Water Softeners and Air Filtration Systems - Vaporizer + water softener = ??????

First off, I'd like to say I purchased a 48k, Clack WS-1 system from Gary close to 2 months ago, and have been very pleased with the purchase. Very happy with the quality of the Clack WS-1 valve, resin tank, bypass, etc.
(Gary, you may want to make up separate instructions for the different valves. I found some of it confusing, but I'm not a rocket scientist either.)

My 3 year old son has a very bad cold, and my wife purchased an inexpensive "warm mist" vaporizor for his room. She filled it with our tap water (softened water), plugged in the vaporizor, and in a few minutes, we had steam coming out of the vaporizor like an old locomotive. You could hear the water boiling inside of it, and was also spitting a little out also. We unplugged it, and have bought some distilled water that we are going to try tonight mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with the tap water.

Question is, why did the softened water make the vaporizor go nuts? Is it due to the softened water has a large amount of sodium ions in it which "conducts" electricity better, making the vaporizor "boil" the water faster/easier than say distilled water?

Just curious,

Thanks,
Mike

I hope the baby gets better and I'll look into that text. :) The vaporizer acts that way due to your water's TDS (total dissolved solids) which is made up of everything dissolved in the water. Like chlorides and/or sulfates, sodium etc.. It must be fairly high, but if a a softener increases TDS, it isn't very much.

Reading the vaporizer instructions will discuss a need to add salt to the water if you don't get the steam. Softeners add sodium, not sodium chloride (salt). Salt is used because it is so common and found in every home and it readily dissolves into water. With low TDS the unit won't work properly. Not filling the unit so much will prevent its spitting.


Gary
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Doug Aleshire, Super Moderator 2

Thanks Gary.