Simethicone experiment

[helicaldrive]

I tried Persil discs. As I expected, just one made a bad oversuds in the FL given my softened water.

I knew the new Tide powder uses simethicone to control suds, so I took some simethicone liquid for babies, diluted an eye dropper of it in a cup of water, and poured it in the detergent tray.

The suds collapsed!

After about 10 minutes, though, the halfway up the window suds mountain returned.

 

[rp2813]

I used to have to add fabric softener when I had an Affinity FL washer after P&G changed their powder formula from "he" to "for both" types of machines.  I bought a bottle at the dollar store for this purpose, and it did a good job of knocking down suds.  The permanent solution was to stop buying P&G powdered detergent.

 

I don't think this would be as big of an issue in the Neptune FL I have now.  Its wash action is more gentle than that of the Affinity, but the machine makes up for it with far more thorough rinsing than the Affinity ever provided.

 

[launderess]

Welcome To My World

Have been going on about defoamer (silicone based) for yonks now.

While many oils will act to control excess suds/froth, various silicone are not only better at knocking down suds, but keeping them from coming back.

Prior state of the art (such as in early low sudsing detergents such as Dash) was fish oil, soaps (which are made from oils/fats), etc... But now virtually all TOL and even down to MOL detergents of all sorts mainly go with silicone. Some still use various amounts of "soap", but there you are.

Am never without a bottle of defoamer in my stash, especially considering collection of vintage laundry detergents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer

That liquid silicone for babies is same thing in adult products such as "Gas-X". Back in day mothers/caretakers would give babies all sorts of teas or things like barely water to deal with wind; not it's silicone based products.

https://www.dupont.com/healthcare/antifoam-and-antifoam-emulsions.html

 

[mrboilwash]

Like the vast majority of European detergents Persil Discs and most likely their American cousins as well only rely on soap as an anti foam instead of silicones.
Soap does not only act as an additional surfactant and water softener in detergents, it also knocks down excessive suds and unlike silicones it is easily biodegradable.
Big downside of soap is that it needs at least a tiny little bit of water hardness to form some soap scum which then is the cause of its anti foam properties.
Never owned a whole house water softener myself, but isn`t there some sort of control to get soft water that isn`t totally over softened?

 

[ozzie908]

@reply 3

Am I right in thinking that if you have a whole house water softener that one tap/faucet in the kitchen has to be unsoftened for cooking and drinking etc? Or does it only have to be so if you have high blood pressure as sodium in the water would push it higher???

Austin

 

[appnut]

For the first time ever, since I bought my Duet November 27, 2011, I began using last spring the Precision Dispense liquid detergent dispenser after Tide introduced their Tide Heavy Duty 10x.  I have hard water and there's an adjustment for the dispenser for soft, normal, and hard water.  I began using the Tide with Hard Water setting.  Solution was nice & silky as to be expected.  I did adjust the hardness level to normal for a load or two and found the water barely had any silkiness to it.  After using the Tide, I decided I wanted to try the Persil ProClean + Stain Fighter.  I actually think the Persil cleans better than the Tide for stains and I like the subtle scent.  The froth level hasn't been bad, just a little more suds splashing on the window vs. Tide.  About a month ago, I washed a load of 6 sets of bath towels, hand towels, and wash cloths on Allergen, Sanitize wash temp.  Toward the end of the wash phase, I went to watch the washer and to my horror, it looked like shaving cream in there.  For the first time in 7.5 years, I got a suds error after the wash water drained.  So, I adjusted to Normal hardness level.  Things still got clean, but missing that silkiness feeling of the water and I know that might not be good for the machine.  Last weekend I did my month/6 week load of kitchen cleaning cloths and meal napkins.  I had it set for Normal Hardness and Allergen, Sanitize, and stain treat/steam option.  I added just a little bit extra Persil by putting on one of the cloths.  Everything came out spotless and there wasn't any over froth.  The clean/stain fighting level wasn't the same results with the Tide Heavy Duty 10x from a load last summer.  I ended up having to rewash some items that didn't have all the stains released with the same settings, but had to use Biz.  then all the stains came out.  So the Persil is performing better without adding Biz, which is my goal.  So it seems there's a higher froth level with much hotter wash temps.  I did change the setting back to hard water too.  Then I did a load of 5-6 winter lounge pats (flannel and such) as well as 2 fleece jacks, a light one and a medium weight one in the load and dark sox.  It aws over 75% full.  Warm water, light soil.  The wash phase was for 8-10 minutes.  Suds developed quite quickly, much to my amazement.  It did do a suds lock after it tried spinning, but didn't throw a suds error.  So when I do a load of 11 sets of dark towel this weekend, I'll see what the suds level is with normal hardness, allergen wash temp.  But I"m hoping there's still a way for me to contibnue using Persil over the Tide.  

