Any guesses on the Chelmsford water profile?

[JKoravos]

I keep forgetting to send my water in to Ward for testing and not knowing the profile is making me anxious! I'll send it in soon enough, but if anyone has a idea, that would be nice.

 

[jdauria]

Looks like your town does not post the water mineral numbers needed on their website. They do have this from 2014. http://www.chelmsfordwater.com/Pages/ChelmsfordWater_WebDocs/S00609953-04FB1C5E.8/CCR 2014.pdf Really only lists two things you need, sodium and chloride...and chloride is very high at 173 ppm. But looks like they list the highest number during various tests during the year...because it lists "range" as 107-173.

I suggest calling them and ask them if they can provide you with water quality report that details the ppm or mg/L of the various minerals in the water. If they need more detail...tell them you need pH, sodium, sulfate, calcium, chloride, magnesium, carbonate, bicarbonate alkalinity and hardness, and just in case, the chlorine numbers (in case they are too high and you need to adjust with Camden tablets.

They work for you the tax payer, so they should be able to provide you with these numbers. Just remember, with town water...the numbers don't always mean that's exactly what the water is right now.

 

[JKoravos]

Turns out I'm part of the NORTH Chelmsford water district. They actually had some useful data on their website:

Ca 32 ppm
SO4 16 ppm
Na ~140ppm (high)
Chlorine 4 ppm
Alkalinity as CaCO3 50ppm
Hardness 96 ppm

They didn't list chloride, but you would expect it to be high since it's coming from the same watershed as the Chelmsford water district.

Usually hardness is Ca + Mg, so based on those numbers you would think the Mg concentration is pretty high. 60ppm?

 

[jdauria]

Actually do you know if Hardness is "as CaCO3"? If so, this is equal to the sum of the Ca and Mg concentrations in milliequivalents per liter (mEq/l) multiplied by 50 (the Equivalent Weight of CaCO3)...so you have to take Ca and Mg and convert to mEq/l from ppm).

This is the formula: (Ca (ppm)/20 + Mg (ppm)/12.1) x 50 = Total Hardness as CaCO3

So dusting off rusty algebra if total hardness is 96...96 divided by 50 = 1.92. So the sum of Ca/ppm + Mg ppm = 1.92.

Since your Ca ppm is 32. divided by 20 = 1.6. 1.92 - 1.6 =0.32 has to be the total of Mg ppm/12.1. So 0.32/12.1= 3.87 is your Mg ppm.

So double checking the formula:

(32/20 + 3.87/12.1) x 50 = Hardness of 96
(1.6 mEg/l + .32 mEg/l) x 50 = Hardness of 96
(1.92)x50 = 96.

3.87 ppm of Mg seems more in line here in Mass...my water is in the 3's too. I am definitely not a water expert and got the info above from John Palmer's website which you can check out here...http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html

Hope that helps!