Pure Water Occasional, October 19, 2019 |
A study done at Florida State University concluded that golf-ball sized clumps of oil and sand, called "sediment-oil-agglomerates," that were deposited on hundreds of miles of Gulf of Mexico beaches by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill will take at least 30 more years to decompose.
The EPA has awarded research grants totaling $6 million to eight universities to study a variety of PFAS issues. The largest went to Perdue University to develop methods to decrease per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) concentrations in both municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent and sludge. The university’s study will determine the technical and economic feasibility of using a specific two-treatment approach consisting of nanofiltration followed by electrochemical oxidation. PFAS are a group of synthetic chemicals that have been in use since the 1940s. PFAS are found in a wide array of consumer and industrial products. Due to widespread use and persistence in the environment, most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS. There is evidence that chronic exposure above specific levels to certain PFAS may lead to adverse health effects.
Although National Garden Hose Day is months away, teams are already practicing for popular events like the Barrel Blast. National Garden Hose Day continues to grow in popularity across the US.
The waters of the Cape are fundamentally unhealthy was the main message of the report just issued by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. "More than two-thirds of the Cape’s coastal embayments and one-third of its ponds are suffering from unacceptable water quality due to excess nutrients, according to the report.
Excessive nutrients from inadequately treated wastewater is easily identified as the problem." Blame was especially directed toward outdated laws allowing septic systems and excess fertilizaiton of lawns. More from the Wicked Local of Provincetown.
According to the University of Southern California, "New and emerging contaminants like antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) pose a potential hazard to public safety and water security. One concern is the spread of ARGs through the water system and an increase in development of antibiotic-resistant super bugs." Read the full article about ARGs on the Pure Water Gazette website.
Lead Filter Controversy in Newark Update
Beginning in October 2018 Newark officials handed out over 38,000 free inexpensive PUR water filters to residential customers. In August of 2019 the EPA tested three of these, concluded that the water filters don't work, and recommended that residents drink only bottled water. Nevertheless, Newark announced that bottled water distribution will end October 8 and residents should use the filters. “Our message is simple: the filters work, use the filters,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said. The city has concluded after more testing "that the filters are now almost all effective." The Water Quality Association chose to sidestep the issue and agree with the EPA that bottled water is the answer. A leading trade publication issued a timid explanation for the failure of the filters which concluded that the lead levels were too high and the filters may not have been installed properly. It seems no one is bold enough to suggest the obvious: that the cheap water filter being used, in spite of its "certification," isn't a very good one.
Australian news source Stockhead reports that stocks in water treatment companies have surged 260 percent in value. Here are some reasons it cites for the steady upward trend:
The world’s demand for clean water keeps increasing, but supply is not keeping up.
Water use has risen 1 per cent per year since the 1980s and more than 2 billion people live in countries with high water stress. China, for example, has eight provinces with an ‘absolute scarcity’ of water — meaning less than 500 cubic metres per person. Several more provinces are only just above this threshold.
In India, an estimated 70 per cent of its water supply is contaminated.
Even the most developed countries aren’t immune from water crises. The US city of Flint has suffered water contamination since 2014 from lead pipes emitting oxide into the water. But this may just be the tip of the iceberg. A study by the Environmental Working Group earlier this year found up to 43 US states had locations with contaminated water.
The state of Alaska and two companies have gone to court to determine who will be held responsible for water contamination in the community of North Pole. The chemical in question is sulfolane, which polluted wells in the area after unpermitted releases by the Williams Alaska Petroleum Company. Williams sold the refinery in 2004 leaving the pollution behind and is now making the interesting argument that since no state standard for sulfolane exists there would be no way to know when the requested cleanup has been completed. Details.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has secured nearly $20 million to fund measures that help California prevent millions of gallons of Tijuana’s raw sewage from flowing into San Diego. San Diego County has been dealing with raw sewage flows from Tijuana for decades. Last year, a pipe across the border in Mexico broke, causing millions of gallons of sewage to flow into the Tijuana River and, eventually, the Pacific Ocean, impacting California coastal areas.
