What does water softeners do?

[JEDI]

in the house i'm renting, the landlord has a water softener. What does it do?

also, when i take a shower, it doesnt feel like i'm washing the soap away. is that because of the water softener?

thx

 

[CubicZirconia]

How Water Softeners Work

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: XFILE
in the house i'm renting, the landlord has a water softener. What does it do? also, when i take a shower, it doesnt feel like i'm washing the soap away. is that because of the water softener? thx

It removes minerals, and allows detergents to work more effectively

and yes, it does cause that slippery feeling.

 

[compudog]

A water softener takes hardness (minerals) out of the water. It should make detergents (soap) clean better. A water softener typically uses salt and through ionic chemical magic, it binds the salt with the minerals in the water. If it doesn't feel like the soap is being washed away, it could mean his softener isn't working properly. If you are really interested in how softeners work, PM me and I will send you a doc.

 

[FoBoT]

a water softener is a ion exchanger

The most common water softening method called "ion exchange," is a reversible chemical process of exchanging hard water ions for soft water ions.

Calcium and magnesium are the hardness ions, sodium can be considered the "softness" ions and they are exchanged to create soft water.

Ion exchange takes place in a "resin bed" made up of tiny bead-like material often made of styrene and divynlbenzene. The beads, having a negative charge, attract and hold positively charged ions such as sodium, but will exchange them whenever the beads encounter another positively charged ion, such as calcium or magnesium minerals. This ion exchange happens very easily since the sodium ions have a positive charge of only one, while magnesium and calcium have a more powerful positive charge of two.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It buys the water candy and flowers, then tells it that it looks pretty.

 

[Moonbeam]

I hate rincing in extremely soft water.

 

[CrazyDe1]

I hate soft water too

 

[Evadman]

if you jump in from a 40' bridge, it still feels hard. Trust me.