Protecting your holiday home’s water reticulation system
Protecting your holiday home’s water reticulation system often does not rank very highly until something goes wrong, and then it can be an untimely and costly experience – unless preventative steps are taken. Most damage occurs from three factors:
- The build-up of scale in your reticulation system, fixtures and fittings, clogging and reducing flow rates, absorbing heat from the water so making the installation energy inefficient and creating an ideal ground for potentially dangerous micro-organisms, pseudomonas and bacteria
- Pressure spikes or constant pressures above the rating of your reticulation system, fixtures and fittings
- Aggressive suspended solids in the water flow such as grit and sand that physically abrades the materials in your reticulation system, fixtures and fittings leading to corrosion and unit failure
Protection against pressure issues
Most major fixtures and fittings are rated to be safely operated for extended periods at pressures between 4 – 6 bar so the installation of a pressure reducing valve to that level is enforced by municipal regulation. The ideal installation would see the pressure reducing valve before any spurs or splits (i.e. to the hot water system) so that the pressure in the hot and cold lines are balanced which allows for the installation of ceramic disc operated single lever mixers etc.
Once installed, these should be serviced regularly as these valves absorb the municipality’s pressure variations which can easily spike up to and exceeding 10bar – which if not managed, could seriously damage the building’s infrastructure and fittings.
Protection against suspended solids
Although water is of an acceptable physical standard when it leaves most treatment works the quality is soon affected by exterior factors such burst pipes, new services cut into the supply and the physical degrading of the pipe material. This allows contaminants such as the surrounding soil/sand substrate and vegetation to enter the water flow and the only way out if not removed is via your tap!
Luckily this problem is not unique to South Africa, in fact the same situation is experienced worldwide so we can share in their technology to address the suspended solids problem here in South Africa
What is required is a filter that can filter out suspended solids and be easily cleaned without having to disassemble the unit. The European answer (also utilised in the USA, Asia and Australasia) is the self-cleaning filter from Judo. Its fine sieve filters out contaminants down to 100 micron (about the thickness of a human hair) with unperceivable pressure loss. It is able to be cleaned with a patented reverse vacuum system that allows extreme sediment removal (like a vacuum cleaner over a carpet) while still maintaining continuous water supply to the house and using minimal rinsing water. These units are available in manual or automatic (timed operation or with an additional pressure differential switch) to suit your individual requirements.
As well as protecting your plumbing installation from suspended solids and the resultant corrosion problem and early wear and tear factors due to the abrasion caused by the sand and grit, there are also health factors to take into consideration. Where suspended solids gather in bends or appliances (together with scale) it creates a perfect breeding ground for bacteria and micro-organisms, many of which are at their most harmful during their spore stage.
So not only can the adoption of this equipment save you money on repairs and replacement, but can make your home a more-healthy environment.
Protection against scale build up
Scale is a regional problem dependant on the geological make-up of the water collection area and aquifer systems. In areas with predominantly sedimentary strata’s where calcium and magnesium are leached from the rock as water passes over/through them and kept in a dissolved state. Although this mineral rich water is seen by many as being healthy – it does bring the problem of when subjected to differences in pressure, temperature or velocity, dropping the minerals out of solution. These mineral ions then tend to clump together to form encrustations. These encrustations in time can reduce the interior diameter of your pipe work and fittings, affecting your pressure and flow rate as well increasing the risk of both chemical and electrolyte corrosion.
These encrustations are found especially on the hot water lines and heating elements and can quickly render your hot water system inefficient, with just 1mm of scale build-up on the heat exchange surface of your geyser equating to a 15% loss of heating efficiency while a 1mm build-up of scale on the inner surface of the pipes and fittings will absorb the heat from the water which would equate to a further 10% loss of efficiency.
Apart from the destructive nature of scale encrustations we must also redress the health benefits of eliminating scale from your internal water reticulation. Although scale appears smooth, it is actually microscopically honeycombed, providing an ideal host for micro-organisms and bacteria to multiply. So by eliminating both the suspended solids and the bonding scale you can ensure that your water is health for both you and your entire family, young and old.
So is the best course of action to remove the minerals from water, or is there perhaps a way to keep the healthy minerals in the water but just neutralise them so they cannot form scale encrustations without going through expensive and ongoing “softening” which causes your water to become salt saturated, acidic and corrosive?
CWT from Germany have pioneered a system of electrical impulse technology to transform the ionic state of the calcium and magnesium crystals from a complex three dimensional snowflake with a positive charge at its centre and negative charges at its points (so attracting other ions to enmesh) to a simple mono crystal with one positive and one negative end (so making long strings that stay in the water flow and do not form encrustations). This transformation lasts for up to two days in cold water and up to seven days in warm water, or a linear distance of approx. 2000m. The longer the “string” the stronger and longer the transformation, see www.amanzirms.co.za/cwt-technology/.
However, there are certain extra precautions that have to be taken into consideration when installing in holiday homes as the premises are not occupied full time. This means that the water flow in the pipes will not – under normal circumstances – be maintained and will become static for the times that the property is not in use. This will mean that the “Electrophoreses” effect will wear off and the calcium ions will revert back to their original state and scale will again start to form. This of course will be broken down again as soon as the physical flow of water again passes through the Vulcan’s influence, alternatively we recommend that a recirculating ring main be installed (eliminating dead ends to taps and appliances) with a small pump to keep the water moving through the system, even when the premises is not occupied. This will ensure that no new scale build-up will affect your system and as the water flow is continuous (even if the pump is timed to operate only 2/3 hours per day) older established encrustations are slowly and safely broken down to be washed out as soon as a draw off point is opened see below for an example installation using a recirculating main with returns from all the drop off points.
Rules for using electric Impulse Technology in holiday homes
- Fit the system as the cold water main enters the residence prior to any spurs or branch offs
- Protect the unit from the elements as much as possible, either inside or in a moisture proof enclosure as this is an electrical component
- Fit a recirculating ring main with a timer and circulating pump to ensure water flow movement so that the Electrophoresis effect does not wear off and :-
- No new scale is deposited in the system.
- Older already formed scale encrustations are slowly and safely broken down to reopen the original diameters of the pipework.
- That the protective metal carbonate layer is laid on the inside of the pipes and appliances to counter corrosion
- Make sure that all splashback areas such as shower doors and walls are wiped and there are no water droplets left on the surface as when these droplets evaporate they would leave scale rings which would then have to be physically removed
- That if you water source is from a well or borehole, that the iron content does not exceed 1ppm and that magnesium does not exceed 0.1ppm as above these levels the metal may have a negative effect on the process
Please note that this treatment does not “purify” the water or remove salt, it only stops the build-up of scale
