Water: Calculating Calcium from Hardness & Alkalinity

[peebee]

You are not alone.

That's the purpose of the "Defuddler".

You see "CaCO3" in a water report and think "Calcium Carbonate"? ... WRONG!!!

It doesn't mean "calcium carbonate" at all. Read the tongue-in-cheek dialog on the "Defuddler". Its purpose is to exorcise some of the junk associated with a water report and just leave the understandable bits (6 ions basically, and one of them covers alkalinity).

"Hardness", "CaCO3", etc. is left festering in a foetid mire where you may initially be required to dip into to find some useful bits to convert, but otherwise it's best left alone.

I'll write some instructions for use soon. I had intended it to be self-explanatory, but some hints won't go amiss. Basically, fill those six boxes in at the top, and don't dip into the foetid mire unless as a last resort (and get out of it quick!). Unlike normal spreadsheets, stuff dug out of the foetid mire isn't used automatically - you must move the information found by entering it in the boxes manually. The boxes will turn grey if you have used the foetid mire for help.

Here's one where the water report failed to include Chloride and Sulphate. It was a report for brewers too! The "Defuggler" could still get something out of it!

 

[peebee]

The Chloride and Sulphate boxes above should have turned grey too, but making something out of nothing was a new "feature" for the "Defuddler" and I've a bit of work around it to do. Those two ions are very hard to pull apart without some more info from somewhere (there's no low-cost home test kits), but in this case (small quantities) the values would be okay as a base to which more salts are added. Would really need a private report to clear them up good.

Alkalinity was actually reported in the City report! It was 143ppm. Just that! Like 143ppm ... of what! "Alkalinities"? The "Defuddler" spat it out until bicarbonate was tried. Reporting as bicarbonate is common in the States, beats the baffling "CaCO3" used over here.

 

[peebee]

Not sure if it's just me but I don't see any signature or link?

This is a reply I got (seems plausible):

I cannot see any reason he cannot see them, unless he's looking at a phone in portrait mode. It will not show that was as it takes up too much space.