canalsiderenovation

Any thoughts on these two options? This is the reply from Wrekin. With regards to polyphosphate, It is a scale conditioner, not a softener. It doesn't remove the calcium, instead, the polyphosphate dissolves slowly to coat the calcium to change its format, so it adds the polyphosphate to your water by coating the calcium, it is food grade and usually comes from fish oils. Calcium, looks like a Jaggard snowflake underneath a microscope, and when heated, sticks together like a jigsaw puzzle causing limescale build up. Poly phosphate coats the calcium into a ball shape, so it bounces off each other when heated and slows the process of build up down. It won't help with your skin, but it should help against your taps, toilets and showers. With your quooker, I am unsure how they work, but I am sure they have like a boiler, which constantly heats water? In which case, if you re-boil the water over and over, the calcium in the water will revert back to its original state of the snowflake shape and may cause limescale build up. Poly phosphate is a slow dissolving material, so the items on our website should be ok for whole house, but we would need to check your flow rates. You will also require an annual service and fresh or a top up of poly phosphate - We sell ours in refill packs so you can empty the cartridge in to a sieve, rinse and rid of any build up, and put it back into the cartridge, topping up when necessary and reinstalling. Other Poly Phosphate systems have cartridges that don't open, but you need to change instead on an annual basis, which encourages unnecessary waste and expense. If you are looking for a scale conditioner, I would actually recommend our life science Sentry. This is an electric device, but the beauty of it, it does not require any plumbing or servicing! Just a 3 pin socket. It pulsates small pulses through the pipe so that the calcium changes into a ball shape. If you ever move, you can take it with you. Would also save the costs of a plumber and any messing of the pipework, so might be a better option for you? This is a one off cost with no servicing required. The manufacturer suggests a 15-20 year life approximately and I think it costs less than £5 electric a year - which would be cheaper than a service on polyphosphate. Again, if you are re-boiling water over and over, it can reverse the affect and revert back to a jigsaw shape, but that's the same with any scale conditioner. Again, it won't help your skin, but will help the toilets taps etc. Some of our customers try the sentry first (as it is a one off cost) and see how they get on. Because there is no plumbing involved, if in a year they change there minds, there is no additional plumbing work in removing plumbed in systems, which can add to the labour cost. Both the polyphosphate and sentry achieve the same thing, but in different methods. With both the polyphosphate and the sentry, you will still have calcium in the water, so you will notice scale in the kettle, but it should be in a powder form and should be far easier to clean as the calcium is treated, its easier to wipe away. Any calcium in the water, treated or untreated, can dry your skin as it is an irritant. The only way to remove calcium from your water supply and stop any future calcium build up, is with a water softener. (That does require salt - anything that doesn't require salt is a conditioner not a softener) Water Softeners also remove existing build up over time too. Poly Phosphate: https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/products/vih10-bl-pp-scale-inhibitor-refillable-whole-house-system-10in?_pos=4&_psq=pP&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Sentry: https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/products/water-king-sentry-scale-conditioner?_pos=1&_psq=sentry&_ss=e&_v=1.0 We have the Polyphosphate and the Sentry's in stock, if you would like to order one of those instead of having a softener installed?

Yep we would have to have another filter on the kitchen tap to prevent limescale in the Quooker tank/tap which is a major pain but make it safe to drink which is why I'm going down the Combimate/similar first for whole house to see if that helps.

Yes he did mention it not remembering the settings in the event of a power cut and that if I wanted it to do the regeneration cycle at a specific time e.g. during Octopus cheap rate (say 4am) rather than it's standard 2am cycle I'd need to trick it to think the time was 2 hours later than it was by setting the clock for 2 hours later. We also suffer frequently with power cuts which is why I was tempted to go for the non electric one. I think we are going to look into Combimate or the Wrekin equivalent first and see if this has any impact on limescale before going down the softener route. Whilst soft water, using less detergent etc would be great my main gripe is limescale and it's a bit of a faff trying keep the cold water feed hard in our kitchen to then have to fit a separate device on it anyway. If we try it for a while without success then we can explore the softeners.

Yes we only had it descaled 2 weeks ago! I'll see what Wrekin water say, I've also messaged Combimate too. I'm not disregarding a softener completely alongside something like the Combimate or an equivalent (and if the one from Wrekin does the same job as a Combimate I'm tempted to go with them as they are 10 mins away so any issues we have them nearby). As you say, maybe get something like this fitted first and see if it has any impact rather than get a softener and a Combimate (or equivalent) right away.

