Limescale prevention for whole house...

v0n

There are at least hundreds of sites out there mythbusting the idea of magnetic and electronic water treatments. I know it sounds great and appealing, spend few tenners instead of few hundred, snap a plastic brace on pipe and voila but it can't work and won't work. If it was that easy and that cheap it would be done by water board. They don't like their valves, pumps and pipes scaling up either. Of course at the end of the day it's your money and your decision, I can only hope that you will see beyond all the "electric fields" from 100mA 12V current on copper shielded pipe gobleedeegooks and put it away with all the rest of shopping channels fairytales like electromagnetic fuel savers or sauna slimming belts.

djohn2002uk

v0n wrote:

If it was that easy and that cheap it would be done by water board. They don't like their valves, pumps and pipes scaling up either.

How long have the water boards been running heated water through their pipes to cause scale problems?

djohn2002uk

This is a copy of my post from 03/04/05:-
I also live in the Cotswolds and fitted a Salamander Microwave 22 months ago. Similar to the ScaleWatcher. I can't believe the difference. Used to have to clean the shower head at least every 3 months and haven't had to touch it since. And the kettle is still clean. I bought mine from Travis Perkins at a discount for £49.94 but think the retail price is around £80. I think if you go direct to Salamander they will sell for around what I paid. I seem to remember being told that when I contacted them after I bought mine.
In addition to having a 5 year warranty against faulty workmanship it also has a 6 months unconditional satisfaction or money back guarantee. (Proof of purchase required)
Salamander(Eng) Limited
Reddicap Trading Estate,
Sutton Coldfield,
West Midlands,
B75 7BY
Tel: 0121 378 0952
Or 0121 378 4508

I had better say that I don't have any connection with this company whatsoever except for being a very satisfied customer.

I'll now add that I cleaned the shower head last week but still haven't had to clean the kettle. None of the holes in the shower were completely blocked but partially blocked with a very soft scale. One soak for 2 mins in Viacal and a bit of a scrub with a nail brush and it was like new. 38 months before cleaning the shower as oposed to every 3 months is good enough for me.

v0n

djohn2002uk wrote:

How long have the water boards been running heated water through their pipes to cause scale problems?

There are enough communal heating and hot water systems in use for it to be concern?

Look, I have no axe to grind - there is obviously a market for unexplainable things that have no basis in physics or chemistry - copper wristbands that apparently improve chi, snap on magnets that claim to double your mpg, plastic pyramids that allegedly sharpen old shaving blades and so on so forth. And if it makes people feel better then why not.
But let's be pragmatic for a second. World knows only four methods of lime scale removal - ion exchange, distillation, electrodialisis and reverse osmosis. Which of the four is those two plastic wrapped wires with 100mA 12V current in them, not connected with each other and with ends of the wires hanging loose from the pipe supposed to perform?? It's not a coil. Not a force generator of any kind. It has no way of penetrating to the inside of the pipe. Not on any wave level, not as magnet or even spiritual device. What is it that it do for £50 that escaped world of phisics and chemistry for so many decades? And most importantly - if fighting scale is that easy - just two wires and low voltage power supply or snapon magnet in pretty white case, then why don't you find it as built in option of your typical top shelf mucho expensive branded kettle....

Volcano

Crystal precipitation and formation for carbonates is controlled by ion concentration, pH and temperature ONLY. ANY anecdotal accounts of magnetic/electric water 'conditioners' working are due to a coincidence with fitting these gadgets AND a change in 1 or more of the above factors.

What disgusts me is that as these do not work, the companies that peddle them are forced to invent 'science' in an attempt to offer an explanation re. the link from #1:

Using low frequency radio waves pioneered by our research and development team, the System 30 generates induction energy which alters the characteristics of the hardness salts. Instead of forming limescale the salts stay in solution and existing scale goes into suspension and is gradually removed from the system

induction energy? alters the characteristics of the hardness salts? complete and utter lies!

Skiduck

Volcano wrote:

Crystal precipitation and formation for carbonates is controlled by ion concentration, pH and temperature ONLY. ANY anecdotal accounts of magnetic/electric water 'conditioners' working are due to a coincidence with fitting these gadgets AND a change in 1 or more of the above factors.

What disgusts me is that as these do not work, the companies that peddle them are forced to invent 'science' in an attempt to offer an explanation re. the link from #1:



induction energy? alters the characteristics of the hardness salts? complete and utter lies!

it must be the pixies in them then.

Volcano

it must be the pixies in them then.

If it worked, pixies would be as a credible explanation as any.......

djohn2002uk

To v0n and Volcano.
I've just reported my experience over the last 3 years. I do know other people who have had the same experience as me in this hard water area.
Just maybe you two don't know everything even though you spout so much physics to try giving the impression that you do.
As for coincidence, over 3 years? Please, give me a break.
Perhaps, just because there is something that you don't understand you should try and find out a little bit more about it instead of ridiculing any sugestions that anyone else might offer even from a real life situation rather than some physics book.

I'd better add for v0n, that the lead in the Salamander comes out of the unit, wraps around the pipe and returns to the unit. No dangling wires and it is a coil.

Mr_Meanie

Re: v0n and Volcano posts.

So in a nutshell, if you don’t believe in it and scientists (at the moment), can’t prove that it works, it doesn’t work.

“It has no way of penetrating to the inside of the pipe. Not on any wave level, not as magnet or even spiritual device.”

Can magnetic fields not penetrate copper then?

Volcano

Just maybe you two don't know everything

And

just because there is something that you don't understand

I'm quite happy that I know and understand that these things don't work. The companies that make these also know that they don't work. This is why they have to lie and fabricate 'science' in an attempt to convince people to buy them.

As for coincidence, over 3 years? Please, give me a break.

By providing a reason for your apparent decrease in limescale, I thought I was giving you a break?

So in a nutshell, if you don’t believe in it and scientists (at the moment), can’t prove that it works, it doesn’t work.

No. I don't believe it as scientists (at the moment) can prove that it doesn't work.