"When groundwater levels drop, discharges from groundwater to streams decline, reverse in direction or even stop completely, thereby decreasing streamflow, with potentially devastating effects on aquatic ecosystems." That's the message of a new study in the science journal Nature. To put this simply, if we go on as we are, pumping groundwater at unsustainable rates, dried up rivers and lakes will be the price we pay for lush lawns and green golf courses.
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How Buying a Reverse Osmosis Unit Can Make You Rich
Guess which man owns a reverse osmosis unit.
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We usually just assume ingesting water contaminants like lead and arsenic is not a good idea. We don’t think about the economic implications. We want our kids to be as smart and as healthy as they can be without having to put a dollar sign on the loss in IQ points that could result from their consumption of water tainted with lead.
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Arizona and funded by the Water Quality Research Foundation (WQRF) sought to do just that: to determine the economic benefits of using point-of-use (POU) devices to reduce health risks in drinking water. The study was designed to put a dollar value on the benefits of treating five drinking water contaminant categories–microorganisms, arsenic, lead, disinfection byproducts, nitrates and chromium–with POU equipment.
Lead was considered apart from the other contaminants, since the Flint, MI ordeal offered a convenient way to study lead exposure. Here’s what resulted, as reported by Water Quality Products magazine:
In the case of the water emergency in Flint, the study assumed all of the 98,310 Flint residents were exposed to lead levels of 25 µg/L in drinking water, and 20% of lead in drinking water is manifested in the body as blood lead levels. This corresponded to an average blood lead level of 0.5 µg/L and a loss of 0.257 IQ points. Using the blood lead level to lifetime economic impact model, this corresponds to a lifetime loss of $5,381 per person and a total community cost of $435 million. The average household size in Flint is 2.42 persons, which equates to 40,064 houses. A five-year community wide intervention using one activated carbon filter with lead adsorption capabilities per household would have cost $11.1 million. A five-year POU RO implemented in every home would have cost $26 million.
This seems to mean that if each of the 40,064 houses had an RO unit that cost $648.96 to buy and maintain, and each of the 2.42 persons who lived in that home saved the $5,381 that would have been lost because of ingestion of lead, the per household profit resulting from RO ownership would be $12,265 from lead-avoidance alone.
What is more, if instead of the RO unit the home installed an activated carbon filter with lead adsorption capabilities, which costs only $277, profit (savings less the cost of the filter) for the 2.42-person home would be even more, $12,637!
Clearly, the filter is the better choice since you can get the same dollar savings from lead removal that you would from the RO unit at a lower purchase price. More bang for your lead-removal buck. Of course, if you factor in the costs of exposure to arsenic, nitrates, chromium, fluoride, sodium, and more–items the RO removes but the filter doesn’t–the extra $400 you pay for the reverse osmosis unit doesn’t look all that bad.
A reverse osmosis unit is like money in the bank. The more contaminants they find in the water, the more you save.
The Water Quality Products article suggests the cost saving figures that resulted from the Arizona study can be “leveraged” by water treatment professionals “to talk to their regulators and utilities about this study and encourage the acceptance of POU devices as a risk mitigation strategy.”
We at Pure Water Products will probably leave the leveraging to others and stick to our usual strategy of pointing out that with or without the dollar consideration, and whether you live in a 2.42-person home or a 6.79-person home, an undersink reverse osmosis unit should be a standard household appliance, not an optional item. What a great value! A device that produces pure, great tasting, contaminant-free water at a small cost. Getting rich in the process is just icing on the cake.
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Many public drinking water supplies contain fluoride, which is added by water systems to help prevent tooth decay in consumers. But a new study has called into question whether those health benefits are outweighed by potential health risks.
“A study of 512 Canadian mothers and their children, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics … suggests that drinking fluoridated water during pregnancy could damage kids’ brains,” according to Insider. “In the study, boys between the ages of 3 and 4 years old whose mothers drank fluoridated water had slightly lower IQs (about 4.5 points lower, a small but noticeable difference when you consider that the average IQ score is around 100 points.)”
