Magnetic Water Softeners

I have been looking forward to writing on the subject of magnetic water softeners for a long time. Now I'm going to be able to share with you all of the information I've gathered on these devices over the past few years. But first, I must share some background with you.

When I first landed my new job with Crystal Springs Wholesale as an installer and soon after their internet guy, I had never heard of magnetic water softeners. I did not find out about them until I had spoken with my father about the benefits of having a son in the water treatment business. The conversation went as best as I can remember, like this:

(On the phone) "Hey Dad, I can get you any type of water treatment equipment at very good prices" I boasted. And he responded with "Oh, I already have a water softener". "Well" I said, "I can get all kinds of water treatment equipment. Not just softeners. What kinds of problems do you have with your water?"

"I have very hard water and that build-up in my pipes and water spots on the dishes and such" he told me. "But this magnetic water softener I have does a pretty good job of taking care of that".

What? Magnetic water softener? I'd never heard of that. I was told that the company I now worked for has all of the water treatment equipment anyone could ever want! What's the deal? I was determined to impress him anyway with the low cost of equipment I now had access to. "So how much was that softener", I asked? "Around $500". Not bad! At that time I was able to get moderate sized single tank softeners at or around that price. I guess there wasn't much I could help Dad with, so I gave up.

I went to my boss the next day and asked him why we don't have any magnetic water softeners. He just chuckled and told me they don't work. We have always had a very strict company policy concerning products we sell. If they aren't 100% reliable, we do not sell them. It's a good policy and it still stands today. We don't want customers having problems with our equipment no matter what. But I am not one to just blow off a product like a magnetic water softener. After all, I'm a huge Star Trek fan and would love nothing more than to solve all of my daily wants, needs and problems with "force-fields and photons". This magnetic water softener sounded pretty high-tech.

The first chance I had, I went online and looked up these marvels of technology to find out how they work, and possibly find out why my boss (18 years experience in water treatment at that time) would claim they do not work. If you have ever done a search on the internet, you know that you will mostly find products for sale without much information pertaining to them or how they work. I must have found every site out there that has magnetic water softeners, but was unable to find a decent explaination as to how they function on most of them. But I did find one site. I never did bookmark it, and I cannot find it now so I'm unable to show it to you, but they explained that this magnetic water softener fits around your main line water pipe and plugs into a 110 volt outlet (electro-magnetic) and re-aligns the minerals in your water as it flows past, thus preventing the calcium build-up and adherence of these minerals on your skin or clothes.

Sounded like a good thing to me! I intended to investigate this further and possibly convince my boss that he was mistaken (you'll notice I didn't use the word "wrong") and introduce a new set of products to our line, thus improving my standing with the company at a very early stage while impressing the hell out of everyone. Now where can I get one of these things for testing purposes? Who do I know that has one? Dad!

I borrowed a salesman's test kit and went to Dad's for the day. I ran a hardness test on his water and it came back positive with a hardness rating of 18 grains per gallon. I should have expected this. The magnetic water softener is not removing anything, so the hardness rating is going to stay the same. I checked an outdoor water faucet to be sure and my conclusions were confirmed. That's okay though. So long as the magnetic softener keeps deposits from forming in pipes and on plumbing fixtures, we still have a viable product to market.

More research on the internet lead me to a Consumer Reports article and another very scientific report by CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal). The Consumer Reports artice explains that they bought two electric water heaters for one of their staff. They split the pipe running into them and put a magnetic water softener around one pipe and nothing to the other. This guy ran his home off of two water heaters for a year. At the end of a year, they cut both water heaters down the center for a cross-section view and found mineral build-up of equal amounts inside both appliances. That shot down my non-adhesion theory. The other article was very long and even deals with magnetic treatment of fuel lines in automobiles.

My boss was correct (notice I said correct and not "right"). I was unable to find any benefit at all to these devices. Since then, Dad has a new Fleck water softener and is infinitely happy with it. We put up this internet site and were able to lower the cost of ion-exchange water softeners down to the same price range as magnetic water softeners. And I still watch Star Trek hoping that some day my great grandchildren will have carreers onboard starships treating and recycling water (but not with magnetic fields).

Here is a list of the URLs that have the scientific proof that magnetic water softeners do not work:

CSICOP: The second largest article dealing with this subject. They list historic experiments and reach scientific conclusions based on these findings.

CWQA: Canadian Water Quality Association testing results.

Mag-dot-con: The largest article I've found that cites historic scientific findings and their results concerning magnetic water softeners.

Cranfield University Thesis: At first, an optimistic study of magnetic water treatment (until they sort out their findings).

North Dakota State University Article: Has a short paragraph near the bottom of the page concerning magnetic water softeners. The rest of the article is very informative as far as ion-exchange softeners go.

If you are reading this and have proof that magnetic water softeners really do work, I would be eager to hear from you. I already have a potential manufacturer for these things but I will not sell them unless I have proof that they work. Please send your comments to bwarren@watervalue.com good or bad and let me know what you think.