When it comes to dealing with hard water, the descaler method always seemed a bit out there. How could something like that actually help when it isn’t even removing minerals? Personally, I have always been rather skeptical but with the failure of two water softeners and the high cost of replacement resin, it suddenly became an option for a short term solution.
The theory of the electronic descaler is that it produces an electromagnetic field affecting minerals dissolved in the water as they pass through the pipe. These forces result in the calcium and magnesium ions forming tiny, less adhesive crystals that remain suspended in the water. Obviously this effect is not long term, but it does typically last between 24 and 48 hours. As long as the water does not remain stagnant for long periods, the effect should be noticeable.
After some research, I chose the iSpring ED2000. Installation is straight forward. All that is needed in about a foot and a half of available pipe at the supply side (before the hot water split). Simply wrapping two sets of wires around the pipe and plugging in the unit is the extent of the install. The only thing to pay attention to is direction of water flow and direction of the wires on the pipe. The iSpring unit comes with tie wraps to hold the wires down on the pipe at each end of the wrapping and an adequate cord length to plug in. The unit itself has four mounting holes so it can be screwed to a mounting plate or tie wrapped directly to the pipe itself. I chose the former.
Needless to say, it takes time for the conditioned water to get through all the pipes and the hot water tank, which is why I waited before deciding if this was actually doing anything. While waiting, I was curious to see how much power this thing would consume, so I kept it on a kilowatt meter. Turns out to be very efficient at about one watt of power. While waiting, the water did seem to improve.
It didn’t take long before suds and soap started to behave as they had when the softeners were working. After about 5 days, the water was consistently better. This was a welcome surprise as between the two softeners, we were running at 90 grains of hardness. The amount of change in felt hardness is actually significant – so much so that I am no longer rushed to fix the softeners and may even remove one of them when I do. Rather impressive for a small electric device that is so easy to install.