You may have noticed a chalky substance form on your shower door or on the bathtub itself. You may have also noticed that your skin is itchy or dry after taking a shower. These are common signs of hard water in your home, and if left unchecked, it could result in quality-of-life issues as well as damage to your property.
What Is Hard Water?
Water is considered to be hard if it is contaminated by calcium, magnesium, or similar materials. In some cases, water may become contaminated simply because it falls on rocks or other surfaces that are highly calcified. As the water travels from its original location to your home, the calcium and other minerals it interacts with will dissolve into the liquid.
How to Determine if Your Home Has Hard Water
Dry skin could be caused by a number of factors such as taking hot or lengthy showers. Film on the tub walls could be the result of not cleaning your bathroom often enough. Therefore, it’s important to confirm the presence of hard water as well as the severity of the problem.
Typically, doing so is as easy as getting in touch with your local water provider to obtain a water quality analysis. You can also buy a simple water testing kit online or at a local home improvement store. All you need to do is put the testing strip in a small sample of water and wait a few minutes for the strip to react.
From there, simply compare the color of the strip to the code on the box the strips come in. Ideally, water will have less than seven grains per gallon (GPG) of calcium or magnesium.
How Can You Alleviate Hard Water Conditions?
Generally speaking, there is no way to get rid of hard water in your home. However, you can use water filtration systems to remove minerals as they pass through your home’s plumbing system and through a faucet.
It’s important to note that there is little risk to drinking hard water. Therefore, you shouldn’t feel the need to buy a softening or filtration system if your only worry is that you’ll get sick. However, you may notice that tap water tastes better after it has been filtered.
How Hard Water Impacts Your Home
Itchy skin and hair are not the only potential side effects to hard water. In addition, it can clog and damage pipes and also cause damage to your home’s water heater. This is because the minerals in the water will continue to accumulate as it flows through your house.
Eventually, it will grow thick enough to impede or completely stop the flow of water. It can also become heavy or jagged enough to cut through a water heater holding tank, which would render it obsolete.
It’s also possible for mineral deposits to cause cracks or gaps in pipes as well. A sudden lack of water pressure or seemingly random fluctuations in water pressure could be caused by hard water in the pipes.
Fluctuations in water temperature may also be caused by sediment buildup in a water heater tank. Fortunately, you can get rid of sediment in your hot water heater by flushing it out on a regular basis.
Conclusion
Understanding the causes of hard water may help you identify and rectify a problem before it causes serious health issues or damage to your home. A professional will likely be able to add a water softening system to your property in an effort to provide lasting and affordable relief.