Soft Water - Filter needed?

capuchin

United Utilities rate my water as soft, and I’ve not been using a filter with the bambino plus as things like kettles etc simply don’t scale up for me (my 10yo ‘one cup’ kettle has none). With this in mind, do I need a filter system for my new baby, or will the ‘soft’ water be soft enough? (Most of it comes from Thirlmere in the lakes) Apparently it is always below 60ppm. I’m not sure how hard that actually is though compared to decent filter systems. Or how consistent the hardness is. Maybe another question for @Rob1

TLDR: Do I need a filter system, and if so which one? It has to be filtered in the pipes as the Slayer is a piped machine. I really don’t want to mess up the machine, but if the water is good, it’s good!

Rob1

Whether or not you get scale depends on the temperature of the water, hardness from Ca and Mg, and carbonate alkalinity. I don’t know what 60ppm refers to. if you look at your water report (may require a detailed report) and find alkalinity - which may be listed as carbonate or bicarbonate in mg/l - and total hardness as CaCO3 which may be listed individually as Magnesium and calcium in mg/l or both separately as CaCO3, and also get the specs of the machine for the temperature the boilers run at, then you can determine whether or not you’ll get scale.

capuchin

Sorry for the slow reply, took a short trip!

Calcium is at 11.1 Magnesium is at 1.49. ‘Hardness Clarke’ if that means anything is 2.38. There’s also 2.46 Manganese.

Also a reading of Max Alkalinity as CaCO3 of 23, and an average of 19.5 and a ‘Hardness tal as CaCO3’ of maximum 43 and an average of 34

No readings for carbonate or bicarbonate,.

I can adjust temp on the machine.

Thank you

Rob1

capuchin

Assuming the machine is running at between 105c and 125c….No ion exchange filter is needed.

Consider if a charcoal filter is necessary and consider increasing alkalinity to 40mg/l by adding sodium or potassium bicarbonate. Will most likely need to make a small concentrate of it rather than add it directly to the water.

rivergo1d

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I live in a similarly soft water area.

The detailed report says

pH of 8.24 typically

Hardness Total as Ca mg/l 9.80 typically, 19 max.

So far, having moved from a hard water area where I used Ashbeck, I decided to use the filter supplied by lelit in this soft water area and am now at the point where I need to consider replacing it.

My original feeling was that it was not needed but would help reduce any scale even further. But with an absolute max steam boiler temperature of 125, it sounds like there is no scale at all to reduce.

Is there any other benefit to using the lelit filters, even if marginal, or are they at best pointless for me and at worst making my water even more acidic?