Appliances

Water Softeners

A water softener trades hard minerals in water for soft minerals. This usually involves calcium and magnesium, the hard minerals, and salt or potassium, the soft minerals. A water softener contains chemicals that attract the hard minerals and exchange them for the soft minerals. These chemicals are referred to as an ion exchange resin. Water softeners can also remove iron.

Do I Need A Water Softener?

Reverse Osmosis Filtration System

Reverse Osmosis Filtration SystemThe causes of water contamination are various. Run off from agricultural practices and the misuse of household cleaning supplies are just two of many. Although we have received benefits from the numerous chemical compounds our society has developed, we have also inherited pollution and water contamination from these same compounds.

How do Washing Machines Work?

Washing Machine Filling with WaterAny attempt at fixing your washing machine yourself will be helped greatly by a basic understanding of how this major appliance works. Most everyone knows that washers go through wash and spin cycles, but as not so clear on the details of what goes on inside to run them.

Also, the exact design will differ among manufacturers and models, but there are some things all washers share. They all have electric motors driving the action, some way of draining and filling themselves with water, and timers to control the activation and stopping of the different cycles, for example.

No Salt Water Softeners

Studio Salt-Free Water SoftenerThere are many products that you can buy claiming to be no salt water softeners for people living in hard water areas. Hard water can not only taste unpleasant but can cause staining in your laundry, cost you money by having to use greater quantities of detergents not to mention harming water heaters and pipes with due to them becoming clogged up with lime-scale. In these more environmentally aware days using ever increasing amounts of salt to counter the problem is seen as a less attractive proposal compared to one of the more sophisticated no salt water softener systems.

Clothes Dryer Troubleshooting

Broken Clothes Dryer Lots of problems can arise requiring you to get involved in a bit of clothes dryer trouble shooting. However, the good news is that clothes dryer problems don’t automatically mean that you need get your tool kit out or call the repairman. So, as with any troubleshooting procedure we’ll start off by checking that it’s not something quite simple you can do to resolve the problem.