Combimate water "softener"—opinions?

[Declan52]

1 minute ago, richi said:

Let's review.

1. New member revives months-old thread to say positive things about a product in which she has an interest (presumably as a result of Googling the product name)
2. Genuine questions are asked
3. Questions are politely dodged
4. Questions are dodged again
5. Questions are dodged a third time
6. Mods rule it's popcorn time

Aside from our own amusement-bordering-on-trolling, why are we continuing to engage here? I get that @lizzie likes her unit, and that's cool, but we need a 3-strikes rule or something.

I'm not a mod.

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, lizzie said:

The proof of the pudding guys....whatever the science I dont care I have much nicer water with my Halcyon than without.  

 

Having thought about it since the earlier post I realised that my Halcyon is fitted in the plant room so its all indoor water on that and all garden water is straight from the main so if I was inclined one day when I have ‘finished’ I I could sample the two...sample in usage not science I mean. I was banned from the science lab at school.....too much of a danger LOL

 

 

I can easily test the two samples and prove that the hardness is the same for both.  The company that make the unit you have do not make any claims at all that it reduces hardness or softens water in any way.  Looking in detail at how it works, it cannot soften water at all, and presumably the company know that so don't claim that it does; if they did they would probably fall foul of the ASA.

[lizzie]

I agree @Declan52 and @richiits getting boring!

Edited August 10, 2018 by lizzie

[jack]

The mods are discussing it, but for the moment there's something of value to our members in allowing the discussion to go on. If nothing else, any potential purchasers will hopefully have some questions to ask before buying (or can judge for themselves the quality and usefulness of the company's replies).

Edited August 10, 2018 by jack
Added "quality and usefulness"

[richi]

5 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

I'm not a mod.

I was referring to Jack

[richi]

4 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I can easily test the two samples and prove that the hardness is the same for both.

 

From the patent, the claim is that it conditions the water so that salts don't precipitate out as hard scale, not that it softens.

 

But it's still unclear to me how it achieves this—the patent describes turbulent flow through and around disks of dissimilar electronegativity as being the key, but if there's no catalytic effect, nor any sacrificing of the metals, of course it's going to sound like pseudoscience! "Polly" has been asked to explain this or give references that explain the effect, but all the replies appear to me to dodge the question.

[Declan52]

8 minutes ago, lizzie said:

I agree @Declan52 and @richiits getting boring!

I wouldn't say that. Not having done any chemistry in school, physics and biology where my choices, I find it quite interesting to be honest.

Lots of it is way over my head but there has been what I would deem relevant questions posted and no definitive answers  in return. 

[jack]

11 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I can easily test the two samples and prove that the hardness is the same for both.  The company that make the unit you have do not make any claims at all that it reduces hardness or softens water in any way.  Looking in detail at how it works, it cannot soften water at all, and presumably the company know that so don't claim that it does; if they did they would probably fall foul of the ASA.

 

2 minutes ago, richi said:

From the patent, the claim is that it conditions the water so that salts don't precipitate out as hard scale, not that it softens..

 

If they're relying on the properties of aragonite as suggested above by Polly, then they must either be:

- somehow changing the dissolved ions in such a way that if/when they later precipitate, they do so as aragonite (this would be a big claim if made); or

- (much more likely) the device causes early precipitation - presumably at the "catalyst" rather than in the boiler or tap - into fine aragonite particles. 

 

If so, then testing would be a simple matter of using a fine filter that lets dissolved ions past but captures aragonite particles.

 

So what size are these alleged particles?

 

2 minutes ago, richi said:

On the plus side, at least Polly Quayle had the good sense to use her real name.

 

Doing so was a nice touch.

[lizzie]

My final comment on the subject..... @richi I don't know Polly she was not involved in my purchase (bought a year ago). 

 

I can tell you having lived with it for 4 months now that my lovely (and large) shiny chrome bathroom fitting do not have scale they have a sort of water marking which is very easy to clean off.  It is definitely different to 'normal' water and my and OH skin has improved here, we both developed skin problems at the rented house due to the awful water and the water supply is the same awful water here at new house so I am very aware of the improvement and the only difference in supply is the Halcyon device.  I should be on commission!!! LOL

[jack]

Interesting link here:

 

http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_descaling.html

 

Search for aragonite.

