Remote Living > Housing
Miscellaneous comments on Terra-Dome living, and related
DamonHD:
On the hard water issue, I am currently trying to spec a solution to avoid scaling up a new thermal store without vast expense, or space, or indeed lots of salt if I can avoid them!
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-solar-DHW-for-16WW-UniQ-and-PV-diversion.html#Scale
https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/12771-solar-dhw-with-uniq-and-pv-diversion/?tab=comments#comment-214709
I'm currently leaning to a phosphate dosing arrangement.
Rgds
Damon
jlsoaz:
--- Quote from: DamonHD on January 08, 2020, 04:15:54 PM ---On the hard water issue, I am currently trying to spec a solution to avoid scaling up a new thermal store without vast expense, or space, or indeed lots of salt if I can avoid them!
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-solar-DHW-for-16WW-UniQ-and-PV-diversion.html#Scale
https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/12771-solar-dhw-with-uniq-and-pv-diversion/?tab=comments#comment-214709
I'm currently leaning to a phosphate dosing arrangement.
Rgds
Damon
--- End quote ---
With direct energy issues (solar, inverter, batteries, electric vehicle, other energy-conserving devices and practices, etc.) I have some idea of where I am and where I want to be and how to get there.
However, with water issues (particularly healthy drinking water, but also including a few others), I'm pretty much at a loss. I think a substantial difference between the topics is that at least with energy, I was able in reading and discussing with folks to get to a point where I thought I had some idea of what I wanted to shoot for. Then, over the years, I have been able to build my way toward that. With water, it has been the opposite. The more I read, the more I am simply confused.
Thanks for the phosphate dosing idea regarding hot water. I am so "back at square one" in my thinking about water that I am reluctant to add or remove much, if anything, on the general grounds that someone, years or decades from now, will say "oh, we've just discovered and verified that this was a bad idea for your health". As to simply drinking untreated (other than one decent carbon filter and maybe a pitcher with a filter) water from the tap, it's hard to know, with confidence, if this is ok.
On other ideas for treating hard water:
I presently have two devices which are re-arranging the molecules, one on just the hot water heater, and one on the whole house. I couldn't tell you if either one of them is doing one bit of good in fighting scale inside my hot water heater (which is turned off half the year because of the effectiveness of the solar hot water system), or harming my health. I do tend to have to add extra additives to my laundry and dish washing. Have had them in place for a year or two as stop-gap measures since I put my foot down and put an end to the salt thing. But I eventually have to have a solution in place in which I am more confident, otherwise I'll lose a water heater or some-such, and I don't know that re-arranging the molecules is ok for my health.
I did end up having to throw away a plug-in electric water boiler pot this week, I suspect it broke because of the hard water. When I distill water in a cheap Chinese distiller, it does seem to underscore that the water is fairly hard (I have to descale the distiller manually fairly often, but I have kind of liked this process as it gives me a better idea of the water and how the minerals can cling to the heating element). Recently I've read about not drinking de-mineralized and possibly acidic distilled or RO or bottled RO water, so I avoid that. I use the distiller now just for a humidifier, so it won't get messed up.
I did recently learn more about two solutions for hard water that I hadn't seen as much. Both are vastly more expensive (USD $5k and up) than I'm used to looking at, but I am considering one of them. One is a "nano-membrane". The other involves injection of an anti-scalant (citrus or related?) that somehow does end up in the waste stream, not the tap water, and which is not that radical sounding, but which is only sold with a very expensive whole-house Unit I found. WTH? I would provide the links, but I'm so used to every idea in water turning out to be significantly questionable that I'm putting myself on a link diet.
jlsoaz:
This month we found indeed that my guesses have been correct. There have been 3 spots where I have seen water seemingly coming through the concrete and reaching the inside of the house. When I first moved in years ago the company said to be on the lookout for this, and so in recent years I have spotted it and sought to address it. One indeed turned out to be a breach in the lining on the roof. Another I thought looked like it, and this week was confirmed. A third I suspect so, but it will take a lot more money to dig down to figure out where the leak is.
