In this article, we will explain the difference between water softener and water conditioner. Water is a particularly essential piece of our regular day-to-day existence, yet in practically all cases, water doesn’t begin clean. This is the reason water regularly experiences numerous phases of treatment before it at any point gets to you. Indeed, even once the water has effectively been treated by your city and advances toward your capacity tank and lines, it may not be in the condition you need it.
Why Water Treatment is Necessary.
This is the place where water conditioning comes in. Water conditioning intends to address three significant issues that are available in most water sources: limescale, microorganisms, and green growth such as algae. These issues can cause an entire host of issues in water system, including on the insides of pipes, on heat exchangers, on fixtures, and more.
In this post, we’ll center around two sorts of water treatment systems: water conditioners and water softeners. These terms are regularly befuddled, so we’ll explain the distinction and clarify how each different.
Difference between Water Conditioner and Water Softener
We’ve already seen what these two terms have in common, so what’s the difference between them? When it comes to the issue of hard water, a traditional water softener removes calcium, magnesium, and silica ions, leaving it with small quantities of what is known as “temporary hardness”. The softener replaces these ions with salt through a process called ion exchange.
A water conditioner, on the other hand, is a more innovative solution that manipulates the way the hardness minerals in a liquid solution behave. The result is that they are still present, but they don’t build up on surfaces and cause problems. Since calcium, magnesium, and silica are healthy minerals to humans and other animals, keeping them in the water is a great advantage, as long as they aren’t damaging your plumbing system.
While both water softeners and water conditioners are designed to address the problem of water hardness in some way, a water conditioner typically tackles other water issues, too — such as biological contaminants, including bacteria and algae, which can collect on surfaces. When these substances build-up, it is referred to as biofilm. A water softener alone is not designed to address the issue of biofilm — only scale.
Note that “water conditioner” is often used as a fairly broad term that may refer to any type of water purification or treatment system. We’re focusing on the type of water conditioner that we’ve described here — one that can provide an all-in-one solution for both hardness and biological contaminants. There are different methods of conditioning water, but the result should be a liquid solution that does not allow buildup of any kind to damage your plumbing system.
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