[richi]

The many-levels of FAQs lead to test results done for some reason in Canada, 14 years ago. Two out of three tests show a <3% reduction in surface tension, the third test shows a <15% reduction at room temp—the results are described as "dramatically decreased."

 

(As an aside, is it normal to use the archaic dyne scale to measure surface tension? Surely Canada used SI units in 2004?)

Edited August 10, 2018 by richi
more info on tests

[HerbJ]

Their Website claims that it does produce softer water  Quotes from their Website

Wake up to softer water!
Your hard water solution is here.. really here!

As it uses no chemicals, adds nothing and takes nothing away, our water conditioner is a completely natural way to soften your water.

Your cleaning products and toiletries work better with softer water as there’s no limescale to kill the bubbles. Because of this you can use natural products as they’ll lather well.

Cleaning is easier – even cleaning your car is a joy – and you won’t be left with unsightly spotting. Even your plants will thrive as they more easily absorb the mineral rich softer water you get with an Halcyan Water Conditioner.

[richi]

tl;dr: it forces calcium ions to flocculate, thus forming a colloid. So it's similar in effect to phosphate dosing, but costs £700–£1,000.

[richi]

Returning to the patent, the discussion specifically states that the inventor doesn't know why it works, and can only speculate. I guess this is why we're experiencing such a feeling of pseudoscience.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, lizzie said:

My final comment on the subject..... @richi I don't know Polly she was not involved in my purchase (bought a year ago). 

 

I can tell you having lived with it for 4 months now that my lovely (and large) shiny chrome bathroom fitting do not have scale they have a sort of water marking which is very easy to clean off.  It is definitely different to 'normal' water and my and OH skin has improved here, we both developed skin problems at the rented house due to the awful water and the water supply is the same awful water here at new house so I am very aware of the improvement and the only difference in supply is the Halcyon device.  I should be on commission!!! LOL

 

A lot of water quality problems aren't down to the water itself, but often the pipe work and even applainces.  For example, at our old house we had very hard water (froma  chalk aquifer) and kettles would "fur up" with scale very quickly, tea tasted pretty awful etc.  After visiting a Malaysian friend with one, we went and bought a "hot pot", a device that is common in the far east and is just an insulated stainless container that holds up to five litres of near-boiling water and dispenses it on demand by a small electric pump.  They used to be quite hard to buy, but are now on sale all over the place. 

 

I won't pretend that they are in any way economical or environmentally friendly, they aren't at all, but they are extremely handy if you drink a lot of tea, as you have instant hot water available - no wait for the kettle to boil.

 

The interesting bit is that these things never fur up like a kettle.  What happens is that the bottom of the tank gradually fills with fine sandy particles of mainly CaCO₃  that can be flushed out every week or two.  The stainless inside of the hot pot itself stays shiny, as if we had soft water.  Tea made from it also tastes great, with no scum that we used to get when using the kettle.  What seems to be happening is that the conditions inside the hot pot are ideal for getting the CaCO3 to precipitate out as fine particles, leaving water that tastes a lot nicer.

 

The point here is that a lot of things contribute to the taste and apparent quality of the water in a domestic system, not just the incoming water itself.

[jack]

No matter what the arguments for how this is supposed to work, this statement doesn't seem right to me:

 

4 minutes ago, HerbJ said:

Even your plants will thrive as they more easily absorb the mineral rich softer water you get with an Halcyan Water Conditioner.

 

Crystals of aragonite are not more easily taken up by plants than dissolved ions.

 

2 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

The interesting bit is that these things never fur up like a kettle.  What happens is that the bottom of the tank gradually fills with fine sandy particles of mainly CaCO₃  that can be flushed out every week or two. 

 

This is exactly what happens inside our boiling water tap's tank. I poured out a whole pile of it a few months ago, leaving a surprising bright element.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

28 minutes ago, HerbJ said:

Their Website claims that it does produce softer water  Quotes from their Website

Wake up to softer water!
Your hard water solution is here.. really here!

As it uses no chemicals, adds nothing and takes nothing away, our water conditioner is a completely natural way to soften your water.

Your cleaning products and toiletries work better with softer water as there’s no limescale to kill the bubbles. Because of this you can use natural products as they’ll lather well.

Cleaning is easier – even cleaning your car is a joy – and you won’t be left with unsightly spotting. Even your plants will thrive as they more easily absorb the mineral rich softer water you get with an Halcyan Water Conditioner.

