Water treatment as the key to quality piped services

Frost
Establishing standards and best practice — Tony Frost.
Poor-quality water has a serious adverse effect on piped services, as Tony Frost explains.Water treatment has become a key issue on various fronts as awareness increases of the problems that hard water in particular can cause. The formation of limescale as calcium or magnesium salts precipitate out of the water and adhere to the surfaces of pipework, fittings and boiler heat exchangers can cause rapid blockage and failure of the system with dramatic loss of thermal efficiency — as well as requiring expensive and inconvenient repairs. Corrosion The chemical quality of the water or inadequate treatment can result in corrosion of the system, with consequent water leakage and property damage, or blockage by accumulation of corrosion products such as the black magnetite sludge that can build up in pipes and radiators —blocking portions of the system and reducing heat transfer. These energy-efficiency losses have a major impact on fuel consumption of both domestic and commercial installations and, consequently, on carbon emission — itself a current ‘hot potato’. There are several technologies for addressing problems in piped services. They include water softening, the use of treatment chemicals or the use of the perhaps wrongly named physical-water-treatment devices, which have a chequered history with many claims and counterclaims about their performance abilities. A new organisation has been formed dedicated to the water-treatment industry and the many issues that are current across four technology group areas — water softeners, chemical water treatment, physical water treatment and drinking-water filters. Responding to a need for clarity within the water-treatment industry, over a hundred companies involved in the manufacture and distribution of water-treatment equipment and manufacturers of water-heating appliances have formed the United Kingdom Water Treatment Association (UKWTA). One of the key roles is to get to grips with the realities of products and processes, highlighting those with a beneficial impact and those where benefits are marginal or non-existent. Highlighting levels of water usage and energy usage and conservation will be part of this information drive. Facts and advice The principal role of the UKWTA is to establish the facts and advise the users and industry of the genuine performance benefits of products available. The UKWTA feels that there is a great deal of misinformation within the industry, and homeowners, business people, heating and plumbing engineers and installers and manufacturers of water-heating appliances are understandably confused and, to a degree, sceptical about the benefits claimed for some water-treatment products. This new trade association aims to establish standards and best practice within the industry through proper testing to define the relative performance of products and produce information that will assist in product selection. This work will take some time, but it has already begun. On the domestic front, the latest changes to the Government guidance for the Building Regulations specify that water treatment to maintain appliance efficiency —for example, the use of devices to prevent limescale build-up in water heaters in hard-water areas and the use of corrosion inhibitors in central-heating systems is mandatory. Users therefore need to know which products work and which do not. Water-treatment products can substantially increase the energy efficiency of a heating system, thereby reducing energy consumption. In addition, improvements in water softeners, both domestic and commercial, mean they require far less water for the regeneration process to replace the ‘hard’ magnesium and calcium ions with ‘soft’ sodium ions as the water passes through the softener’s resin chamber. Many water softeners in current use are at least 25 years old. Although softeners have a very reasonable life expectancy, their efficiency declines as they get older so they require more regular regeneration and, as a result, use more salt and water. They clearly require replacement to provide an energy- and water-efficient service to meeting current expectations and soften water far more effectively than most elderly units installed in homes, schools and colleges, hospitals, factories and laundries. UKWTA is looking to offer straightforward advice in layman’s terms. There are issues — contentious and otherwise — that need to be resolved. We know that many people in domestic and commercial heating and plumbing want answers in simple language about whether or not things work and, if they do, how and why. We have set out to supply that information and put many of the claims and counter claims made by manufacturers into everyday context across a wide range of products in the four technology areas we cover. Tony Frost is technical director of the UK Water Treatment Association. For more information, contact UKWTA chairman Dr Carl Jasper on 01509 21500 or cj@ukwta.org
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