The study results have raised some red flags for consumers, adding fuel to an ongoing anti-fluoride movement. Fluoride addition began at public water systems as early as the 1940s, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention crediting the program with reducing cavities by about 25 percent in consumers. But opponents have linked the mineral to adverse health effects — including IQ loss — for years.
“This new study, if further evidence supports it, may give more scientific weight to the idea that fluoridated water is not the best route to prevent cavities,” per Insider.
However, for now, scientists are arguing that while this study is worth factoring into the equation, it is not enough on its own to completely condemn the practice of fluoridating drinking water.
“[Neurology professor David Bellinger] says it’s important not to read too much into a single study, but this one certainly raises important issues,” NPR reported. “Though it will no doubt play into the decades-long controversy over whether to add fluoride to public water supplies, he says that is misleading. The study found even in cities that had fluoridated water, women got most of their fluoride from other sources, such as food, tea and toothpaste.”
In any case, the findings of this study are almost certain to spur more research into the topic. While the controversy around fluoride in public drinking water supplies won’t die down any time soon, more research may better inform the approach taken by drinking water utilities.
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Simple and Effective All-In-One Chlorine Treatment
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Our compact residential chlorination system needs no electricity. The simple chlorine pump operates on water pressure, and it needs no expensive metering devices because the rate of flow through the water pipe determines the rate of chlorine injection. No over-sized retention tank is required because the system uses an advanced design compact tank that outperforms much larger conventional retention tanks.
The system consists of a sediment filter, a Dosatron NSF certified 14 gallon per minute water driven injection pump, a 15 gallon solution tank, and the advanced 12″ X 60″APW (Nelsen) compact retention tank. The system has everything needed to treat bacteria, iron, manganese, or hydrogen sulfide odor.
A filter appropriate to the targeted contaminant must be added after the retention tank. The filter is not included. The equipment shown on this page is pre-treatment for filtration.
The compact all-in-one chlorination system is designed for use in standard residential applications, but it can be easily adapted to other uses. It is especially good for part-time residences like summer homes or hunting cabins because the retention tank has a bottom drain that makes winterization easy. It’s also perfect for remote locations like workshops, barns, or remote apartments. The fact that no power is needed, of course, makes it ideal for off-grid homes.
Unlike electric pumps, the water-powered system can be installed anywhere in the water line without regard to the well’s pressure tank or electrical system.
The complete chlorination system, without filter, is currently priced at only $1095.
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Radon In Water: How it gets there and How to Get Rid of It
Radon is one of the more perplexing and misunderstood issues in home water treatment. The material below is excerpted from several sources, especially from an excellent Penn State University Extension services publication.
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Radon is a colorless, tasteless, odorless, radioactive gas. It is formed from the decay of radium in soil, rock, and water and can be found worldwide.
The radon in the air in your home generally comes from two sources: the soil or the water supply. It escapes from the earth’s crust through cracks and crevices in bedrock, and either seeps through foundation cracks or through poorly sealed areas into basements and homes, or it dissolves in the groundwater. Radon can be trapped in buildings where it can increase to dangerous levels. Radon entering your home’s air supply through the soil is typically a much larger risk than the amount of radon.
In general, radon is of much greater danger when it enters through the soil than when it enters via the water supply.
Radon can be inhaled from the air or ingested from water. Inhalation of radon increases the chances of lung cancer and this risk is much larger than the risk of stomach cancer from swallowing water with a high radon concentration. Generally, ingested waterborne radon is not a major cause for concern. The extent of the effects and the risk estimates involved are difficult to determine. According to the EPA’s 2003 Assessment of Risks from Radon in Homes, radon is estimated to cause about 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year. The National Research Council’s report, Risk Assessment of Radon in Drinking Water, estimates that radon in drinking water causes about 160 cancer deaths per year due to inhalation and 20 stomach cancer deaths per year due to ingestion.
Radon in water usually originates in water wells that are drilled into bedrock containing radon gas. Radon usually does not occur in significant concentrations in surface waters.
