing themselves that the "water tastes better". I once asked the representative for one of those "alternate softening methods" how we could tell it was working. He said you couldn't unless they brought a semi truck with $20,000.00 worth of test equipment. WHich to me means any change is so small that it could be something which happens naturally or might be where, and when, the water samples were obtained.
 
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