I forwarded the email to craig mawlams at ionic and I got a reply, he said this:
Hi Pete, thanks for the email, it is interesting that question of parts per billion is now being discussed more widely, in many ways it reminds me of the time when we launched our first hot water Thermopure systems. Back then we had competitors coming out with all kinds of outlandish things about the use of hot pure water, from "it makes windows dirtier" to "it damages windows". I didn't bother to entertain their arguments then, and I won't now for a simple reason - the proof is in the pudding.
Nowadays, Thermopure systems are everywhere, and currently Ionic sell about twice as many hot water as cold water systems. When window cleaners actually used hot water, they saw the difference and the benefits for themselves. (incidentally, most, if not all of those competitors that used to naysay hot water have since gone out of business, and that more than anything tells me that I was right) The same will be true with PPB.
There is some truth to what June at Gapswater has said. It is true that using resin alone isn't enough to produce water thats 0PPB. That is why the Zero system has a sophisticated and automated water treatment process with several stages that we developed just for the Zero. It simply couldn't be done as a DIY system.
We could get bogged down in the science of the subject, and that is interesting for some, but of much greater interest to most is whether it actually makes any practical difference when window cleaning. As I'm sure I mentioned when you came to the BWCA training course, I was a window cleaner myself for decades cleaning some of the tallest buildings around, and when it came to new gadgets and gizmos, all that really mattered to me is whether it would save time, and therefore money. This concept was the driving force behind Zero PPB, and indeed all of Ionic's innovations.
Just like hot water, the only real way to see the difference is to try it for yourself. Of course we'll always get this those who will naysay the whole idea as a gimmick, just as they did for hot water, and even the Reach & Wash System itself. That's fine, I have no problem with that at all because I know that the proof really is in the pudding. In the mean time, forward thinking window cleaners who want to have the edge will actually use one of our Zero PPB systems, just as they did with our Thermopure systems, and reap the benefits. We published the comments of two such window cleaners in our recent mailing, and in my view their words as window cleaners are as good as any that I could write!
Craig Mawlam
--
Craig Mawlam
The British Window Cleaning Academy
T: +44 (0) 1793 497 786
F: +44 (0) 1793 486 518
www.bwca.co.uk