Podcast 4 Transcript--Water Chemistry Matters!

Why Water Chemistry Matters—Episode 4

RETEGO Labs is an authorized dealer of Crusader Water Systems. We’ve got the best test so we had to have the best water treatment systems. RETEGO tests for more than a dozen things that effect water quality from which we create a comprehensive profile. With that profile we work with Crusader Water Systems create a custom system designed just for you. It may surprise you to know that our tests reveal that each home has different water chemistry. The city sends you the same water as your neighbors but once it enters your home it changes. As it flows through different combinations of plumbing, fixtures, and treatment attempts the chemistry changes. Have you ever wondered why you don’t like your tap water but your neighbors is just fine? Have you ever wondered why you seem to replace water heaters all the time and your neighbor doesn’t? It’s not bad luck…It’s just chemistry. Let RETEGO Labs take care of the chemistry so you can take care of your family. Together we can have perfect water.

We’ll start todays’ podcast with the story of a man named Willie Durant. The setting is a smallish town along a river.   To avoid going too long on the detail I’ll just introduce Willie as a gifted salesman who left High School in the 1880’s before finishing his senior year. Seeking his fortune he sold everything from Lumber to Patent Medicines and finally settled on cigars after selling 22,000 cigars 3 days after starting the new sales job.

Willie traveled on horse or foot throughout the territory to sell his cigars. A few years later in 1886, young Durant, age 24, hitched a ride from his friend who had purchased a new cart. Carts were mostly utilitarian and used much like simple wagons. They were noisy, rigid, uncomfortable things that jarred your teeth and rattled your bones so badly you’d rather walk.

His friends’ cart was very different. Durant had never ridden in a cart like this one. It was small and durable, had large wheels and two seats but most importantly, it was very smooth. A clever spring design made it glide nicely on bumps and turns even when the horse was moving fast. Immediately the salesman in him knew that he could sell something like this easily if it wasn’t too expensive.

After finding out where his friend got the cart within 1 day this 24 year old cigar salesman had made the cart manufacturer an offer, secured a loan and purchased the cart company and patents for $2000. He sold a half share to a friend who agreed to manage the business while Willie Durant went on the road to make sales.

One of Durants' first marketing ideas was to enter one of their carts in the tri-state fair in Wisconsin. To put that in perspective, today that same fair draws more than a million people over a 7-day period each year. Back then fairs were the place to go see new and innovative items you normally would never have a chance to be near. The cart he entered was so smooth riding and innovative that it won a blue ribbon which was a highly marketable endorsement at the time. He leveraged that win into agreements with companies in Milwaukee and Chicago to sell his carts. A few days later he returned from that trip with orders for 600 carts.

This aggressive expansion translated into buying out those manufacturing their parts so they eventually owned every piece of production. Within 10 years the company was selling carts all over the US, Canada, and even Australia. Durant tracked preferences and noticed that black carts sold best in the east but in the Midwest they preferred a choice of colors so he offered color choices. By 1901 Durant had transformed that $2000 investment into a two million dollar a year business. By 1906 they were the largest carriage manufacturer in the world and employed as many as 1000 workers producing 480 carts a day.

10 years later, in 1904, Durant was approached with a new product, the horseless carriage. Henry Ford was in production; Durant had seen the contraptions but thought it dangerous and had forbidden his daughter to ride in one. He decided to check into this opportunity anyway. He was actually so impressed that within a few months he’d bought the rights to this new creation from the inventor, David Buick. Taking a page from his past success he entered the Buick into a New York show where people could get their first look at the car. He left that show with an order for more than 1100 Buicks.

One of the first things Durant did, based on his experience with the varying preferences people expressed when buying his carts, was to offer his car in different colors. Henry Ford offered one product in one color, black, because the paint was the cheapest. With color choices and the innovative design of the Buick sales soared. Durant wanted more than just different colors, he wanted different cars to offer so he started hunting for other types of cars.    One of his first purchases was a car called Cadillac. By the end of 1908 he’d purchased 13 car manufacturers and 10 auto parts manufacturers and so began the formation of the worlds’ largest automobile company, General Motors.

So why that story? Some gear heads out there probably already know the name of the city where all this started but most would have no idea. Yet, if I were to ask you which city in America has the worst water, a city appearing in the news for years, I bet many would be able to tell me. William Durants' hometown where the worlds’ largest car company resided is Flint, Michigan. I would bet few of you had ever heard of it a couple of years ago. Today, you’d run into few people who hadn’t heard of it. The town wasn’t made famous because of the story I just told; it is famous because of their water. The name Flint Michigan is used as a warning, a cautionary tale, and as a way to sell bottled water. In many ways, because of Flint Michigan’s’ water woes bottled water went from an odd and maybe over indulgent luxury to a product with 18 billion dollars in US sales last year.

