February 22, 2022

How Do You Know If You Have Hard Water

Tap water can have a lot of impurities and other unwanted substances in it. This can lead to the water becoming hard. Here’s how you would know that your tap water is hard and you need water softener installation.

What Is Hard Water?

Hard water may look like regular water, but there is a huge difference in composition between normal water and hard water. Hard water has a high concentration of salts in it, especially calcium and magnesium. These salts are responsible for preventing the production of suds and lather when you wet a bar of soap or detergent with water.

Furthermore, these salts are also quite heavy and they can produce a lot of residue and scales on the container in which the water is stored. You need to find out the hardness of water, otherwise, you are just wasting soap and detergent while ruining your dishes, clothes, and home appliances.

How To Identify Hard Water?

Here are some things you can do at home to find out how hard your water is exactly.

At-Home Water Hardness Tests

This test is similar to a litmus paper test, but instead of showing the pH of the water, it will show the hardness concentration of the water. These tests are available in the market easily.

All you need to do is to fill up a glass of water from the sink or tap from where you think hard water is coming. Then take a testing strip and dip it in the water for the allocated time.

You need to read the instructions carefully. You don’t want to leave the strip in for too long or take it out too early otherwise the results will be inaccurate.

After the strip has started to change color and the time is up, take the strip out of the water and match it with the results given to you with the testing kit. You can then match your colored strip with the number on the results strip and see how hard your water is.

The Soap Test

A very simple way to find out the degree of hardness of your water is through the soap or detergent method. Take a plastic water bottle and make sure it’s clean before you fill it up with water. Next, add in some drops of liquid soap and shake it.

Start with 10 drops at a time and shake it and look for suds or lather. If you don’t see any, then the water is hard. Keep on adding drops of detergent in the water and if you still see no suds even after 50 drops of detergent, then the water is extremely hard and high in concentration of calcium and magnesium salts.

Check For Scales And Residue

You can easily identify the hardness of water by looking at your taps and clothes that have been washed. You will see a yellow or white scale which is deposited on the metal of the taps and faucets of the sink.

You will also see them on clothes that you wash with this water and there will be elaborate white and yellow stains on the clothes. Not to mention that these stains and scales will also be very hard to remove. You will need a strong detergent and cleaning agent to get rid of these scales.

Scale On Glassware

Another thing that will get the alarm bells in your head regarding the hardness of water, is the appearance of yellow stains on clean glassware. Whether it be glass dishes or simple glasses that are used for drinking water, you will see that they look very dirty, and very white or yellow stains will appear on the inside of the glass. This indicates the deposit of calcium and magnesium scales on the glass. It can also be shown on your dishes and other cutlery, but ceramic dishes and glasses are the most common things to show scales.

Conclusion

There you have it! These tips and tricks will help to identify the hardness present in water. You can then use a water softener system Warren to soften the hard water. You will find many types and brands so select one after performing some research.

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