How To Treat Hard Water and What Is It?
Common Questions About Hard Water
The running water in your home is an essential part of your daily routine, from washing dishes to showering. If your water quality is poor, it can affect your appliances, your plumbing, and even your hair and skin health. Hard water is a common issue many residents in MD, VA, and PA deal with, whether they use well water or public water.
At Carroll Water, we address questions and concerns about hard water. We also offer water testing and advanced treatment systems so you can protect your home and appliances. To learn more, contact us to speak with a member of our team or visit our FAQs page.
What is Hard Water?
Hard water contains a high level of dissolved minerals. Typically, this includes calcium, magnesium, and sometimes iron. These minerals can come from many sources. The most common include rocks, soil, limestone, and other mineral sources that groundwater flows through before it reaches your home or business.
Hard water and soft water are different in that soft water doesn’t contain high levels of dissolved minerals. This makes it less damaging to appliances and less likely to cause issues like scale buildup and staining.
What Causes Hard Water?
Hard water results from the same processes that lead to elevated iron levels in your water. When rain falls, the water flows down into the soil and through underground mineral deposits. As groundwater dissolves these mineral sources, it carries minerals to the aquifer.
If you have a private well, you may have calcium and magnesium underneath your property. Or, your public water source could be exposed to magnesium and calcium deposits before it travels to the treatment plant. Regardless of the type of water you use daily, you can end up with hard water in your home or business.
To determine if you have hard water, you will need to schedule a water test. Hardness is measured by the concentration of dissolved minerals in water.
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland Water Hardness
Areas in the mid-Atlantic region tend to have a layer of bedrock that is calcium-based. Because of this, our team at Carroll Water frequently sees homes and businesses with hard water problems.
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland can have hard or soft water. However, hard water is quite common in our area.
Does Drinking Hard Water Have Any Negative Health Effects?
Hard water is not harmful to human health, but it can have negative impacts on household appliances and plumbing. The EPA does not regulate hardness as a contaminant in drinking water. This means public water suppliers are not required to treat it before distribution
What are Signs of Hard Water Problems Around the Home?
There are several signs to watch for that indicate something isn’t right with your tap water. Hard water symptoms can appear in several ways:
- Stains or scale buildup on plumbing fixtures, shower doors, and in pipes
- White spots or film on clean dishes
- Soap scum in sinks, bathtubs, and on shower curtains
- Stiff laundry and clothes that wear out quickly
- Soap doesn’t lather well
- Unpleasant tastes or odors in tap water
- Dry skin and hair after showering
- Water-using appliances and equipment become less effective or break down
- Low water pressure
Below, we go into more detail about the many ways high mineral content in your water can affect your household.
Water Spots
One of the easiest signs of hard water to notice is the presence of water spots on your dishes after you wash them. This happens for two reasons. First, hard water reacts with your dish soap. Second, magnesium and calcium leave deposits when the water dries and evaporates.
Soap Reaction
Hard water reacts with soap and makes it less effective. The minerals in hard water make it harder to get a good lather. This means you have to use a lot more soap, or soap with softening agents, to get things clean
Skin Irritation and Dry Hair
Hard water can cause soap to leave residue behind and strip skin and hair of natural oils. This causes dryness and irritation, often leading to a flaky scalp, dull hair, and itchy skin. You might find yourself using more shampoo and conditioner just to feel clean, but this adds to the buildup.
Damaged or Stained Clothes
Hard water can leave behind stains on your clothes after washing, due to how it reacts with the laundry detergent. You’ll see this in the form of white or gray streaks on the colored clothes you wash.
In addition, hard water can damage fabrics. Clothes gradually become gray or yellow, fibers weaken and tear more easily, and some stains and buildup can be harder to wash off.Mineral Buildup (White Scale) On and Around Fixtures
An obvious sign you have hard water is white scale buildup (also called limescale). This mineral accumulation appears on faucets, showerheads, and drains.
Clogged Pipes and Lower Water Pressure
The calcium and magnesium in your water supply can build up in your pipes as scale deposits. As deposits accumulate, they begin to choke off the water flow, decreasing water pressure. If this goes on too long, it can clog your plumbing, sometimes extensively, leading to costly replacement.
Water Heater Problems
The same scale deposits that can build up in your pipes can also build up inside your hot water heater. This scale forms on the heating elements, making them work harder to heat your water. You’ll notice when this occurs by experiencing longer wait times for hot water, higher energy bills, or when your water heater completely fails. This problem is even more troublesome when you have a tankless heater.
Appliance Wear and Tear
The same scale deposits that build up in your pipes and water heater also build up inside water-using appliances. Hard water can shorten the lifespan of washing machines, dishwashers, and refrigerators with water dispensers.
How Do You Treat Hard Water?
Hard water issues are treated by installing a water softener, also known as a water conditioner. Water softeners use a process called ion exchange to eliminate hard water minerals.
When hard water enters the water softener unit, it’s exposed to charged resin beads containing sodium ions. These ions attract calcium and magnesium from the water. When they attach to the resin, the resin beads then release the sodium ions back into the water, and soft water flows through your pipes.
Treating Hard Water in MD, VA, and PA
Using softened water is beneficial for many reasons. You enjoy better water quality for washing clothes, showering, and cleaning.
Treating hard water is a simple way you can improve your daily life and protect your property. For high-quality water softening systems and installation, contact Carroll Water. We help address all types of water quality problems throughout the region. As a family-run water treatment company with over 130 years of combined experience, you can rely on our team.
We provide well drilling, water testing, hard water treatment, and more. As an award-winning EcoWater Systems® dealer, you can trust our treatment products to provide long-term, reliable solutions. We also carry other top brands of treatment equipment.
If you’re dealing with water hardness in Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia, reach out today!
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