So what happened in Flint Michigan? I’ve asked that question dozens of times. I get answers ranging from the government purposely poisoning its citizens to blaming it on polluted rivers and streams. Each time I get a different answer but mostly people don’t know.

As the birthplace of General Motors and as the headquarters of the General Motors Holding Company, Flint Michigan flourished. By the 1980’s 200,000 people called it home. By the mid 80’s rising oil prices and competition from imports took its toll on this once prosperous town. Factories were shut down and workers were laid off or relocated. By the 2010 census the population had dropped by 50% leaving only 100,000 people remaining. Of those citizens 45% fall below the poverty line. They went from being the center of innovation and automobile production to becoming a city in serious financial trouble.

In 2011 the city carried a $25,000,000 deficit which simply means they were spending $25,000,000 more than what they could bring in with taxes. That situation caused them to fall under state control.   One of the first things done by the Michigan governor was to appoint an emergency manager. His job was to assess the situation and make cuts and changes so the bankrupt city could save money. In 2013 this emergency manager saw what looked like an obvious target. In his estimation Flint had been foolishly squandering money on an out of city water source. For 50 years Flint had piped treated water from Detroit. It sure looked like the city could save money by pumping water from the Flint River which ran right through town. It seemed like a great idea.

Before knowing anything about this story you’d probably be ready to conclude that the water itself must have been contaminated. Well, certainly the Flint River had a history of issues but that river water wasn’t being pumped straight into homes. It was first cleaned and treated then sent out to residents.

As you may have guessed from the General Motors story, Flint Michigan is an old city. It was founded by a fur trader in 1819. As it grew water pipes were installed to bring fresh water to the citizenry. They used the best material available, the same material used for thousands of years for that same purpose. Lead. That soft metal had been used for thousands of years for carrying water. On the periodic table you’ll find lead under the letters “Pb.” That stand for its Latin name Plumbum and those that worked with it became known workers of plumbum or Plumbers. Most of Flint Michigan’s water flowed through these old lead pipes.

We probably all know that lead is bad for you. You certainly don’t want any of it entering your body but these pipes had worked just fine decade after decade. Why was it OK with the old water being piped from Detroit but not the water from the Flint River? Well, water is a funny thing. One of the interesting things about water is that it’s constantly seeking to balance itself. If it has too much of something like calcium or magnesium it will leave the extra behind. That’s what you see around your faucets and shower heads in some areas. If the water has too little of something it needs for balance it will dissolve what it comes in contact with. That’s what we call corrosion. You’ll see it doing that as rust forms or rusty stains appear in your fixtures pipe or appliances.

The reason I mentioned that is because the water that had been pumped to Flint Michigan for 50 years had more minerals than it needed for balance. The unneeded minerals were left on the city’s lead pipes. A nice layer of scale much like you see on the edge of a geyser formed which fortunately kept the water from coming in contact with the lead. When the water from the Flint River was introduced its different chemistry started dissolving the scale that had been keeping the water away from the lead. Again, it was seeking balance but in a different way. When the new water was done dissolving the scale it was flowing over, it started leaching the lead from the pipes.

Anyway, this story might have not been as big if it weren’t for the handling of the issue when brought to the attention of government officials. Their complaints were ignored and downplayed for years which resulted in a large part of the city of Flint being contaminated with lead for 18 months. That included nearly 9000 children. Before you wonder how much lead is safe let me give you the answer. It’s none. There is no safe level of lead in water.

I specifically mention the children because they’re extra vulnerable. They can suffer from:

• Behavior and learning problems
• Lower IQ and hyperactivity
• Slowed growth
• Hearing problems
• Anemia

In rare cases, ingestion of lead can cause:

• Seizures
• Coma
• and even Death

Pregnant Women drinking that water risk

• Reduced growth of the fetus or Premature birth.
• Lead can also be transmitted through breast milk

For any adult even low levels of lead can lead can have

• Cardiovascular effects like increased blood pressure and hypertension
• Impaired kidney functions and
• Reproductive problems for both men and woman.

The problems in Flint are working their way through the court systems, we will learn a bit more when that is said and done. In the meanwhile there have been significant positive developments and innovation inspired by the catastrophic circumstances that the people of Flint endured.

What does all of this have to do with your home? In the last podcast I mentioned the surprising fact that home inspectors don’t check for water quality. I said they check for water damage but not damaged water. What do I mean by Damaged Water?

