Hometown water report calculation problems

So I've moved to new place and I e-mailed to the water department and asked water report, also mentioned that I need to know stuff like Ca, Mg, and so on as ppm. And what I get?
Received water report from last year. It says:

Chloride: 3,5 (not mentioned the measurement, but speaks about the maximum amount as waters quality is 250mg/l)
Sulfate: 12 (This one tells that the maximum amount in waters quality is 250 μg/l)
Sodium: 8 (Same thing as above, but 200μg/l)
Calcium Hardness: 0,38 mmol/l
Total Hardness: 0,43 mmol/l
Alkalinity: 0,73 mmol/l

So..This is frustrating and shows how good customer service can be. Well, can anyone of U experts calculate the amounts as good old ppm, what about the Calcium, Magnesium
and Bicarbonates?

You can approximate mg/l being equivalent to ppm. Pretty sure all of the top three are in mg/l. Not sure about the mmol conversion - hopefully someone else can jump in there.

Bicarbonate can be derived, as can the sum of Ca and Mg. Palmer probably has those conversions in How To Brew.

I'm not a chemist, but I think this is right...mmol = millimoles...you can convert mmol/l to mg/l (ppm) by multiplying the mmol/l value with the element's atomic mass.

Assuming the hardness and alkalinity values are calcium carbonate (CaCO3) with atomic mass of 100:

Calcium Hardness: 0,38 mmol/l = 38 ppm (0.38 x 100)
Total Hardness: 0,43 mmol/l = 43 ppm (0.43 x 100)
Alkalinity: 0,73 mmol/l = 73 ppm (0.73 x 100)

Strange that the report didn't have values for Ca and Mg -- can you post the contents?

Arska said:

Chloride: 3,5 (not mentioned the measurement, but speaks about the maximum amount as waters quality is 250mg/l)

Click to expand...

This suggests the chloride number is probably 3,5 (or 3.5 as we would write here is the US) mg/L.

Arska said:

Sulfate: 12 (This one tells that the maximum amount in waters quality is 250 μg/l)

Click to expand...

The same reasoning would apply here except that 250 μg/l is a pretty low maximum level. 12 mg/L would be more reasonable than 12 μg/l (0.012 mg/L) which would probably be reported as 0 or ND (not detected)

Arska said:

Sodium: 8 (Same thing as above, but 200μg/l)

Click to expand...

I'm guessing it's the same here i.e. that the sodium is 8 mg/l

Arska said:

Calcium Hardness: 0,38 mmol/l

Click to expand...

Calcium hardness is expressed in various ways.
I have never seen it expressed in moles. It is usually expressed in equivalents so that it can be compared directly to alkalinity. I am going to assume that moles hardness means moles of calcium but it could mean something else - for instance the moles of EDTA taken to chelate all the calcium. You would have to talk to a chemist at the water supplier to find out exactly how they measure hardness. In the US it is usually in terms of ppm as CaCO3. One meq, half a mol, is 50 ppm as CaCO3 so 0.38 mmol/l is 0.76 meq/l which corresponds to 38 ppm as CaCO3. The GMW of calcium is 40 so 0,38 mmol is 15,2 mg/l.

Arska said:

Total Hardness: 0,43 mmol/l

Click to expand...

In potable water total hardness is defined as the sum of calcium hardness and magnesium hardness so this implies that the magnesium hardness is 0,43 - 0,38 = 0,05 mmol/l. This is equivalent to 0,1 meq/l implying magnesium hardness of 5 ppm as CaCO3 and as the equivalent weigh of magnesium is 12,15 a magnesium content of 1.2 mg/l

Arska said:

Alkalinity: 0,73 mmol/l

Click to expand...

Same reasoning here except that the alkalinity ion, bicarbonate, is singly charged thus 1 mole is equal to an equivalent. 0,73*50 = 36,5 ppm as CaCO3 would be the alkalinity in those units and the bicarbonate, with GMW of 61, would be 61*0.73 mg/l.

So..This is frustrating and shows how good customer service can be. Well, can anyone of U experts calculate the amounts as good old ppm, what about the Calcium, Magnesium
and Bicarbonates?[/QUOTE]

Well, I got it partially correct

ajdelange said:

In potable water total hardness is defined as the sum of calcium hardness and magnesium hardness...

Click to expand...

aj - my Ward Lab's report shows both total hardness and total alkalinity as CaCO3 - is that different that what you said above?

First of all; Thank you for your efforts. Finally some sense to these odd numbers. I already guessed that my water would be relatively soft, but now with these numbers it's easier to brew and calculate minerals for recipes. thanks.

michaeltrego said:

aj - my Ward Lab's report shows both total hardness and total alkalinity as CaCO3 - is that different that what you said above?

Click to expand...

That's the usual practice this side of the pond. In Europe they often use mvals or meq/l (multiply by 50 to get ppm as CaCO3) but there are French degrees, German degrees (dH) etc. Never seen it epressed in mols before.