 

 

Check my highlight.  You can have soft water or mineral rich water, but they are generally mutually exclusive.  The only mineral in water that this device claims to have any effect on is Calcium Carbonate, CaCO₃, and possibly (although they don't seem to refer to it) magnesium salts that are also found in hard water.  Now their technical literature is clear - the device does not change the concentration of CaCO₃ in water at all - what comes out has exactly the same concentration of CaCO₃ as what went in.

 

The statement above about "wake up to softer water" is bordering on misrepresentation, IMHO, as this device doesn't change the hardness of water nor can it, even their own technical documentation (which is full of distracting stuff that's irrelevant to the chemistry of water hardness) doesn't claim that the device is a water softener.  The only claim they make (which has never been proven, even by the inventor) is that their device temporarily changes some, or all, of the CaCO₃ from the calcite form to the aragonite form, which has no effect at all on total hardness.  There's not even any peer-reviewed evidence that water with CaCO₃ in the form of aragonite, rather than calcite, is any different  at all as far as its use in the home is concerned.

 

 

[richi]

I believe that what they mean by "softer" is actually "lower surface tension." But the data they present are all over the shop and don't seem to show a significant reduction (and definitely not the "dramatic" reduction claimed).

[Jeremy Harris]

8 minutes ago, jack said:

No matter what the arguments for how this is supposed to work, this statement doesn't seem right to me:

 

Crystals of aragonite are not more easily taken up by plants than dissolved ions.

 

 

It's also overlooking the fact that if the CaCO₃ in the water is turned from the calcite form to the aragonite form, the change will be short lived, as the aragonite will revert back to calcite within a day or two.

 

Plants don't care about the particular crystalline form of CaCO₃, if they don't like carbonate rich water they don't like carbonate rich water, no matter whether that be vaterite, calcite or aragonite.

[Jeremy Harris]

I wonder why the company name changed from ecosoftwater and their old website now redirects the the new one, with different wording (the old website is still up on the Wayback Machine)?  Could it be that it because this device doesn't (and cannot) soften hard water, and the name "ecosoftwater" implied that it was a water softener?

 

There's also the Australian connection with the company of the same name, as linked to by @Alphonsox in an earlier post on page one of this thread, which is undoubtedly the same device.

 

[Nickfromwales]

9 hours ago, lizzie said:

The proof of the pudding guys....whatever the science I dont care I have much nicer water with my Halcyon than without.  

 

Having thought about it since the earlier post I realised that my Halcyon is fitted in the plant room so its all indoor water on that and all garden water is straight from the main so if I was inclined one day when I have ‘finished’ I I could sample the two...sample in usage not science I mean. I was banned from the science lab at school.....too much of a danger LOL

Let's get a sample of each and put this to bed? @JSHarris?

[Jeremy Harris]

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Let's get a sample of each and put this to bed? @JSHarris?

 

 

Dead easy.  I have a calibrated total hardness meter, pH meter and conductivity meter, plus test reagents as a back up, and it's literally 20 minutes work to check to see if two samples are the same or different with regard to hardness.

[lizzie]

@Nickfromwales you can have as much water as you like, presumably it would have to get to @JSHarris to do his magic.

 

Wish I had lovely welsh water no need for gadgets then......my Mother always used to tell us that Welsh girls had lovely skin due to our lovely water......she didnt say and all the rain that came to provide it LOL

 

The Welsh are coming to ‘warm’ the house this weekend......too many for beds so camp out on air beds in the living room....no doubt will be a loud and long night ahead, maybe I will have to water the beer!

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

Dead easy.  I have a calibrated total hardness meter, pH meter and conductivity meter, plus test reagents as a back up, and it's literally 20 minutes work to check to see if two samples are the same or different with regard to hardness.

Would it be possible for us to maybe conduct this test ? 

Id say at that point this could be concluded, and anyone who wishes to buy one can, anyone 'else' can select an option that they otherwise feel more confident will serve them best. 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

13 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Would it be possible for us to maybe conduct this test ? 

Id say at that point this could be concluded, and anyone who wishes to buy one can, anyone 'else' can select an option that they otherwise feel more confident will serve them best. 

 

 

I've probably got a couple of new 250ml sterile sample bottles around somewhere.  All that would be needed would be a sample of water from before the device and a sample from after it.  I could do the tests in front of witnesses ( when I see you in November, perhaps?) and someone could photograph the results easily enough as proof.