I'm told the problem is that the water could weaken the rebar and thus the whole roof and house structure.
MattM:
Concrete is basically a dense sponge. You can dry it out all you want, but any exposure to humid air or direct water contact is going to draw in moisture once more. Any solution short of isolating the concrete from the outside dirt and air contact is never going to fully mitigate these issues. Having rain-soaked dirt as a roof cannot be helpful.
Mary B:
Go to a brew store and buy minerals to add back to your water. RO water gets a little acid after it sits for a week, long as you drink it fresh it is fine if a bit flat in flavor. I brew beer and use distilled and it barely starts to turn acidic in a week...
--- Quote from: jlsoaz on January 12, 2020, 02:23:28 PM ---
--- Quote from: DamonHD on January 08, 2020, 04:15:54 PM ---On the hard water issue, I am currently trying to spec a solution to avoid scaling up a new thermal store without vast expense, or space, or indeed lots of salt if I can avoid them!
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-solar-DHW-for-16WW-UniQ-and-PV-diversion.html#Scale
https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/12771-solar-dhw-with-uniq-and-pv-diversion/?tab=comments#comment-214709
I'm currently leaning to a phosphate dosing arrangement.
Rgds
Damon
--- End quote ---
With direct energy issues (solar, inverter, batteries, electric vehicle, other energy-conserving devices and practices, etc.) I have some idea of where I am and where I want to be and how to get there.
However, with water issues (particularly healthy drinking water, but also including a few others), I'm pretty much at a loss. I think a substantial difference between the topics is that at least with energy, I was able in reading and discussing with folks to get to a point where I thought I had some idea of what I wanted to shoot for. Then, over the years, I have been able to build my way toward that. With water, it has been the opposite. The more I read, the more I am simply confused.
Thanks for the phosphate dosing idea regarding hot water. I am so "back at square one" in my thinking about water that I am reluctant to add or remove much, if anything, on the general grounds that someone, years or decades from now, will say "oh, we've just discovered and verified that this was a bad idea for your health". As to simply drinking untreated (other than one decent carbon filter and maybe a pitcher with a filter) water from the tap, it's hard to know, with confidence, if this is ok.
On other ideas for treating hard water:
I presently have two devices which are re-arranging the molecules, one on just the hot water heater, and one on the whole house. I couldn't tell you if either one of them is doing one bit of good in fighting scale inside my hot water heater (which is turned off half the year because of the effectiveness of the solar hot water system), or harming my health. I do tend to have to add extra additives to my laundry and dish washing. Have had them in place for a year or two as stop-gap measures since I put my foot down and put an end to the salt thing. But I eventually have to have a solution in place in which I am more confident, otherwise I'll lose a water heater or some-such, and I don't know that re-arranging the molecules is ok for my health.
I did end up having to throw away a plug-in electric water boiler pot this week, I suspect it broke because of the hard water. When I distill water in a cheap Chinese distiller, it does seem to underscore that the water is fairly hard (I have to descale the distiller manually fairly often, but I have kind of liked this process as it gives me a better idea of the water and how the minerals can cling to the heating element). Recently I've read about not drinking de-mineralized and possibly acidic distilled or RO or bottled RO water, so I avoid that. I use the distiller now just for a humidifier, so it won't get messed up.
I did recently learn more about two solutions for hard water that I hadn't seen as much. Both are vastly more expensive (USD $5k and up) than I'm used to looking at, but I am considering one of them. One is a "nano-membrane". The other involves injection of an anti-scalant (citrus or related?) that somehow does end up in the waste stream, not the tap water, and which is not that radical sounding, but which is only sold with a very expensive whole-house Unit I found. WTH? I would provide the links, but I'm so used to every idea in water turning out to be significantly questionable that I'm putting myself on a link diet.
--- End quote ---
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version