water hardness & Phosphate

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Velcro
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water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

My water hardness is TDS: 110pm and GK: 53.7ppm and GK: 89.5ppm
I had been recommended a water filter cartridge with Phosphate as a scale blocker instead of a water softener.
Do I need a water softener with my water is the Phosphate sufficient?

I don't see much written with regard to Phosphate scale block and espresso.

The cartridge was an Omnipure Q5720-P Phosphate Carbon Block Water Filter
with 1um filtering

thanks
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by chas »

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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

A good read thank you, but leaves more questions than answers.
Protecting equipment is important but so is the coffee, otherwise we wouldn't be doing all this.
It leaves the question is Polyphosphate & Carbon block (the cartridge I have) a good solution for my level of hardness?
or do I need to shift to something much more expensive like the Mavea Purity C50?

How do you determine what's needed before incurring either a descale project or paying to the it done?
I'd like to avoid both.

thanks
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by chas »

I've never heard of anyone needing to control phosphate to reduce boiler scale. If it was high enough in your house to be a real issue, I would think you'd need whole house treatment for the issue. Typically TDS measurements aren't used to determine treatment needs for espresso either. Calcium hardness alone is used to determine whether a softener is needed. That said, I don't think it will hurt anything to use the carbon-phosphate filter cartridge.

You didn't mention calcium hardness. Does that mean it's not an issue at your house? If it is an issue, I think you should still use a softener cartridge and not count on the phosphate reduction to reduce or eliminate scale.
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

I have a TDS meter: 110ppm
and an API fish tank hardness kit for GH (General Hardness) 89.5ppm and KH (carbonate hardness) 53.7 ppm
I realize now I messed up the original post - sry
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

Do you think I need to soften the water ?
Also is Alkalinity and carbonate hardness the same?

This water chemistry have me going in circles
thanks
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by chas »

Supposedly, the hardness cut-off before softening is recommended as 3 grains or 50ppm. So it sounds like you should probably go with the standard softening cartridge followed by a carbon filter just to be safe.

Here's my installation: http://rimpo.org/chas/softener-filter.html

I test my hardness periodically and when it creeps back up above 3 grains I replace both cartridges. In my installation that comes out to be about once every 9 months.

Fortunately, most any hardware store stocks those 10" cartridges. If you plan and order ahead you can get much better deals on-line. I use FiltersFast, but they're not too far from me so shipping cost and time is also very reasonable. YMMV. You can also save money by purchasing several carbon filters at a time. Ditto for the softener cartridges except for the fact that they can go bad so I usually never buy more than 1-2 of them at a time whereas I might get 3-5 carbon filters depending on the current deal.
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

Thanks chas seems I need to soften (think I knew it but was in denial) .
now comes the tricky part

I was thinking of Mavea C50 because I've read sodium softeners can affect blood pressure (from the sodium). but now I've been reading that the hydrogen softeners can cause acidic damage to espresso machines. should I worry about Hydrogen softeners? Is there a non sodium / non hydrogen softener?
I looked on FilterFast but didn't see anything. maybe I missed it.
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by chas »

I can't help you there. You already know more about water softening than I do.
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by MDL »

If ;you are concerned about sodium and blood pressure you can use potassium chloride in an ion exchange system instead of sodium chloride.
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

ooh that could be a good choice
I haven't seen any but now knowing I'll look into it.
If you have any leads please share
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

I realize now there are a bit of confusion on the Phosphate
The Phosphate is not a problem I need to correct.
The Omnipure cartridge I was sold adds phosphate which is suppose to make the scale not stick (plus 1u carbon block)
That's why I was wondering if this was a good solution or not.

I haven't found any potassium chloride except in whole home sizes.
I'm looking to only handle my espresso machine (hope it comes soon).

Most of the sediment filters I see for espresso machines are 5u or 10u. So is 1u overkill?

thanks

--this water stuff is harder than espresso :shock:
Velcro
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Re: water hardness & Phosphate

Post by Velcro »

I realize now there are a bit of confusion on the Phosphate
The Phosphate is not a problem I need to correct.
The Omnipure cartridge I was sold adds phosphate which is suppose to make the scale not stick (plus 1u carbon block)
That's why I was wondering if this was a good solution or not.

I haven't found any potassium chloride except in whole home sizes.
I'm looking to only handle my espresso machine (hope it comes soon).

Most of the sediment filters I see for espresso machines are 5u or 10u. So is 1u overkill?

thanks

--this water stuff is harder than espresso :shock:
Velcro
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