magnetic (electromagnetic) water conditioners

Frank G_2

Is there any benefit from these devices?

I have a problem with calcium deposits in the domestic hot water heating coil in the v-16 burnham boiler. It requires to be changed every other year and chemical treatments have proved to be less reliable than the constant replacement of the coil. Also to note, I have a water softner, but that hasn't helped either. Any suggestions?

John Starcher_4

Frank.....

....I do not claim to speak with ANY authority about these devices. There have been several debates here on the Wall over the past few years, and the majority consensus seems to be that they are useless.

That being said, I remember many years ago talking to the building engineer at a nearby school. He had placed magnets around the pipes on his water chiller, and SWORE that they improved the water quality.

If it were my house, and the problems you mentioned were so bad, I honestly would be tempted to try one out!! That's just me, though. If nothing else, you would satisfy your curiosity!!!!!

Good luck,

Starch

Plumbob

scam

They are a well-known and much debated scam. How people FEEL after using them is not relevant; anyone who has spent money on something feels some unconscious pressure to say that the purchase was justified. In medicine that's called a placebo effect.

Scientific, controlled, unbiased measurements don't detect any significant effect of magnetic or electromagnetic fields on calcite sedimentation.

GaryDidier

Hard Water

Frank,
Abandon the coil and have an indirect water heater installed.
They are not prone to hard water problems like a coil is. What was the hardness level of your water tested at? Almost any water can be treated and it makes life better when it is.

Gary from Granville

Ken_8

Better yet...

Bite the bullet and install a decent softenor. Just do the cold feed to the coil. You won't regret it.

The magets? Fawgettabowdit. They are completely worthless and have been about as scientific as horoscopes. If you want documentation - I can deliver it.

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m dewolfe

magnets

Magnets are very usefull for improving water quality in homes! I have used one every day for years and I never have to look for the schedule for delivery from crystalrock.......Its stuck to the fridge

Tom M.

Aquapure AP430 Hot Water System Protector

I've used one of these on a tankless coil that was losing its output every 6 months or so. The cartridge has been replaced every year and there has not been a problem for four or five years now. I think it slightly changes the pH before the water enters the coil so the calcium won't stick. It looks like a filter but it is a cartridge full of beads that dissolve over time. Hope this helps.

Tom M.

http://www.aquapure.com/fromlearnsys/hwsp.html

Mark Eatherton1

As with any question...

the only correct answer is, it depends... Between myself, Ken Secor, Tony Connor and numerous other people, we have beat this subject nearly to death. Some people have ZERO results. I've had POSITIVE results in every application. I've read Russian reports, American reports, reports from Israel and they all make the same basic claim. That there is no discernable chemical difference in the water quality, other htan surface tension being minorly releived, but in MANY cases (not all) the conditioners removed existing accumulations of hard calcium based scale, and kept the heated or cooled surface clean from there on out.

My first experience with them surrounded a 399,000 btuH water heater in a house (I kid you not) that RUMBLED so badly when it fired that it woke the lady of the house up. I told her I could not guarantee anything, but she said she try it and if it worked, she'd buy it. We installed it (BonAqua clamp around style). I cautioned her also that if ther ewere any faults in the tank that had limed shut that they could be opened and she'd have to replace the water heater.

I checked back with her in 30 days, and she said the water heater was virtually silent. She paid me for the install. She'd called me back 30 days after that and told me the heater had sprung a leak. We replaced the heater with a conventional sized unit, and left the conditioner in place.

In another situation, in Buffalo NY on a hotel in Cheektowaga, the dishwasher in the kitchen was so limed up that you could not see the electric element used for maintenance heating in the tank. We installed a conditioner on the circ return serving the kitchen. I was back there a year later, and as we were walking through the kitchen, I asked the chief enginner if it was working. He said he 'd been so busy he hadn't had a chance to check. He opened the side panel to the washer and said "Holy CRAP!", my heart sunk. I was expecting the worst. He said that was the cleanest he'd seen the inside of the dishwasher since it had been installed 10 years ago. He said they used to have to send the rotating rinse arms out to be sand blasted so they could get a wrench on the jets to replace them, and that they now looked like brand new.

There is a company in New Jersey by the name of ChemTune that manufacturers conditioners from 1/4" up to 48" diameter and has been doing so for many years (since 1963). They have been banned from selling the conditioners in their own state due to a strong Water Softener lobby. Do you really think these people could be dealing in snake oil for this long, and not get put out of business???

Magnetic conditioners were used on the steam engines that were crossing america. It has been said that it was the savior of the steam engines, drawing water from extremely hard sources.

The AMerican Mor FLo company offer warranties upwards of 20 years if you install one of their conditioners on one of their new water heaters. They must know something we don't.

A study done by the Haifa Institue in Israel found that certain crops that were watered with their usual inland brine, when conditioned with the magnetic conditioner, showed a 30 percent increase in crop yield and a 25% increase in sugar content. Tough to ignore that one. There are grape farmers on the west coast doing experimentation with the same results, and better.

I had a Doctors son for a customer once who won the 1st Place Colorado High School Science Fair award for a study he did using water, plants and magnetic conditioners.

The short of it is, provided that you are dealing with a calcium based build up, and not a silica based buil;d up, these things can work. Your results may vary, and it takes a while for the results to show up, but it has been my experience that they can and do work in most cases.

I would not suggest that you try something as simple as taping magnets to your service pipe. In order for this system to work, like poles of the magnets MUST be bonded together, and the water MUST pass through the magnetic wave.

I'm sure there are some scam artists out there selling things that don't work.

One inexpensive system I've found and have used on a regular basis is called a Lime Fighter. Look http://www.plumbingstore.com/limefighter.html

Your mileage may vary. Check back with us in a year and let us know what happens.

