What’s the difference between a water purifier and a water softener? While both help enhance the flavor of your water, each serves a different purpose. Water purifiers remove a variety of harmful contaminants from your water and water softeners remove calcium and magnesium from your water but also add trace amounts of sodium.
Yet, there’s so much more! Here’s a comparison graphic to help you understand some of the basic differences.
Now, let’s dive deeper and learn about water purifiers vs water softeners.
Water is a critical part of human life. We use it for drinking, cooking, washing, gardening, and many other facets of life. Most of our world’s water is made up of ocean salt water, and so fresh water sources like lakes and rivers are where many of us get our water from. Yet, these sources can often be contaminated with bacteria and parasites. Purifiers work to remove these harmful and sometimes even deadly contaminants from our water.
Throughout history, scientists and engineers have worked hard to develop new and improved ways to access cleaner water. Here are the three ways to purify water:
In this process, water is heated and vaporized, removing the H2O from the harmful contaminants. The vapor then moves through a condenser where it can cool down and turn back into water. Most of the contaminants will remain in the place where the water was heated, and so the water that went through the process should be clean enough to drink. Often, water will be taken through the distillation process multiple times to further ensure its cleanliness.
Solar stills use the sun instead of electricity to heat water through the distillation process (as described above). You may have seen these being used by hobby survivalists or in eco-friendly homes.
Instead of using evaporation like distillation processors and solar stills, reverse osmosis uses pressure. In this process, water is pushed through a semipermeable membrane that helps remove dissolved inorganic solids like salt, lead, chlorine, fluoride, and pesticides.
Learn More! >> Benefits of a Home Water Purification System
Even after water has been purified, it can still be left with various minerals like magnesium, calcium, and iron. These minerals can cause buildup in your pipes and be rough on your skin and water-using appliances. This water is called “hard water” and how hard your water is depends on where you live and the amount of minerals in the water. In fact, we have a pretty big problem here in Utah when it comes to hard water. If you live in the state, click on the button below to learn about the hardness level in your zip code.
The Shamrock Plumbing Hard Water Tool
If your water is hard, you should install a water softener. The water softener will decrease the amount of minerals in your water. Keep reading to learn more about how it works and how installing one could be beneficial to you.
The hard water is sent through a mineral tank. In there, resin beads will draw the minerals out of the water and replace them with sodium ions. The water then enters the home where regeneration occurs. In this process, a brine tank will send saltwater through the mineral tank to flush hard minerals out and replace them with sodium ions. Then, the whole process repeats itself to ensure as many minerals are removed as possible. To get more of a visual on this process, check out this infographic.
At Shamrock Plumbing, we understand how important it is to have access to water that is as clean and mineral-free as possible. Should you need any of our installation or repair services when it comes to water purifiers and water softeners, please give us a call at 801-505-9505.
Water Purification
Water Softener Installation
Water Softener Repair