At Rayne of the Valley, we believe it’s not enough to just match our customers’ to the right equipment for their needs, but to educate them on how it works, and how a particular water treatment device will improve their situation. We’ve often been asked by our clients exactly how their water softener works, and whether it’s a good investment in the long run. Knowing this information will not only give you insight into water treatment, but will also keep you on your toes when less-than-reputable dealers come around offering seemingly magical water treatment products that have no foundation in science.
Water News
4 Big Reasons Not to Buy Water Treatment Equipment Over the Internet
Over the last two decades, Rayne has noticed, consumer buying habits have been subject to a digital revolution. With the rise of online shopping, purchases that would have been made locally, or even via mail-order, are now being made at lightning speed over the internet. It’s really a head-scratcher to think of something that can’t be bought and paid for through a computer. Water treatment is no exception. From the most basic of under-sink water filters to premium whole-house water filters and softeners, a healthy cross-section of products from all over the water treatment industry are able to be purchased online. But with anything you buy online, and most crucially with water treatment equipment, it’s important to keep in mind one of the most essential pieces of advice. Most of the time, when you’re looking to save a few bucks online, you often find that you get what you pay for. Here are just 4 reasons why buying local beats buying online.
What’s Behind the Slippery Sensation of Soft Water?
“I hate soft water! I tried it once at my sister’s house and it was so slippery!”
“We tried soft water a couple years back, but we stopped because it never seemed to wash the soap off my skin.”
At Rayne of the Valley, we come across many variations of these objections to the feeling of soft water when we meet with potential clients. A good number of people understand the benefits of soft water—reduced mineral build-up on appliances and inside pipes, as well as reduced soap costs—but are turned off by the unique sensation caused by bathing in soft water. Adjectives sometimes used to describe the “soft water feeling” include silky, smooth, slick, slippery, slimy, oily, etc. But to dismiss something that can provide major benefits and savings for a homeowner, based simply on the way it feels at first, can mean a customer is, to paraphrase an old cliché, throwing out the baby with the soft water.
Your Well Water Wake-Up Call
If you’re one of the many people across the country who get their daily supply of water from the ground, you’re keeping alive a tradition that has been going on for thousands of years. Although many of today’s wells in the USA use modern equipment, many others are not too far away from the wells of long ago. That includes their benefits as well as their risks, which is why it’s good to know as much as possible about where you get your water from, and how you can fix it if there’s a problem with it that can compromise its quality or safety.
Catalytic Carbon is the Champ at Corralling Chloramines (Part 2 of 2)
Chloramines, which are disinfectant compounds made from the combination of chlorine and ammonia, are being used more and more by water utilities across the country. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, in fact, is moving toward a total conversion from chlorine to chloramines in the next year. Chloramines are preferred because they last longer in the water, making them more effective at eliminating biological and organic contaminants, but that leaves an important question for the end user: how can one remove chloramines from the water we drink and bathe in?
Keep Cool When it Comes to Chloramines (Part 1 of 2)
If you’ve noticed that your tap water has less of a chlorine taste recently, it’s not because the LADWP has stopped using chlorine to disinfect and eliminate organic and biological contaminants from the city’s drinking water. On the contrary, with little fanfare, the utility is has nearly completed a total switchover from basic chlorine to less familiar chloramine compounds for secondary disinfection (ultraviolet light is currently the LADWP’s primary disinfectant). According to their 2014 Drinking Water Quality Report, chloramines remain in the water for a longer time and are harder to customers to detect by taste. But the great majority of residents have never heard of chloramines and their effects on water, as well as on humans. So what is chloramine, exactly, and how does it affect you?