As a caveat, and out of respect for Tony Connor and the other water professionals that frequent this site, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS EQUIPMENT FOR CRITICAL APPLICATIONS LIKE INDUSTRIAL STEAM, even though the US Navy has approved their use:-)

ME

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Ken_8

Why does all the \"evidence\"

fail in controlled lab, truly scientific venues, and "work" in Russia, (where three translations from marketing hustle are required to interpret the results back into English) to "the Navy uses it" sort of claims come forth?

All branches of the service "tried" it and a few sailors paid to vouch for its "action" used as poster boys for the "effects" of them.

Magnets in this application and cold fusion are identical. Interesting in theory, failed miserably in a scientific revue.

Here's one of the best articles I ever read on the topic:

http://www.csicop.org/si/9801/powell.html

Check it out, the talk to me.

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Mark Eatherton1

Bottom line Ken...

I have seen them work with my own two eyes. Irrefutable proof.

ME

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Ken_8

Mark,

I once saw you make a beer disappear in under four seconds. Does that "prove" the beer vaporized?

Seeing something and proving it empirically, are worlds apart.

SEEING a magnet work at removing calcium carbonate (hardess) in a pipe is not proof. It begs all the questions you apparently do not wish to consider, e.g., changing weather changes the ground source of water pulled from wells - and results in huge chemistry changes. City water changes the source of their water, based on where it's stored, the source and cost factors, etc. The simple change of a valve at the municpal pumping station can create huge changes in water chemistry - did you check the water source, before you passed judgement? Concrete lined water lines may be changed/replaced upstream to platsic/fibergalss - resulting in wild changes in water down stream chemistry.

Then too, municipalities change precipitators, decanting and compounds added to make water more and more compatible with federal and local "water quality" guidelines with more frequency than you may imagine. In my little town alone, three 12" mains have been changed and the water tower "seperator" changed out to the tune of 2.8-million dollars. Our water chemistry changed overnight. No one bothered to see if they still needed their softenor at former settings or not!

I suggest what you "saw" is interesting. The actual water chemistry analysis however is EVERYTHING!

We must strive to prevent anectodal "evidence" from overcoming true critical analysis and hard science. Suggesting you "saw" the evidence of magnets at work in actually "softening" hard water - without even considering other factors as actually being the cause of what you "saw," is suspect.

Even simple velocity changes induced by well pump pressure or pipe sizing or a simple meter change on a municipal water system would allow "stripping" to occur - and appear to be support for the notion of magnets working.

I don't for a minute question what you saw. I do however, question the "absolute" conclusion you draw - without any serious search for a scientific and critically thought-out alternative cause.

Notions of what people saw - and what actually was; are the stuff legends are made from. "Seeing" something, merely means your hypothesus is possible. It in no way "proves" anything however, IMHO.

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R. Kalia_5

this is the crux of the matter

This is the crux of the matter. "Seen it with my own eyes" is the worst kind of "proof". That is not a criticism of the witness...the most highly qualified scientists make the worst witnesses, because they want to prove their theories.

The biggest achievement in science is not the theory of relativity or the double-helix model or whatever, but the understanding that scientific proof must be decoupled from human failings. That is why, in medicine, they do double-blind testing, where both the patients and the data-takers are kept "blind" regarding who got the medication and who got the placebo.

I saw with my own eyes a beautiful woman cut into three pieces, and put back together again, right in front of me on the stage. I saw with my own eyes that St. Joseph causes homes to sell (I buried the St. Joseph statue in my yard, as instructed, and sure enough our house sold!). I saw with my own eyes a movie of a car running with only water as fuel (but Detroit suppressed it).

Harold

improved performance

If you do buy the magnets I understand that efficiency can be increased by almost 20% if you rub a specially prepared oil onto the pipe before mounting the magnet. The oil is extracted from free range rattlesnakes in a small town in Texas. Wear rubber gloves while applying as it could de-calcify your bones.

Tony Conner

It's Entirely Possible...

...that the deposits you're seeing are NOT calcium build up from hard water. Not all deposits are hard water related. I've seen galvanized pipe that people swore was choked with "scale". It was choked all right - with rusty carbuncles due to oxygen corrosion. The problem had nothing to do with hard water scaling. If you have a properly functioning water softener, and you're still suffering from deposits, then something other than hard water is the cause.

As far as magnetic water treatment devices go, consider these points:

How many equipment manufacturers (boilers, chillers, etc.) approve of these devices to protect their equipment? None that I know of.

How many recognized bodies, like CSA, ASME, UL etc have tested and approved these devices for their intended function? None that I know of.

Do any of these devices have a proper test that can be run to verify that they are functioning as intended? None that I know of.

Wayco Wayne_2

I agree

that an indirect heater tank is in order. I like the Phase 3 by triangle tube since it is a tank within a tank and does not have a spiral heat exchanger that can also calcify closed. Good luck.

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Larry Weingarten

What's real?

Hello Mark: I installed a magnetic unit long ago and almost right away, white bits of goo started clogging up all the areators in the house. Clearly something was happening. After a few weeks the clogging abated. After a few years the steel shell of the unit rusted through and I took it out. So, what was learned? Probably magnetic conditioning works some of the time in some waters. I have collected a fat file of science and claims on magnetic conditioning. The claims include benefits to water, fuel and even your blood when strapped on correctly! The "science" is mostly questionable; done by small operations, poorly equipped to do thorough testing. And, you only get meaningful answers if good questions were asked in the first place. If good science were done and overly enthusiastic sales people were not employed, magnetic conditioning could find its place. I'm waiting.

JimGPE_15

Begs the question

May I interrupt for just a moment and state for the record that this may be the first time I have ever seen the phrase "begs the question" used correctly.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.