Are you in the neighborhood for a water softener? Are you unsure of if you need a water softener or not, and skeptical the cost of water systems is worthwhile? If you are in either of the previously mentioned categories, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve put together a checklist to help you determine if your home needs a water softener or not, below:
Five Signs That You Have Hard Water
- Your appliances have chalky white buildup on them.
As water passes through your pipes and into your water dispenser, or onto your coffee pot, or any other appliance that holds water, you’ll notice a white powdery substance build up on it. The annoying thing is that no matter how much you scrub, that chalky substance isn’t going anywhere. If we’re describing your current situation, guess what? You have hard water.
The white buildup you’re seeing is the product of calcium and magnesium bicarbonate in the water. These minerals produce lime which takes the form of unwashable white chalk on your appliances. When you use a water treatment system, the ion exchange technology in the system filters out chalk producing salts and leaves your appliances looking shiny and new for longer. - Your hair and skin feel dry.
When your water is full of minerals and salts instead of just good ol’ fashioned H2O, the soaps you use to clean yourself aren’t abrasive enough to dissolve them (and you really don’t want them to be — they’d have to be very harsh for your skin to do that). Since the soap doesn’t wash away the magnesium and calcium from your skin, an invisible residue develops which irritates your pores and drys your skin out. In fact, these minerals can are so stubborn that they can clog your pores, which causes black heads and break outs. If this is you, unless you want dry, irritated, and broken out skin, we suggest getting a good whole house filtration system. - Your clothes have lost their pizzazz.
When your clothes and bed sheets quickly lose their color after a few round in the washing machine, or grow grey and dingy if they were white to begin with, it’s a sign that you may have hard water. Just as hard water leaves a residue on your appliance and the surface of your skin, it also fills your fabrics with salts and minerals that can’t be washed away by your detergents.
Some of this can be reduced by washing your clothes with a splash of vinegar, or using a front loading washer with liquid detergent (so gravity isn’t working against you while you wash your clothes with hard water), but the best solution is a good water softener. - Your are up to your eyeballs in plumbing problems.
As hard water runs through your narrow pipes, it leaves behind the same buildup that you’re seeing on your appliances, and your hair and skin, and on your clothing (see a trend here?), and narrows the pipes. This makes your water system less efficient as it prevents water from flowing freely as it should. As the flow of you water becomes more restricted, the limescale buildup faster (since it’s moving slower and has more time to sink in), which makes the problem worse. As the calcium deposits buildup on appliances that have valves, such as the washing machine and dish washer, they are unable to open and close as they should, and their lifespan is stunted. If you feel like you have one appliance breaking after another, your hard water could be the culprit. - You have to dip into your kids college tuition to pay your water bill.
Your plumbing works through pressure. The water flowing through your pipes is what pushes it to your faucet. As the diameter of your pipes is reduced by your hard water, it requires more water to get the pressure your pipes need to push the water through to your faucets. This makes your water meter spin in hyper-speed. Using a water softener pushes mineral-free water through your pipes, which flows better and prevents the buildup for getting worse. In fact, the pure water is able to breakdown the buildup and gradually improve the state of your plumbing!
Do you have questions? Please share in the comment section below!