 

[DADoES]

 
Liquid detergents tend to go wild with sudsing at higher water temps ... Sanitize cycle.

 

[rp2813]

I thought water softeners were generally installed on the hot water supply side only.  I would certainly not want to cook with softened water or use it in the garden, and it seems like a waste (NPI) to use it for flushing toilets, although I assume it would eliminate mineral rings.

 

[ozzie908]

@rp2813

Now that would make sense but how would it work if you had instant hot water ? We do not have tanks with hot water in much these days but have instantaneous gas water heaters instead and most of our appliances are cold fill only so it would not benefit them either....

Austin

 

[launderess]

Water softening systems

Come in several flavors.

One can have entire house/building systems where all water entering goes through water softener. Then there are under sink or other end use point systems such as in a kitchen, utility area.

For whole house systems it is possible to plumb in one or more bypass so say the water for garden house isn't softened.

Much will likely depend upon severity of water hardness along with other impurities such as iron that wants removing.

Most homes treat *all* incoming water otherwise it defeats its own purpose. Mixing untreated cold water with hot water that has been so is likely a waste. Depending upon ratio of cold to hot water used hardness will return along with all associated problems one sought to eliminate in first place. Also it leaves cold water pipes/plumbing susceptible to issues caused by hard water.

Softened water has about as much salt in an eight ounce glass as a slice of bread. However those using such systems often will drink bottled water, or again maybe there is a bypass, though drinking water heavily laden with rust, sulfur, and so forth isn't very appealing either.





There are also systems which use various other different substances instead of Zeolites to soften. These don't require a brine flush, but never the less things need to be recharged. In some instances this means sending filter pack/cartridge back to factory or wherever and they do the dirty work.

Back in days when soap was queen of laundry day many commercial/industrial laundries would have system wide water softening systems installed. The technology goes back to early part of last century, and it was a boon to reducing soap use and getting better overall results.

Yes, you can use phosphates and other builders, but relying upon them when using soap causes problems. If water is that hard and or otherwise filled with impurities then pre-soak/wash, main wash, and first several rinses should be done in soft water. This would mean adding soda, silicates or whatever to several rinses (not recommended), or using phosphates for same (ditto).

Consumer reports wasn't a huge fan of "built" wash day soap powders that contained phosphates. Their rationale was while yes the products overcame issues with hard water in wash; none of the products tested left enough phosphates around for rinse(s). This meant all that soap and muck from wash could (and likely would) be bound to laundry soon as it entered rinse tubs/cycles.

Indeed as have always stated, the disappearance of suds (from soap) when going from wash to rinse doesn't mean all the soap is gone. Rather contact with hard water has caused the froth to diminish (or vanish), but soap residue still remains.

 

[DADoES]

 
Potassium chloride can be used for whole-house water softeners instead of sodium chloride, if sodium content in softened water is of concern.

 

[ozzie908]

Thank you for setting that straight for me

 

[launderess]

Thing is bathing with mechanically softened water can make one's skin feel slimy. If you've ever felt water softened with say STPP that has a slippery feeling, there you are.

Imagine soaping up then rinsing off but still feeling "slippery".

 

[launderess]

Potassium chloride

As noted in "This Old House" video clip above many local areas are beginning to restrict mechanical water softeners to potassium chloride, or anything else but using salt.

Reason was as given in clip, for areas with hard water a majority or all of homes/businesses/industry that use water will likely have some sort of mechanical softening system. This can lead to issues with sewage due to increased levels of sodium which must now be removed.