Dissolved radon in groundwater will escape into indoor air during showering, laundering, and dish washing. Estimates are that indoor air concentrations increase by approximately 1 pCi/L for every 10,000 pCi/L in water. For example, a water well containing 2,000 pCi/L of radon would be expected to contribute 0.2 pCi/L to the indoor air radon concentration. Based on the potential for cancer, the EPA suggests that indoor air should not exceed 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L).
EPA and various states have recommended drinking water standards for radon in water ranging from 300 to 10,000 pCi/L but no standard currently exists. One study of radon present in over 900 Pennsylvania water wells found that 78% exceeded 300 pCi/L, 52% exceeded 1,000 pCi/L and 10% exceeded 5,000 pCi/L.
Since most exposure to radon is from air, testing of indoor air is the simplest method to determine the overall risk of radon in your home. Test kits for indoor air radon are inexpensive and readily available at most home supply stores.
Testing for radon in water is also inexpensive but requires special sampling and laboratory analysis techniques that measure its presence before it escapes from the sample. Test kits are available from various private testing labs.
The presence of waterborne radon indicates that radon is probably also entering the house through the soil into the basement which is generally the predominant source. Therefore, treating the water without reducing other sources of incoming airborne radon probably will not eliminate the radon threat. Therefore, you should also test the air in your home for radon.
Treating Radon in Water
The main objective of water treatment is removing radon from water before the radon can become airborne. Most water treatment, therefore, focuses on “point of entry” rather than “point of use.”
Granular Activated Carbon (GAC)
One method for removing radon from water is with a granular activated carbon (GAC) unit. Although these systems come in a variety of models, types and sizes, they all follow the same principle for removal. The standard radon GAC filter is a tank-style unit that can have either a backwashing control or a simple non-backwashing head. Non-backwashing GAC units must be protected from sediment with a prefilter. Radon filter sizing depends on the amount of radon present, service flow rates, amount of water treated, the size of the treatment bed and other factors, so each application must be considered separately and radon testing for effectiveness of the filter should be carried out regularly.
Typical setup for a GAC filter treating radon.
Various estimates suggest that GAC should only be used on water supplies with a maximum radon concentration of less than 30,000 pCi/L. If you do decide to purchase a unit, select a filter size that matches your water use and conditions. According to EPA, a three-cubic-foot unit can handle as much as 250 gallons of water per day and effectively reduce radon levels. Typical water use in the home ranges from 50 to 100 gallons per person per day.
A major drawback to the use of GAC filters for radon removal is the eventual buildup of radioactivity within the filter. For this reason, the GAC unit should be placed outside the home or in an isolated part of the basement to minimize exposure. The carbon may also need to be replaced annually to reduce the hazard of accumulated radioactivity. Spent GAC filters used for radon removal may need special disposal. Disposal of spent carbon should be in compliance with local waste disposal regulations.
GAC treatment units are frequently also installed to remove chlorine, pesticides, petroleum products, and various odors in water. In these cases, the GAC filter may unknowingly be accumulating radioactivity as it removes radon from the water. Radon should always be tested for and considered as a potential hazard with the use of GAC filters.
Aeration
EPA has listed aeration as the best available technology for removing radon from water. Home aeration units physically agitate the water to allow the dissolved radon gas to be collected and vented to the outside. With new technological advancements in home aeration, these units can have radon removal efficiencies of up to 99.9%. Standard aeration treatment units typically cost $3,000 to $5,000 including installation. Be aware that aeration specifically for radon reduction is not the same as aeration for iron or hydrogen sulfide reduction. While “closed tank” systems designed for iron and sulfide reduction might help with radon, they are not designed to provide the large ventilation capacity needed to assure release of radon to the atmosphere.
When considering installation of aeration units, other water quality issues must be taken into account, such as levels of iron, manganese and other contaminants. Water with high levels of these types of contaminants may need to be pre-treated in order to prevent clogging the aeration unit. Disinfection equipment may also be recommended since some aeration units can allow bacterial contamination into the water system.
