soft water

No one needs to tell you that you're living with Hard Water. Soap doesn't lather easily, glasses are cloudy after washing, a ring forms around the bathtub, faucets and shower heads are crusty, laundering results are poor and there are many other easily recognized signs. There are several degrees of Water Hardness. Even if it is moderately hard, it can seriously damage the plumbing system in your home and, in time, cause expensive problems.

On it's way from the clouds to your faucet, soft rain water dissolves and absorbs a part of almost everything it passes through (gasses, minerals, organic material etc...) and collects sediment like rust, sand and algae. Dissolved calcium and magnesium salts make water hard. Gases and other contaminants cause undesirable tastes, colors and odors.

Hard water is a poor solvent because it is loaded with a variety of impurities. These dissolved impurities react with certain chemicals found in soap to form a gummy, insoluble curd. This soap curd clings stubbornly to everything it touches. The ring around your bathtub is curd. That same curd causes your hair to become dull and hard to manage. Soap curd clogs skin pores and prevents your natural oils from moisturizing your skin. This dryness causes itching and also aggravates skin conditions like psoriasis, eczema and acne.

Soap curd is especially noticeable by the scummy film it forms on dishes, glassware, walls and floors. Hardness and other dissolved solids combine to form the residue you see as spots on glasses, crockery, cutlery and shower enclosures.

Hard water harms fabrics. Laundry washed in hard water takes on a gray color and wears out faster than expected. With hard water in your washing machine, it's almost impossible to wash clothes white - even when you use large amounts of detergent and bleach. Minerals and insoluble particles in hard water trap dirt and soap curd in the fabric of your clothes and linens. These deposits give fabric a dull gray "washed-out" look and cause the clothing fibers to be brittle.

Your clothes and linens then feel harsh and rough - they deteriorate faster. Hard water harms foods. Some vegetables such as peas and beans, become tough and unpalatable when cooked in hard water. Baking with hard water imparts an undesirable taste from the hardness minerals into your food. Tea, Coffee and other beverages prepared with hard water taste awful and often contain flakes of hardness. Hard water affects your house plumbing. Perhaps the greatest damage done by hard water is the damage that you can't easily see. Water heaters, humidifiers, boilers and household pipes become lined with an increasingly thick layer of calcium and magnesium scale. As this scale builds up, the water flow in your pipes diminishes to such a point that new piping is the only option to remedy the situation.

Hard water scale inside a water heater forms an insulating layer that prevents the burners or heating elements from heating the water efficiently. Just 1/9" of scale inside the tank requires 16% more fuel to heat the water to the desired temperature.

How water hardness is measured?
Water hardness is measured in imperial Grains per Gallon (gpg). A grain, in this case, is the weight of an average dry grain of wheat, approximately 1/7000th of a pound. The water treatment industry uses the following standards to classify water hardness. Click here for a national water hardness map

THE CRIMES OF HARD WATER
Increased Water Heating Costs
Damaged Clothing
Excessive Soap Consumption
Pipe ScalingFaucet and Fixture Deterioration
Skin Problems
Unpalatable Food
Undesirable Tastes and Odors