That sounds like a good idea to see how we get on. I was looking at Combimate and just to understand any similar products are these the same concept? https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/collections/polyphosphate-dosing

Strangely Kinetico have partnered with Quooker and yet ask either any company questions about water softeners on Quooker Combi/Cube and drinking it and you can't get a straight answer! https://www.kinetico.co.uk/quooker

Thanks, I'll look into the Combimate ... its getting more expensive than I'd hoped. I take it Combimate is not recommended for the whole house as it is a conditioner rather than softener....

No they didn't, they mentioned something called Reverse Osmosis but our main issue is limescale so the focus was on softeners. It seems our options are: 1. Soften all water coming in (which includes that going to the Quooker) which we will drink. 2. Leave the cold water feed hard where the Quooker is but we will still get limescale then in the Quooker Combi which is cold fed then boiled but our hard cold water will still be filtered via the Cube. Limescale will still be an issue for anything in the kitchen as the Cube is cold fed and the Combi is cold fed (and cold water mixed with the boiling hot). 3. Soften water but have a cold water hard feed in our utility for non softened water but this means it's barely drinkable unless we filter it meaning another water filter needing to be fitted/Britta jug and therefore rendering the Quooker useless! 🤯

I also emailed Kinetco directly and had some conflicting info. So one one hand it's safe but not if you're on a low sodium diet (I'm not for medical reasons but do try and maintain a low sodium diet) and a hard feed is recommended but it is beneficial to have the softener feeding the Quooker system! If the softener was feeding the Quooker system (the combi and cube) it would be drank (boiling and cold filtered)... Softened water is completely safe to drink, but we would advise against this if you were on a medically prescribed low-sodium diet. Most people don’t like the taste of softened water, which may be why a hard feed comes recommended. It is likely beneficial to have the softener feeding your Quooker system.

Edit to add that Quooker have confirmed that our Quooker Combi tank is cold fed as is the Cube so if we left the cold water feed hard then the water in the combi tank that is boiled will remain hard which is pretty much one of the main reasons we were looking into a softener as it's destroying the Quooker Combi tank! They pretty much had to replace it a couple of weeks ago when they came out and it has huge shards of limescale in it. If we leave the utility cold feed hard then we could drink that but I like my ice cold filtered and sparkling water from the Cube!

Wrekin water came out today. Really helpful and informative guys. Tested water and watching the colour change. Our water is definitely hard 300 ppm. We are waiting for prices but there are a couple of options. The Eco 15 Ultra eco version https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/products/ecoultra-hc-high-capacity-digital-metered-water-softener-high-grade-ultra-resin?variant=50680066736457 I wasn't really keen on electric but the Eco 15 Ultra seems really simple and apparently very cost effective to run and you can set the cycle for a specific time and also uses far less salt than Kinetico. I think it's probably going to be around £1200 installed but they did mention they may have some reconditioned models so may be able to get it cheaper and they also will give us 6 months of salt. Apparently you can programe it to do its regeneration thing when it's cheap electricity too. I was told the Kinetico was more expensive to buy and does use more salt but obviously is non electric. Re drinking softened water. They don't recommend it as previously mentioned for baby formula or those on sodium controlled diet although the guy that came.to see me said he drinks his softened water with no issues but it does taste differently (not bad just different). We could get the cold water feed on our utility tap left as hard water but this sort of defeats the option of having the Quooker Cube/cold water filter fitted if we aren't going to drink the water from it! They are looking into if it is possible to leave the cold water feed as hard water in the kitchen (our water doesn't come in there it comes in our utility but they put in an external stop tap outside the kitchen when they ran the water to our garage). I guess one thing I'm struggling to get my head around is the Quooker hot water Combi tank in particular and tap suffers terribly with limescale so if we leave the cold water feed as hard under the kitchen sink surely we are still going to have limescale issues with the Quooker. And I'm not sure if the Quoomer cube combi fills up with cold water which is then boiled or hot water. Completely confused..... Does anyone have a water softener and Quooker Combi tank and water softener?

I need to see if we can get cold water from the mains and if it is viable with the Quooker Cube (which has a filter). I'll have to ask Wrekin Water when they come out next week and see what they suggest.

