Best Of

There you go.

Now, if you're a true connoisseur of the extract of the java Bean, you make it with bottled water. If you really like quality java, you drink it black, straight up. No cream or sugar. That way, you can drink it hot, cold or any temperature in between. If you are in a hurry, put some ice cubes in it. To cool it off. Not just any ice cubes. You need ice cubes from a dedicated chilled plate ice machine. Not the automated ice cube tray that the give you to take up valuable space in your freezer. The ice will be clear until you notice the white spot in the middle. Water in a ice cube tray freezes from the outside in. As the water freezes, it forced all the dissolved solids and gasses in the water to the middle. Look carefully and notice the little bubbles. On a hot summer day, fill a glass with bottled water and ice cubes from a freezer tray. Take a drink, The first few taste great. After that, the water is undrinkable because of the junk in the middle. When you buy a bag of bagged ice at the Supermarket, the iice is made in machines that pump water over a freezing plate. Water sticks to the grid. Once the slab is thick enough, it "harvests" the slab. All pure water. ever been somewhere and had an adult beverage where they used bagged ice? Finished the beverage and sucked the left over ice until its gone? Bet you never did that with the ice in your ice tray at home. Put bagged ice in your coffee. Enjoy the fine flavor.

So, if you want some third world ionized water, buy bagged ice, let it melt, and pump it into the heating system. I don't know what they get for truly ionized water, but it is about $2.10 per 10# bag at the Publix Supermarket. That's less than $2.00 per gallon. Third World Ionized water. Better than nothing if you have nothing.

Henry's law states that when a fluid is heated it holds less dissolved solids. Bottles law deals states that when the pressure increases, the volume decreases which is why a diaphragm tanks is used in a system to accept the expansion of the water when heated. Check the web for both Henry and Boyles Law. It applies to what we do everyday.

Deionized water is cool and helps tremendously but only helps. Corrosion can still occur. Inhibitors help in addition to but need to be checked at some interval.

So if I wanted to dissolve salt or sugar in water it would go into solution easier if the water was cold? I don't think so.

Cold water is more dense so it cannot dissolve salt or sugar. But when heated to certain temps it can hold more but at some point it starts to come out of solution.

We have all started new systems, purged them thoroughly, prior to air scrubbers, and we would receive a call from our customer saying they hear noise in the baseboard. Where did it come from? We purged it out. It came out of solution in the form of a vapor. Some came out in the form of a solid and when we drain the same system years later we have the awful smelly stuff in black form that comes out. Minerals.

If we take untreated domestic water and place it in an ice cube tray and freeze it usually you'll have ice cubes with a white center. The minerals froze at a different rate then the water. What happens to those same minerals when placed in a hydronic closed loop system? They come out of solution and many settle in the bottom of the system. Others travel with the flow and coat the distribution piping and radiation. Remember we are talking about how these effect an ECM circ in our systems.

@Harvey Ramer:

"" What are those unintended consequences Ice? Keeping in mind the system being closed loop with a sacrificial anode and/or a PH buffer. ""

I got involved in water treatment years ago. All water treatment is a PITA. I bought the equipment from my wholesaler who had been convinced to get in to it by some slug connected in some dubious way to someone else; The marriage soon got a divorce. The "owners" of the company were installing all kinds of exotic equipment where I lived and worked. I got certified by the WQA. Whenever these guys had a problem that they couldn't get to, they called me. In Massachusetts, anyone can install water treatment systems, but only a licensed Journeyman plumber can connect it to a Potable water system, get a permit and have it inspected.

They did this big house nest to a fresh water pond that had high salt levels from ocean over wash and prevailing high winds. It was also located next to an active old farm. They had been spreading fertilizer for years to grow corn. The Nitrate levels were off the chart. The water also had high levels of iron. It was a mess. So, they put in the RO system. I don't know when it was installed but they called me to install a 2 cubic foot neutralizing filter using Calcite. It was explained to me that when you RO water, you remove everything and you end up with pure water. Which tastes like crap. Then, because there are no dissolved conductive solids for the ions to feed and ride upon, the water becomes extremely aggressive. Which is why RO systems are all nonconductive plastic materials. As it was explained to me, the uncharged water would take ions from the Calcite and because of this, it would stop the metal (brass/copper) in the system from being destroyed by the pure water.

That's what I was told. I looked in to their claims. I never found anything that said anything to the contrary. They also explained that is why under counter POU RO systems are ALL non-conductive plastic.

The one thing I learned about water treatment. The more you do, the more you will have to do. There is no substitute for good water. And the unintended consequences. For example. If you have a well system that delivers iron in reasonable amounts, and a PH of less than 7.0 down to 6.7, and you put a reverse flow calcite filter (without backwash or clocks), and the iron will precipitate out in toilet tanks, bowls and other places, if you run it through the calcite filter, it will trap the iron and convert it into something (I never figured out what) and the water will have a PH well above 7.0 but below 8.0. Ion exchange water softeners don't work well with low PH water. Especially if there is iron present. Run it through a calcite neutralizing filter, and the softener sees the Iron as a form of hardness and it sees the calcite as more. The neutralizer makes the softener work better. Unintended consequences, not found in any instruction manual. You have to figure it out yourself.

Hope that helps.

I'll save the solution for women's dyed hair turning blue/green and the solution for another time unless asked.

(Or where the term "Blue Hair's) came from with old ladies.

Henry's law states that when a fluid is heated it holds less dissolved solids. Bottles law deals states that when the pressure increases, the volume decreases which is why a diaphragm tanks is used in a system to accept the expansion of the water when heated. Check the web for both Henry and Boyles Law. It applies to what we do everyday.

Deionized water is cool and helps tremendously but only helps. Corrosion can still occur. Inhibitors help in addition to but need to be checked at some interval.

The only thing that changes the volume of water is temperature. It is a hydraulic fluid that is incompressible. Unless you are talking on the atomic level and the change in volume when pressure is applied, would be so minute we would be unable to measure it.

I know for sure that a higher temp of water has a higher affinity to absorb salt. Whether the same holds true for other dissolvable solids, I'm not sure.

I know for a fact that Henry's Law is a gas law and addresses the absorption of gasses in fluids dependant on temp. As much as I have studied it, I have not come across the reference to dissolvable solids. Could you point me in the right direction. I like learning new things.