Water addition question - soft Scottish water

[Galena]

You did say it wasn't a calculator indeed.
So moving on, Severn Trent do not give Calcium or Magnesium on the water report and they report hardness in either degrees Clarke, French or German.
Neither do they report Alkalinity in any form as far as I can see.
I did ring them up and they did give me this info and then gave me a direct line number so I could call any time for this info although their figures were a way off my Phoenix Analysis or my own GH/KH test but who knows where they are testing the water, I will ask them next time I call.

My water is very close to yours in numbers and the GH/KH test I found quite inaccurate when you are looking at somewhere between 2 numbers
So I discussed this with Neil at Phoenix and he suggested using 5 times the water and then dividing back, I got 3.4 for GH and 1 for KH which when put into Kaiser Water Calculator gave me very close to Phoenix numbers.

 

[peebee]

So moving on, Severn Trent do not give Calcium or Magnesium on the water report and they report hardness in either degrees Clarke, French or German.
Neither do they report Alkalinity in any form as far as I can see.

This "Severn-Trent" failing was one of the reasons I set about this "defuddling" project.

They do give a Calcium+Magnesium figure! Just in a very arcane way and not independently. You have "Total Hardness"; if not explicitly, there's always "French Hardness". Forget the others (Clark, English, German), French is multiplied by 10 to give "Total Hardness" ... or "GH" if you wanna go down that road. x10 is easy to remember! And it'll be measured in "as CaCO3" units ... might be "as Ca" but it's pretty rare. And here's (one of many) confusions ... How is a measurement in units of "CaCO3" going to measure Magnesium? Answer: "CaCO3" is a right stupid unit; naff all to do with Calcium Carbonate.

"Total Hardness" resides in the depths of the spreadsheet's "Foetid Mire" where it belongs. The value can be plugged in here, stupid units and all. The absence of any true Calcium or Magnesium figures means you may have to do a bit of guessing: The water is no doubt from the Derwent dams, soft acid moorland runoff, the "Defuddler" can be set to a Ca:Mg ratio of 9:1, or even 8:2 and values will be suggested. They don't get thrust in automatically because I don't like dictating "guesses". The "guesses" are plugged in like the "temporary hardness" figure a couple of posts back and ... "job done":

(From my water analysis again, but it's so close to that 9:1 ratio there wasn't much point mocking one up specially).

 

[peebee]

Neither do they report Alkalinity in any form as far as I can see.

Hey ... I've got a "Defuddler" for that ...

 

[Galena]

Yes but according to Severn Trent my degrees French is 5 which would make my GH 50 and my HCO3 61?

Whereas Severn Trent told me on the phone my alkalinity as CaCO3 is 9.8
Phoenix tell me my alkalinity as CaCo3 is 14
A Gh/KH test tells me alkalinity as CaCo3 is 17

Therefore I don't think we can use degrees French, German or Clark like that to get HCO3?

 

[peebee]

Yes but according to Severn Trent my degrees French is 5 which would make my GH 50 and my HCO3 61?

Whereas Severn Trent told me on the phone my alkalinity as CaCO3 is 9.8
Phoenix tell me my alkalinity as CaCo3 is 14
A Gh/KH test tells me alkalinity as CaCo3 is 17

Therefore I don't think we can use degrees French, German or Clark like that to get HCO3?

No, you can't! But you are doing a fine job of illustrating the fuddling nature of (arcane) water hardness. Are you doing it on purpose to help me out? In which case

GH (Total Hardness) at 50 ppm (as CaCO3) gives no indication at all of "Alkalinity" or "HCO3". Notice the two subjects take different routes as they descend though my "Foetid Mire"? However, I have been coming across figures like 14 and 17 (ppm as CaCO3) quite a lot for these types of waters (low mineral, acid moorland/mountain runoff): There's obviously a treatment "standard" the water companies work too!

My own water (in Wales) got "Alkalinity" measured at 13.5 (and HCO3 16.47, exactly 13.5x1.22, but that's got to be suspicious?). This very thread is another example with "Alkalinity" about 13.

 

[Galena]

Are you doing it on purpose to help me out?

Yes indeed

 

[peebee]

It wouldn't accept number until I downloaded it

I think that's because it thinks you are trying to change the original and it doesn't want to allow that? I would have thought it would allow entries but not allow saving. However, it makes sense to have a read-write copy.

Anyway: I was using a function ("Switch") that isn't supported in pre2019 editions of Excel, so they've been replaced. Some minor data entry glitches fixed. And, Dwr Cymru have finally updated my water reports, so they've been included (obviously they have no impact on functionality for anyone else, but did it anyway):

The "basic" analysis (includes the arcane "Hardness" figures, "Alkalinity", Calcium, Magnesium and Bicarbonate) hasn't been updated (three years old) so I've updated them with what I suspect water companies are up to "dosing" acid soft water; it should be interesting to see how close I was when the basic analysis is released (... Conceited git! ... Hoy, who asked you to butt in ... The trouble with imaginary "friends" is you don't get to pick them!).

The old link brings up the modified "defuddler", but the following link should just show the file for download and avoids getting "Google Sheets" involved. I think?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oxOsH7iupwt2b1ApD44ZZxPx419P-YqQ?usp=sharing

 

[peebee]

Refreshed download 'cos some drop-down lists were "locked". No problem if locking was disabled, but that wasn't a good solution.

Also forgot to mention: Phosphate ions can be added for ion balance (for estimating "Alkalinity"). Like Nitrates, Phosphates are a significant compound in water but I wasn't suspecting it as so 'cos Dwr Cymru reported it as "Phosphorus" which doesn't give it much prominence. A good ion balance allows a better estimate for "Alkalinity" (if it's needed). For its internal working, it's not something to worry about.

Also tweaked my water report settings which has no bearing on what you do with the spreadsheet. But I want my estimates to been in good nick for comparison with Dwr Cymru's report when they publish it. If my estimates are good, I want to strut about crowing about it! Original post edited - the Ca/Mg/HCO3 amounts have marginally increased (I was chasing the wrong number).

[EDIT: Phosphates are NOT like Nitrates! Any significant amount was almost entirely due to pollution! But it used to be added (still is?) to help prevent lead poisoning from drinking water. I've kept the boxes in for now (it still gets reported in levels above 1ppm) but have removed all "estimating" like there is for Nitrates. It was only there to improve balancing for estimates of Bicarbonate.]