If we do have a Kinetico we would keep the Quooker for a while and the associated Cube which also has a water filter for cold water. It would therefore filter the water that has already been softened. I do drink a lot of water so I'm a bit worried if it's particularly bad to drink softened water.

I'm definitely going to look into the non electric ones, it's an absolute pain being an all electric house as we have frequent power cuts and I'm not fussed on smart functions, our wifi signal is crap even with a mesh system and seems to be even worse since Openreach insisted on upgrading to digital.. if our phone signal was any good I'd do away with any form of router but it isn't and that's a whole new issue.

I thought something like this would be a whole house system? https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/products/kinetico-supersoft-twin-tank-non-electric-water-softener

We have booked with Wrekin Water who are going to come out as they are only down the road, test our water, do a home survey, bring the different bits of kit and go through differences of a softener and conditioner and go from there.... I see they do the kinetico which I've seen on here...

I have found this local company that seem to offer a range of options, salt based and others. I'll message them but they may be able to give some ideas. https://wrekinwatertreatment.co.uk/collections/salt-free-water-softeners I found the halcyan water thread...waaaay over my head!

@Nickfromwales have you heard of these? Just wondering as an alternative to one thats electric or meeds filling up with salts etc how good they are? https://www.stuart-turner.co.uk/product/stuart-water-conditioner-c3-22-44617 Or similar https://halcyanwater.com/ I just don't know where it would be fitted if we wanted it to do our whole house, I'm not sure where our water comes in as I think we have two points (kitchen and utility)...

Because he was sh!t and in fairness we didn't realise it was going to be so much of an issue and our water quality in terms of hardness has got much worse. Severn Trent have been to the neighbourhood a few times testing it

I don't know enough about whole home water softeners but we suffer terribly. We are consistently descaling the coffee machine and regularly cleaning washing machines etc and citric acid in the loos.

Thanks, I'll look into this as an option rather than the Quooker limescale attachment. Unfortunately it's not just the Limescale, the Quooker had had so many problems (from the pull out hose on the tap leaking to the boiler breaking). Last time we had them out for a service they did lots of other things that apparently needing doing but without asking us telling us of any additional costs and then presented a bill for over £500, needless to say we complained and did not have to pay). It seems some other taps have the water filter/limescale filter on them already which you can just replace every 12 months. I guess we need to make a decision on whether to keep the Quooker or ditch it in favour of a different tap/seperate limescale filter.

Do you have a link for this? Do you mean InSinkErator? https://kitchensinksandtaps.co.uk/h3300-brushed-steel-boiling-hot-water-tap-only

Ahhh so its the same tap? I'll get a price from Howdens too and see if its any different. Can you send me the link for it I can't seem to find it! Thanks

So, we had a Quooker tap along with the cube that came with our kitchen. It's been quite problematic to be honest and expensive though Quooker have been out a few times FOC and sorted it. At the last visit this week they recommended a scale control add on thing at a special offer for £100. Now we have lots of scale issues and the boiling water tank has scaled up badly but if we add this on their replacement cartridges are £90 which need doing 12 to 18 months. The Cube we had needs frequent filter changes at £80 a time too and we drink a lot of filtered water. All the filters seem bespoke and not able to get elsewhere (particularly the Cube which is an older one) and then the co2 cannisters although we have about a dozen of these still unused so hopefully don't need to buy any for a while. I'm so tempted to do away with the whole thing and sell it and get a cheaper replacement where we can get generic filters/scale control filters. We dont really drink fizzy water and whilst I do really like the boiling water tap and filtered water, the filtered water doesn't need to be ice cold, just drinkable! I'm therefore looking at alternatives that have boiling water, filtered water (not necessarily ice cold, tap temp is fine) and something to control the scale as we live in a very hard water area (or at least something that is easy to maintain, clean tank etc. Does anyone have any suggestions? This one has popped up (it also offers free installation too, but this isn’t necessarily a deciding factor). https://fahrenuk.com/4-in-1-boiling-water-taps/celsius-brushed-nickel-swan-neck-4-in-1-boiling-water-tap/ Thanks

Did this late last night with the insulation and today everything's back to normal! Phew.... still going to get it serviced. Think it's around £150 plus vat, but will ring round a few places first.