Typical Spray Aeration System Designed for Radon Reduction in a Private Home
There are several styles of aeration treatment units but all work on the same principle of aerating or agitating the water to allow the radon gas to escape so it can be captured and vented. Each type of unit has advantages and disadvantages. One of the more common styles is a spray aeration unit shown above. In this case, water containing radon is sprayed into a tank using a nozzle. The increased surface area of the sprayed water droplets causes the radon to come out of the water as a gas while the air blower carries the radon gas to a vent outside the home. About 50% of the radon will be removed in the initial spraying so the water must be sprayed several times to increase removal efficiencies. To keep a supply of treated water, a 100-gallon or larger holding tank must be used.
Another common aeration unit is the packed column where water moves through a thin film of inert packing material in a column. The air blower forces radon contaminated air back through the column to an outdoor vent. If the column is high enough, removal efficiencies can reach 95%.
Another type of aeration system uses a shallow tray to contact air and water. Water is sprayed into the tray, and then flows over the tray as air is sprayed up through tiny holes in the tray bottom. The system removes more than 99.9% of the radon and vents it outside the home. Go here for illustrations of other aeration systems.
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El Paso County to participate in CDC study on PFAS contaminants in drinking water
By Kristen Skovira
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Gazette Introductory Note: — Citizens of El Paso County in Colorado have unintentionally become research subjects in a 5-year experiment to learn how ingesting high levels of PFAS can affect human health. Although the report below doesn’t mention it, the high levels of PFAS in area water came from firefighting foam used at Peterson Air Force Base and the Colorado Springs airport.
The CDC announced in September 2019 that doctors across the U.S. will be conducting a study to investigate the long term side effects of drinking water contaminated by PFAS and PFCs — man-made chemicals that can get into groundwater, soil, and eventually into your cells.
The PFAS levels in El Paso County (Colorado) have registered more than 1,000 times higher than the health advisory limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency for similar chemicals. And while clean up efforts have taken place, in some cases the damage has already been done.
In the next few months, hundreds of residents in El Paso County will be invited to join this new study that looks at the relationship between exposure and health outcomes.
“It’s a group of chemicals that was created in the 1950s,” said Liz Rosenbaum, founder of the Fountain Valley Clean Water Coalition. “Our organization started in November of 2016. Our main focus was understanding what PFAS was and what this contamination meant to our community.”
“This new research study is a great step forward in understanding the health effects from this contamination to the residents of the community who lived here before 2016,” she said.
So what makes this study different? Seven major medical institutions will work together on this multi-site study. In Colorado, the grant has been awarded to Dr. John Adgate at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
His team will look at exposures in El Paso County by taking blood samples from 1,000 adults and 300 children.
They’ll look at the immune system, increased cancer risk, fertility, and issues with growth.
“The big unknown with PFAS compounds is what the human health effects are from long-term exposure,” said Dr. John Adgate.
Dr. Adgate has already been working with citizens in the Fountain area for the past few years and he’s excited to work on the national study and answer important questions.
“What happened there is sort of an unfortunate natural experiment because we have people who are highly exposed and got much higher than national background levels of number of the PFAS compounds in their blood,” he said.
Concerned citizens like Rosenbaum say it’s important to understand these contaminants so we don’t repeat similar mistakes.
Each institution has been given one million dollars in grant money. The study starts in late 2019 and will run for 5 years.
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Ultrafiltration: Between Conventional Filters and Reverse Osmosis
by Gene Franks
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In water treatment, the term “ultrafiltration” (UF) is used to describe a filtration process that separates out particles down into the 0.1 to 0.001 micron range.
That’s extremely small when compared with conventional filtration, but it’s large when compared with nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. Ultrafiltration is tight enough to strain out pesky colloidal particles that conventional filters can’t hold, and it rejects both organic and inorganic large molecule substances. It cannot, however, remove ions and organics with low molecular weights (sodium, calcium, sulfate, for example), which are readily removed by reverse osmosis.
Molecular weight, in fact, is the yardstick by which ultrafiltration systems are usually measured. For example, an ultrafiltration membrane that removes dissolved solids with molecular weights of 10,000 is said to have a molecular weight cutoff of 10,000. Such a membrane has a nominal pore size of about 0.003 micron.