 

[DADoES]

 
Softened water + slippery skin after rinsing = mostly because that's how the skin really feels when there's no mineral residue and/or soap curd left behind.

https://culliganofcrete.com/why-is-soft-water-so-slippery/

 

[askolover]

What he ^ said!  The natural feeling of clean skin.  I hate it when we go on vacation and the hotel has hard water.  It makes my hair uncontrollable and I want to claw my skin off.  As far as salt in the water goes, from a healthcare professional (former heart nurse) if one is on a sodium controlled diet, one just needs to account for the sodium in the water and decrease sodium consumption somewhere else.  Love my water softener.  I've had to do the fabric softener trick a few times when the washer was foaming too much from DH using too much liquid detergent...hence the reason we now use pods most of the time.  Bold or Ariel powder used for towels/whites and have it down to a science how much product to use for zero issues.

 

[earthling177]

Honestly, people who complain about softened water feeling slimy crack me up so hard.

I grew up and lived in areas with natural soft water my entire life.

Just like Greg and Glen mention above, areas with hard water make me feel like I can't remove the dirt from my hair and skin.

Soft water may take a little longer to rinse but it's no big deal.

Another thing that makes me crack up is how the "minerals" in hard water are "healthy". Honey, puhleeeaze! That is so little in the way you need everyday to survive that if you're counting on getting your minerals from hard water, you'll be in deep trouble soon.

And, since I'm up, I'm here to talk about the "problem" of hard water and places trying to regulate if you need to use sodium or potassium in your softener.

I'd like to tell the administrators in those places to grow the frak up.

They should be able to remove most of the minerals (and bring the water minerals to a bit under 4 grains/gallon, which is "naturally soft" and doesn't cause too many problems) at the treatment plant before distribution, in fact, they *should* be doing that for multiple reasons. Flocculation/agglomeration, for example, is used very often to purify water and, when done properly, can remove not only calcium and magnesium, it will also remove bad stuff like arsenic, which is a problem that occurs naturally in many places.

This is yet another area in American culture where "individualism" bites us in the butt, because water softening with resin (ion exchange) is annoying and expensive, and there should be *no* need for each person to do it in their own homes, when it should be done more cheaply at the treatment plant.

I'm not saying we should ban water softeners, btw, I'm saying those should be reserved for people in rural areas with private wells. People on city water should receive good quality water, not stuff we need to soften, filter, purify further.

And I'll say more, people outside US keep seeing our exported media and pressuring their local administration to offer clean, safe, drinkable water "the way they do it in US" when they see our media portraying people drinking from water fountains and/or drinking from the water faucet.

Little do they know, it's not actually true in many places, like the place in WI which got a lot of people sick about 20 years ago to this very day in Detroit, among many other places. More's the pity.

 

[mrboilwash]

I bet the house and farm that the fish oil mentioned in early Dash formulations was actually saponified whale oil, in other words soap made from the cheapest available fats of those days.
For what it`s worth the Persil Discs over here are a one enzyme detergent.
Maybe they`ve cranked up surfactant levels to make up for that and to give better overall cleaning, hence more sudsing.

Isn`t too soft water generally very corrosive? It etches glass in the dishwasher, I also noticed that the chrome plating of faucets even in natural soft water areas often look worn and corroded.
I wouldn`t feel comfortable drinking there if pipes are made from zinc plated steel or copper.
In my area there is usually a protective coat of calcium buildup in the pipes, Ph is almost neutral, sodium levels are very low but recommendations are still to better not drink stale water that has been sitting in pipes.
I also find hard "mineral" water tastes better than soft water but this might be an acquired taste of course.

 

[mrboilwash]

Update on Persil Discs

Checked again the ingredients disclosure and it turns out that Persil Discs in their home market contain 4 different enzymes, just like the former Duo Caps.

It can be looked up on a PDF and apparently page 2 was either missing or I have overseen it. So just for the records it`s not a single enzyme detergent.
Sorry for the misinformation!
But there`s still no silicone to be found, just soap, so you need a tiny little bit of water hardness to get the soap based suds supressing system going in this detergent.