Sodium in water over 77 mg/L

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Bratan

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Hi,

I recently moved into a home with water well and a water softener system. It does great job of softening water, however I just got a water test back from lab and it shows Sodium levels of 77.72 mg/L. EPA's max limit is 50. Should I be concerned about it? Do I need to adjust water softener somehow?

Thanks! :)
 

Reach4

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You should find out the hardness of your water. That level of sodium sounds reasonable. A water softener replaces calcium and magnesium with sodium.

In your diet, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dietarysodium.html suggests taking in less than 2500 mg of sodium per day. Drinking 4 liters of tap water (more than most people) would give you 311 mg of sodium. For cooking with your softened water, just use less salt in the recipe... as if you weren't going to be eating prepared foods. :)

So if that bothers you, I suggest you consider getting a reverse osmosis system, or drink bottled water. If you do get an RO system, feed it with softened water. Or better yet, consider drinking unsoftened water. Many people run unsoftened water to the cold tap in the kitchen. I like drinking the unsoftened water.

Another choice would be to use potassium salt in your softener. Potassium costs more, and you can weigh that. Plus it is trickier to get the dosing right.
 
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Bratan

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My water hardness is 0 or undetectable :) I tested it with HACH Hardness test. Before softener hardness was 13 gpg, after softener it's not detectable. I don't really feel salt in the water, just wanted to check if it's bad for you. I also filter drinking water with Brita pitcher...
Can you send a link to the US EPA mcl of 50 PPM for sodium?
I don't have that link, it was written in my water test lab report (attaching screenshot).
watertest.jpg
 

ditttohead

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Now that's funny. A MCL (maximum contamination level) of 50 ppm!!!

Please ignore that, and would not use that company again for water testing. Sounds a little fishy to me. The EPA does not even have sodium on the list.

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/consumer/pdf/mcl.pdf

The brita pitcher does not remove sodium. I wont comment beyond that about the Brita filter. :)
 

Bratan

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Thanks all! :) So I won't worry to much about it then.
Ok what's wrong with Brita Filter? :)
 

Mikey

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Right, even as an amateur I don't use a Brita. I use a PUR :). Don't know precisely what the output of that filter is, but at least it makes Jacksonville water drinkable. I never travel without it.
 

NHmaster3015

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You should find out the hardness of your water. That level of sodium sounds reasonable. A water softener replaces calcium and magnesium with sodium.
In your diet, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dietarysodium.html suggests taking in less than 2500 mg of sodium per day. Drinking 4 liters of tap water (more than most people) would give you 311 mg of sodium. For cooking with your softened water, just use less salt in the recipe... as if you weren't going to be eating prepared foods. :)

So if that bothers you, I suggest you consider getting a reverse osmosis system, or drink bottled water. If you do get an RO system, feed it with softened water. Or better yet, consider drinking unsoftened water. Many people run unsoftened water to the cold tap in the kitchen. I like drinking the unsoftened water.

Another choice would be to use potassium salt in your softener. Potassium costs more, and you can weigh that. Plus it is trickier to get the dosing right.

No it doesn't replace. The sodium removes the minerals from the resin and then gets flushed from the system.

Ok, technically the sodium does replace the minerals captured by the resin but the backwash and rinse cycles remove most of the sodium leaving the resin free to capture more minerals.
 
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Gary Slusser

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No it doesn't replace. The sodium removes the minerals from the resin and then gets flushed from the system.

Ok, technically the sodium does replace the minerals captured by the resin but the backwash and rinse cycles remove most of the sodium leaving the resin free to capture more minerals.
The exchange is 2 sodium ions per ion removed which is calcium, magnesium, ferrous iron, manganese, copper, lead IIRC, etc., etc.,.

The formula is 7.85 mg/l or ppm of added sodium per grain per gallon (gpg) of compensated hardness removed.

The chloride part of salt (sodium chloride) is not used and all of it is flushed to drain as part of a regeneration. As is all extra sodium that is not attached to sites on the resin beads. That is due to opposite charged particles being attracted to each other. Softening resin is cation, meaning negative charged while sodium is positive charged. Sodium ions are smaller and have a weaker charge than the things in water that are removed by ion exchange softening and as those ions are attracted to a site, they push off 2 sodium ions into the product water.
 
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