Each of us want healthy, hydrating, and safe water in our homes so our family stays healthy, hydrated and safe. It seems that the only way we know how to do that is to buy a fridge filter or bottled water or add a softener because the softener salesman said that everyone needs a softener.

What we need is balanced water.

Yes, I think that everyone needs to filter their water and take control of what they drink but the water you get from your tap is probably just fine. I like the idea of filtering because it gives me a level of confidence that nothing can slip through and I can also balance it the way I want to make it taste the way I want. I also think that everyone needs to do something about the hardness in the water. But every softener salesperson I’ve met treat water like it’s the same no matter where you go. As we learned from the Flint story, the next town over probably has water with a completely different chemistry. Well, I’m here to tell you that the water may well be different one house over!

While developing their TTR-2 Spectrometer, RETEGO Labs found something startling. Every home they tested had different water. Even though the water supplied to the homes was basically the same, the water in homes right next door to each other had different water chemistry at their tap. The same was true for businesses they tested. Not only that, each floor of the business or even from tap to tap the chemistry changes. They found that the water was the same until it entered the home or business but by the time it got to the tap it was different. What they found was that due to the unique makeup of each homes plumbing and fixtures, each had different chemistry. Most homes and businesses have a combination of plumbing materials. They might be plastic then copper then plastic again or galvanized then copper then plastic. The variations are endless. Those combinations as well as attempts to do “one size fits all” water softening often leads to drastic shifts in the water chemistry.

I also believe the crisis in Flint caused a large part of the population to move towards bottled water. Up until that issue was publicized the bottled water market grew about 8% a year at a nice and steady pace. In 2014 when the Flint disaster was being widely reported bottled water sales jumped to 11%, then over the next five years 12%, 13%, 14%, and 15%. Today the majority of Americans are suspicious of their tap water believing that it could be contaminated. 78% have some sort of bottled water in their homes that they regularly drink. More than half report two reasons for buying bottled water—safety and taste.

I personally think the safety thing is the stronger reason. Before I had a water conditioning system put in our home My teenage daughter said she hated the taste of our tap water. Doing the “Dad Thing” I would refill the empty bottles with tap water and she never noticed. However, it’s a valid concern. What you’re tasting when you drink a glass of your tap water is your house. I keep bees and I tell people my honey tastes like my yard since my bees touch every pollen source I grow. In the same way, your water tastes like your house since the city water makes its way to your tap through your plumbing and appliances. If you have a chance, go to an outside faucet and get a glass of water before it enters your home. Let it run for a minute if you haven’t turned it on in a while. Taste that then taste your house water. They’ll taste different, especially if your water hasn’t been running for a while. Sitting there in your pipes it picks up minerals, sediment and sometimes even the materials those pipes are made of. That’s what you’re tasting.

In the end what you need to ensure that you’re protecting your plumbing and appliances from premature failure, keeping your family hydrated and healthy, is balanced water. Balanced water is different from softened water. Balanced water is made that way after carefully checking the waters chemistry then custom designing a system that doesn’t take too much out of it making it hungry and corrosive or leave too much in so you’re dealing with scale and buildup, dry skin and hair, and all the stuff that goes with hard water. You want to drink water that’s is stripped of any contaminant but has the minerals our bodies need. You can do all those things right in your home less expensively than buying new water heaters, replacing pipes and other appliances and constantly buying bottled water. I was amazed to learn that a family of 4 spends $250 just on problems from hard water and anywhere from $100 to $250 a month on bottled water depending on the water they buy. It’s one of those hidden home ownership costs that no one talks about.

Today we’ve touched briefly on a story of an incredibly prosperous city who’s inhabitants have really been put through some crazy stuff both economically but also, and more devastating long-term, some serious health challenges that can be prevented. As our society grows each of us will need to take control of making sure our water is safe. We do have the right to a reasonable expectation that the water we’re getting from the tap is clean and safe and most of the time it is. It’s that possibility of issues that keeps me talking about water and hoping we’ll all see the importance of taking control or our own water and health. One reality that most of us aren’t aware of is just how much it costs to bring you clean, fresh tap water. We pay little for it in our monthly bill so we assume it’s cheap. It’s not. I think we all pay an average of $30 to $40 a month for our water bill. It costs an average of $270 a month per household just to maintain the old and failing infrastructure in existence now. That amount doesn’t allow for anything to begin replacing all those old pipes and updating old systems. We all need to wakeup to the costs of not doing anything as well as the huge benefit of taking control of our water. It costs you $250 a month on average to do nothing or to do the wrong thing.

Balancing the water will save that money and put the control in your hands.

RETEGO can give you that control…..