Definitions

• Water softeners are just one kind of water treatment process. There are many types of water treatments. They fall in to five categories: disinfection, filtration, reverse osmosis, distillation and ion exchange. Water softening falls under the ion exchange category, which is also known as water conditioning.
  
  

Treatment Reasons

• Water needs treatment for quite a variety of conditions. Some of these are just nuisances and some are dangerous. Water treatment makes water taste and smell better and be safer. Some of the conditions and pollutants that can show up in your water are bacteria, acidity or alkalinity, sediment, chemicals and minerals.
  
  

Softening Uses

• Water softening is usually used when water is "hard." That means there is dissolved calcium or magnesium in the water. This is not dangerous but is nuisance in the household because scale can build up in appliances and pipes. Hard water shortens the life of household appliances including washer, dish washers and water heaters. The combination of soap with hard water causes salt deposits that won't dissolve. This is hard to get out of laundry, off dishes and off the body when bathing.
  
  

Softening Process

• The ion exchange process softens water. The way it works is the water passes through a bed made of a material such as sulfonated polystyrene beads. The bed is supersaturated with sodium. When hard water passes through the bed the calcium and magnesium stick to the bed and sodium is released into the water. The water is recharged by adding a concentrated salt solution to the bed. That flushes the trapped calcium and magnesium ions into waste water. This process gets out the calcium and magnesium but leaves salt in the water.