Model: Vulcan S10 and Vulcan S25
Location: California
Installation Area: Vulcan S10: Water main of the Bodega Marine Housing Dormitories
Vulcan S25: Cold water pipe of the main Bodega Laboratory

University of California Davis:
UCDAVIS Student Housing Facilities Services has been actively exploring alternative water treatment/softening systems to traditional sodium exchange brine discharge systems for the last five-plus years. We have been doing so because of environmental and sustainability issues, as well as cost and safety concerns related to traditional systems.

About 5 years ago we began experimenting with magnetic treatment systems. We evolved from there to electro-magnetic systems about two years later. In August of this year we installed the Vulcan system in a 465 bed residence hall complex constructed in 1964 that uses ground water tested at 7 grains per gallon/120 parts per million of hardness that we had never treated before. We now have traditional water treatment systems in some buildings and the three alternatives mentioned above in others.

Although I believe that traditional water softening systems are the most effective, they are also the least environmentally friendly, (they actually contribute to environmental degradation), and the most costly. I have found the three alternate systems to have positive effects and the Vulcan system to have the greatest positive effects of the three. The Vulcan system reduces scale build up, changes the nature of the scale that does remain to a powdery type of scale that is much more easily removed than typical flaky scale that etches onto tube bundles, pipe and tank surfaces, faucets, aerators, etc., changes the “feel” of the water for the better, and results in soaps, shampoos, and detergents being needed in reduced quantities and lathering better.

I am a believer in the Vulcan system and strongly encourage facilities personnel with water treatment needs who are concerned about the environment, sustainability, costs, and safety to give Vulcan a try.