Compared with reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration membranes have extremely high flux rates. (Think of flux as the speed that the product water goes through the membrane.) They can also be operated at much lower pressure. As with reverse osmosis, temperature can have a great effect on performance, with lower temperature resulting in reduced flux rate.
Unlike conventional filters, ultrafiltration membranes do not trap and hold contaminants but like the reverse osmosis membranes they act as a barrier, holding contaminants until they are washed away. Ultrafiltration works in the same cross-flow separation method as reverse osmosis.
Ultrafiltration membranes do not trap and hold contaminants but like the reverse osmosis membranes they act as a barrier, blocking out contaminants until they are washed away. Ultrafiltration works in the same cross-flow separation method as reverse osmosis.
One great advantage of ultrafiltration membranes is that they can operate at pressures much lower than those required for reverse osmosis. In fact, UF systems usually operate at pressures below 100 psi, and 50 psi operation is common.
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Whole House Water Treatment: Keeping It Simple and Easy
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Simple whole house treatment for city water consists of a sediment filter, a carbon filter, and a TAC scale prevention unit.
One of the best-kept secrets about water treatment equipment is that to be effective it does not have to be complicated, expensive, and large. The truth is that much of the innovative energy of water treatment professionals in recent years has been directed toward greatly improved performance of traditional items like filter cartridges and toward the development of technologies that provide simpler solutions to problems like scale prevention.
Filter cartridges for city water applications, because of improved efficiency, often outperform large tank-style systems. Similarly, recently developed alternatives to conventional water softeners, like TAC units, can greatly improve water quality and prevent scale buildup without complicated control programming, drain connections, salt purchases, or service agreements.
It is easy to be impressed by the size of a large tank-style whole house carbon filter and to assume that because it is big it works better than a filter that is relatively small. Looks can be deceiving. Compact filter cartridges, made from very tightly packed powdered filter carbon, actually follow a different set of rules than large filters.
Concepts like “empty bed contact time” used to design and to size tank style filters filled with granular carbon do not apply to modern filter cartridges. In many ways a well- engineered 4.5″ X 20″ carbon block filter cartridge can outperform a carbon tank with several cubic feet of granular carbon.
Here are some advantages of cartridge-style whole house filters as compared with large tank-style backwashing units:
Easy to install. No drain or electrical connection needed. Thus, fewer plumbing connections, no wiring, and greater flexibility in choosing a place to install.
Low purchase price. Typically, a cartridge filter array costs less than 1/2 as much as a tank-style equivalent.
Easy to service. With cartridge units there is little that can go wrong, so an easy cartridge change and an occasional o ring replacement are all that’s needed. Changing a cartridge is a much easier “do it yourself” job than rebedding a tank-style filter.
Versatile. There are many cartridges to choose from. When you put in a new cartridge, you have a new water filter. If your city changes its disinfectant from chlorine to chloramine, you just change your filter cartridge. If you have a standard-sized filter housing, which is what we recommend, you have literally dozens of cartridges to choose from.
Perhaps the greatest mark of versatility is the ability to easily increase filter capacity by installing two or more carbon filters in parallel, so that each cartridge gets a fraction of the service water. If your cartridge supports a service flow of six gallons per minute, installing a second in parallel gives you twelve per minute. The extra carbon unit(s) can be added at the time of the initial installation, or later, to accommodate an increase in family size or other expanded need for filtered water.
Two carbon cartridges in parallel double the capacity and greatly reduce pressure drop. The multi-cartridge system provides higher flow rates for larger homes.
For scale prevention, passive TAC systems are becoming a popular substitute for conventional water softeners. TAC units require no drain connection and no electricity. The only upkeep is an easy media change, recommended for every three years.
The products featured on this page do not require electricity, drain connections, chemicals, or even water for regeneration. There are no electronic controls to program, no manuals to study, no salt to buy, no brine tanks to clean. Annual filter service is so easy most homeowners can do it themselves. Even the media change in the TAC tank (recommended every 3 years) does not require special equipment or great technical know-how.
More information about cartridge-style whole house units and salt-free scale treatment:
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Places to visit for additional information:
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Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the next Occasional!
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