In article
,
Sheldon wrote:

On Mar 1, 9:52?pm, Charles wrote:
On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:21:23 -0800 (PST), Sheldon
wrote:





On Mar 1, 8:42?pm, Billy wrote:
In article ,

?Charles wrote:
On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:10:13 -0800, "SteveB" meagain@rockvilleUSA
wrote:

I believe that the hose bibs on the outside of my house are hooked to
the
soft water system. ?Is there any disadvantage to watering with soft
water?
They're about to turn on the irrigation water system in our rural
area, but
I need to get around and water some of the trees before that.

Thanks.

Steve

For occasional watering it is fine. ?For steady use I'd avoid it.
Most softening systems replace the calcium and magnesium with sodium.
Plants need calcium and magnesium, sodium is toxic. ?Over time it will
build up, change the soil properties.

Like Charles said, you would basically be putting salt on your plants.
You don't want to drink it either, again it is salt (or the cation half
of the salt) and you risk raising your blood pressure. It is good for
washing things because the Ca++ in the water (hard water) is out and you
don't precipitate fatty acids or get calcium stearate (better known as
bathtub ring) which interfere with making the dirtiness soluble in
water.

What tripe. ?There is virtually no salt in softened water... whatever
salt was contained in the water before it was softened would be far,
far less.

From:http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/se...ter+softener&G..
.

Sodium ions is not salt. The salt used in water softeners does NOT
end up in the domestic water... the salt and oher minerals flush out
as grey water.

You have to give Shellly credit. He may be stoopid but but he is
persistent. One more time from the top:

The idea behind a water softener is simple. The calcium and magnesium
ions in the water are ""REPLACED** with sodium ions. Since sodium does
not precipitate out in pipes or react badly with soap, both of the
problems of hard water are eliminated. To do the ion replacement, the
water in the house runs through a bed of small plastic beads or through
a chemical matrix called zeolite. The beads or zeolite are covered with
sodium ions. As the water flows past the sodium ions, they swap places
with the calcium and magnesium ions. Eventually, the beads or zeolite
contain nothing but calcium and magnesium and no sodium, and at this
point they stop softening the water. It is then time to regenerate the
beads or zeolite.

How's that hole coming Shelly? About time to hydrate again, huh?
--

Billy

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