What’s Wrong With Hard Water?

It’s the hardness in water that soaps and detergents cannot overcome, that causes gray clothes and helps wear out clothing and other washable fabrics quicker. Hard water minerals combine with soap to form bathtub rings, cause razor pull, make hair stiff and dull, and leave spots on glassware and silverware. Hard water causes peas, beans and other legumes to become tough, rubbery and shriveled when cooked, puts a scaly deposit on cooking utensils, eventually clogging faucets and other plumbing and building up in hot water heaters lowering their efficiency and causing them to wear out long before their expected lifetime.

Besides all the other disadvantages of hard water, many household cleaning tasks are made more difficult and time-consuming when hard water must be used. One study (Ohio State University) determined that it takes an average of nearly four hours per house cleaning with hard water. When softened water was made available, cleaning time was cut by 40%, to 2 hours 21 minutes. Over the course of a year, this would save a homemaker more than ten 8-hour work days.

There are several main areas where softened water can reduce those problems—personal grooming, clothing, cleansing, appliances and plumbing.

Personal Grooming

The first noticeable effect of hard water is that it impedes proper sudsing for bathing and washing hair. Soap and hardness minerals combine to form a curd that sticks to the body, leaving an unclean, sticky feeling. More soap is required.

Hair washed in hard water is encrusted with that same curd, which makes hair brittle, hard to keep clean, difficult to manage, and robs it of natural highlights. More shampoo is necessary.

Hair washed in softened water is thoroughly clean, smooth, natural looking and easy to manage. Many persons remember collecting rainwater in a barrel to use for washing hair and clothing. There was areas for it. Rainwater is naturally soft.

Clothing

The gray in clothing results from hard water impeding the cleansing action of soaps and detergents and combining with them to deposit a curd on the clothing. To try to overcome the problem, one must use more cleaning agents, resulting in greater cost.

The life of your clothing and household linens is reduced by hard water. The minerals in hard water act as an abrasive on clothing, causing fibers to break. Hard water can cut the life of clothing by as much as one third and linens can wear out twice the normal rate, depending on how hard the water is. Softened water can increase the serviceable life of clothing and linens while keeping them cleaner, softer and brighter.

Cleansing

Today’s householder spends less time in the home because of outside employment or other activities. We value our time more than ever. But hard water can rob us of it. Softened water can ease our household chores and cut the time it takes to do them.

Softened water in your home could save for you by shortening the time you spend in cleansing and reducing the cost for cleaning materials. Another thing, softened water eliminates annoying and embarrassing spotting of silverware and glassware. They sparkle with softened water.

Appliances And Plumbing

Hard water can be wasteful in another way that could be extremely expensive. Mineral buildup can damage water-using appliances, such as dishwashers, washing machines, automatic ice makers, air conditioners and water heaters. This buildup also reduces the efficiency of a plumbing system. These rock-hard minerals may affect the operating efficiency of appliances and may make expensive de-liming necessary. If the mineral buildup is ignored appliances may have to be replaced long before they should.

Mineral buildup in hot water heaters may result in a greater use of energy to heat water, since the heat source must penetrate the rock-like mineral deposits to reach the water. Continued mineral buildup eventually may cause water heaters to burn out long before their time.

Hardness minerals can reduce the flow of water in pipes in a plumbing system, a condition similar to hardening of the arteries. Water pressure is seriously affected, often dropping to a trickle. Eventually pipes can become completely clogged, requiring expensive replacement of an entire plumbing system.

Solution #1 - Water Conditioner

The answer to mineral buildup problems a water conditioner that can remove most of the destructive and annoying hardness minerals. A water conditioner can provide you with quality water to make your living easier. It may be the most valuable appliance you will have in your home.

It will be an investment not only in quality of water but in the protection of all of your water using appliances from destructive minerals. It will be an investment that will actually save you money, by reducing your total expenditures for soaps, detergents and shampoos, by extending the life of clothing and linens and by reducing the need to repair or replace appliances or plumbing systems necessitated by mineral buildup. It will be an investment that will save you much time, labor and, of course, money.

Solution #2 - Big Blue Filter

Another option is the Big Blue Filter which is a carbon filter for the whole house system It will do the same as one of those large more expensive system, Big Blue removes chlorine, toxins, spores, bacteria, order, dirt, amines, oil and MTBE; while leaving trace of minerals Creating great tasting safe water at every tap in your home. We also offer a large carbon whole house system at wholesale prices.

So Call AFM Plumbing Services today and have a water conditioner, reverse osmosis appliance or filter installed today!