What Water Treatment & Softening Can Do For Your Water Quality
Water from rivers, boreholes, and other sources is never ready to drink because it often contains pollutants that could cause serious health issues. As such, it should go through water treatment and softening before use to remove the impurities.
What is water treatment? Herrmann Services, the leading plumbing company in Cincinnati, explains what water treatment and softening is. Read on to learn how the treatment removes harmful contaminants and minerals and what that could mean for your home’s drinking water.
What is Water Treatment, and Why is it Important?
Water treatment purifies unclean water. The process removes pesticides, sediments, and heavy metals in water. It also eliminates pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The treatment process has one significant benefit. It ensures piped water is safe for consumption.
How Does Water Treatment Work?
What is the water treatment process like? Large-scale water treatment takes place in a municipal treatment plant. In the plant, impure water goes through a series of treatment processes. The treatment ensures that the water is free of impurities, odor, and bad taste.
Here is a sneak peek of the standard processes in a treatment plant:
Coagulation
Water treatment begins with coagulation. This step adds alum or ferric chloride to the raw water from a river or borehole. The coagulants start the flocculation process, which helps to remove suspended solids in the water.
Flocculation
Flocculation involves gentle mixing of water to form large and heavy clumps. Water treatment plant operators may add extra coagulants. The extra coagulants ensure all suspended particles clump together.
Sedimentation
Once the suspended debris forms clumps, they sink to the bottom of the sedimentation basin. The sunken lumps of dirt often leave the raw water clearer and ready for the following treatment process — filtration.
Filtration
The clear water from sedimentation enters the water filtration tank. The water passes through filters of different pore sizes to remove impurities. Filtration removes most, if not all, of the impurities in the water.
Disinfection
The process of water treatment ends with disinfection. Chemical disinfectants are added to the filtered water. They help to kill germs that bypass the other three water purification stages. Cincinnati water treatment plants use chlorine to disinfect piped water.
Benefits of Water Treatment
Water treatment eliminates the germs that cause E. coli, typhoid, and cholera. It also removes impurities that cause lead poisoning, fluorosis, and arsenicosis. Besides eliminating germs, water treatment has many other benefits. These include:
- Improved taste. Untreated water has impurities like minerals that affect its flavor and odor. The treatment removes these impurities and gives your water a refreshing taste.
- Protects plumbing systems from damage. Water treatment softens hard water, which can reign havoc in your lines. Wondering what is water softening? It is a process that removes excess calcium and magnesium in untreated water.
- Saves money on bottled water. Water treatment eliminates all possible impurities in tap water. The treatment process makes your tap water as safe as bottled water. This way, you can use it for drinking and save the cost of buying bottled water.
Plumbing Installation Financing Options
Plumbing can be costly to install, especially on large properties. Nonetheless, the high installation cost should not be an issue. At Herrmann Services, we offer plumbing installation financing to help you get started. The financing option lets you spread the installation cost over a specified period.
Contact Herrmann Services For Hard Water Solutions in Cincinnati
The municipal water in Greater Cincinnati contains high levels of minerals such as magnesium, which, when left unmanaged, can cause plumbing problems like slow drainage and premature wear on your plumbing fixtures.
Fortunately, we can help with lasting plumping solutions for hard water in your home. Contact Herrmann Services for hard water solutions in Cincinnati or request service online.
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