Alkaline Water News [Water Wellness]

Any Water Ionizer may be able to ionize well in St. Louis, where I live, but the same water ionizer may not ionize well in your municipality.

Why? Because the hardness and total dissolved solids from place to place are so different! If you look at the hardness map, above, you can get a general idea of the wide differences in water hardness around the USA. Keep in mind that these are general ground water conditions and do not take into account the other sources [lakes, rivers, springs and fresh water runoff collected when it rains]. If you live in an area that is …

• Temperate and moist, but very hard [i.e., the red areas on the map], your municipal water company may get their water from a variety of places [wells and rivers for instance] and so you may look hard according to the map, above, but not be too bad when it gets to your tap.
• Hot and dry,  your municipal water company probably gets most of your water from wells. In this case with the map, above, it shows probably a good picture of your water hardness. If you live in a hot and dry [all year long] location, and you have very hard ground water, I’m going to guess you also have a very high TDS [total dissolved solids].
• If you live in a region with very soft water it is possible that your municipal water company adds calcium [lime] to your water to buffer it. Water that is too soft may corrode pipes and so it is for the protection of the pipes that the water treatment companies do this.
• If you have a well, on the other hand, then your source of water is only the ground water, and so the map would more likely be showing a pretty good representation of the water you are getting.

The actual hardness of municipal water should be looked up, and if it’s your own well it should be tested.

The parts per million [ppm] of hardness is a very important number to a water ionizer owner. It means you are either going to probably get good, better or best ionization….or possibly not so good, and you should know something about this ahead of time, so you’re prepared in the event you need to do some prefiltration [in line with your water ionizer].

Your municipal water company has a responsibility to report to you what your water quality is. They file an annual water quality report online usually, and this can be located and looked at. The report usually tells you the levels detected of certain contaminants deemed to be regulated by the EPA. The report doesn’t have to tell you your water hardness, but sometimes you can find it in there. It’s a good thing to look at your water quality report from time to time, and if you can’t find it or if they don’t say what your hardness is you can call the phone number on your water bill [or your landlord's bill]. They will usually be very good about answering your questions.

What does this mean for your water ionizer purchase?

Very Hard Water: This water is possibly some of the hardest water to ionize. Many, many people in this situation are already using a whole house water softener and reverse osmosis. If this is you…you can simply add a Remineralizer in the line and you should be able to ionize just fine. [The best water ionizers to put in-line with a reverse-osmosis-remineralizer set up are the slower-flowing counter-top water ionizers, like the Jupiter models or the Chanson Eden. If you have a faster flowing water ionizer, then you could have difficulty with getting sufficient pressure and may need a water flow-rate booster pump to put in-line with the ionizer.]

Very Soft Water: This water isn’t too troublesome. If your water is too soft all you need to do is get a Remineralizer to put in-line with your water ionizer. Some ionizers have a mineral port for adding some calcium to the water. If all you need is a little boost, then this may be enough. [Note: Only use chunk calcium in the mineral port]

Medium Waters: The best water to ionize is between 80 and 180 ppm of hardness. Below that you may want to use a Remineralizer or mineral port. Harder than 180 you should still be able to ionize well all the way up to about 250 ppm, but you would need something to keep scale from damaging your water ionizer, [such as one or two Ionizer Armors or an EOS Device ].

Related Blog Posts:

Here are some articles I wrote that are of importance to the use of water ionizers with various types of water around the country. Rather than re-write the articles, I’m listing them here.

A New Hard Water Solution for Water Ionizer Owners

Water Ionizers: Where, When and Why Prefilter or Use Extra Devices?

The Melody Water Ionizer Works Great with the Soft Water of Tacoma, WA

Can You Hook Up a Water Ionizer When You Have a Whole-House Water Softener?

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You should get to know your areas water contaminants and risks so you can guard against them.

Every year the water company sends me a water quality report. In this report I am given a lot of data about my water…you should be too. Maybe this report is something you filed away and didn’t think about in the past, but now that you’re more informed, you might just take a look at it some time. It’s informative, however it only reports the elements that are federally regulated [so it's not a complete listing...actually there are over 100 contaminants that aren't even regulated, so they wouldn't be in the report].

My St. Louis report tells me about these:

Inorganic contaminants: Barium, Fluoride, Nitrate+Nitrite, Lead, Copper;

Disinfectants [byproducts of the disinfectants used to treat the water]: Chloramine, Trihalomethanes, Haloacetic Acids; 

Microbes: Coliform Bacteria, Total Organic Compounds, and Turbicity; and finally it tells me about

Radioactive Contaminants: Gross Alpha Particle Activity, and Total Uranium.

Well, in looking over my St. Louis area report, there’s some good news and some bad news for people living in St. Louis [without a water ionizer]. The good news is no radiation has been detected. The bad news is: there’s too much lead in the water, almost too many Nitrates & too much Barium in the water, and

In my book… any of this junk in the water is bad news!

I’m sure different localities will have differing concerns, therefore, I’d expect the water reports to reflect the risks in that location. The report points out a maximum level of contamination for each of the contaminants, and a range considered “safe”. These are all usually reported in mg/L [milligrams per liter]. Then the report tells the Average level of the targeted contaminants found in the water [after treatment].

You can go to this website to get information on the contaminants in your area’s water: http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/yourwater/ Or you could go to your city’s website and search for “water quality report” or “water report”. Ex. My search, “St. Louis Water Report”, gave me the report as the first item on pg. 1.

Once you get your report, you can see if there’s something in your water that you may need a prefilter for. I think the Arsenic, Lead and Fluoride prefilter looks like something I should get. Prefilters targeting certain contaminants do a much better job than a single filter can.

With all that having been said, though, I feel pretty safe with my St. Louis water. And it’s all because of my wonderful Melody water ionizer with its awesome Biostone  [soon to be Biostone Plus] filter.

If you have well water, you’ll have to do your own testing. Fortunately, I now have a really inexpensive Comprehensive Well-Water Test Kit  you can purchase for 24.95.

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