The terms “water conditioner” and “water softener” are often used interchangeably, but they are two very distinct methods of water treatment. While both can be used to prevent lime scale buildup and hard water damage to plumbing and appliances, water softeners offer additional benefits beyond scale prevention. Some homes may be more suited to a water conditioner than a water softener, and others may need to reap the benefits a water softener provides. Below you can find information about the differences between water conditioners and water softeners, the advantages each possess over the other, and which applications best suit each treatment solution.
What does a water conditioner do?
A water conditioner is a system that prevents the buildup of lime scale in plumbing by changing the chemical makeup of the water. It doesn’t actually soften water, yet it is often referred to as a “salt-free water softener”. The system uses a template-assisted crystallization (TAC) media to catch minerals like magnesium and calcium. These minerals build up until they break off into the output water. This makes the water still hard, but it can’t stick to pipes and appliances.
How does a water conditioner differ from a water softener?
The most obvious difference between a water conditioner and a water softener is the absence of salt in a water conditioner, but the differences do not stop there. These two systems differ in the amount of water they use, the contaminants they remove, the contaminants they add, their effectiveness against lime scale, and their cost.
Water use
Water softeners contain resin beads that exchange their sodium ions for hardening ions in water as it passes through the system. Once the resin beads lose their ability to exchange ions, a salt solution backwashes through the beads to rejuvenate the resin. This process flushes about 20 to 25 gallons of salt solution into the wastewater line. While this may seem like a significant volume of water, lime scale caused by hard water can cause appliances to become less efficient, using more water than their lime scale-free counterparts. In the long term, a home with a water softener can use less water than a home without any water hardness treatment.
In contrast to water softeners, water conditioners do not produce wastewater. Rather, they cause calcium and magnesium crystals to form in nucleation sites within the TAC media. This process does not require flushing at any point, wasting no water in the treatment process. Water conditioners are not as effective at preventing lime scale buildup as water softeners, so water can be wasted if lime scale forces appliances to work harder than normal. However, a water conditioner offers a significant improvement over no treatment system at all.
Contaminants removed
Water softeners physically remove hardening minerals from water, but water conditioners simply change the chemistry of these minerals. In addition to crystallizing calcium and magnesium, water conditioners can remove chlorine, a chemical found in city-treated water that causes a foul taste and odor.
Contaminants added
While water softeners remove calcium and magnesium from hard water, they replace these minerals with sodium. A true water softener must use salt to exchange ions within the water. Water conditioners do not exchange any ions, and, as a result, do not use salt to treat water. These systems do not add any outside elements to water. Instead, they change the structure of the minerals already found in the water.
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