With more than 30 years’ experience in the residential and commercial water treatment space, Mark Nelson is a Class 1 Drinking-Water Operator and a CBWA (Canadian Bottled Water Association) Certified Plant Operator. As founder and president of Nelson Water in Ottawa, Mark focuses on dealing with challenging water treatment system designs for problem water. He also heads the largest water bottling plant in the city of Ottawa with a delivery network throughout the Valley.
Hard water is a common issue throughout Canada and North America. While it is not considered dangerous to health, hard water can be problematic in a variety of ways around the home. So, here we’ll explore how to determine if your home has hard water and what you can do to correct the issue.
The Problems With Hard Water
Hard water contains high levels of minerals, specifically calcium, magnesium, and possibly iron. While these minerals are considered essential for human health when in significant quantities in your water, it can create a number of issues around your home. Hard water minerals accumulate to cause scale. This can be visible around fixtures such as shower heads and taps, but it can also be hidden inside pipes and water using appliances. Unfortunately, this scale not only impedes water flow, but it can also create energy efficiency problems, as the scale accumulates around heating elements, forcing appliances to work harder. Eventually, this scale build up will compromise the lifespan of your appliances, forcing premature replacement.
Hard water can also cause problems with laundry, dish washing, and bathing. You may notice spots on your glassware, your whites may look dull and gray, or your skin may feel dry and itchy. All of these issues are related to hard water. The hard water minerals interfere with the lather capabilities of soaps and detergent. This impedes cleaning and may create a scum that is difficult to rinse. This soap scum can even remain on your skin and hair, causing itchy, irritated skin and dull, hard to style hair. If you have experienced any of these issues, it is likely that you have hard water and you’ll need to determine the level of hardness in your water.
DIY Testing
If you’re unsure whether your home is affected by hard water, there is a simple way to perform a DIY check. This can be performed at home to determine if you need to take further action. You’ll need some pure liquid soap and a clear water bottle.
First, fill your container, such as an empty plastic bottle, approximately a third of the way to the top with tap water.
Add approximately ten drops of your liquid soap into the container. Pure liquid soap will work best for this. Any soap labelled as detergent will contain additives that can affect the results of this testing, so try to stick to pure soap varieties, such as Castile soap that does not contain perfumes or dyes.
Put the lid on the container and shake for at least ten seconds. You want to mix the soap and water in an attempt to make bubbles.
Once you’ve shaken the bottle, it’s time to check the results. If you can see a decent amount of soap suds on top and nice, clear water underneath, your water is relatively soft. If your bottle doesn’t contain many suds even after a vigorous shaking and the water looks cloudy, it is a good indication that you have hard water.
If preferred, you can keep adding more soap and shaking to continue this test. Just remember the more soap needed to create bubbles, the greater your water hardness.
The reason this test provides insight into your water hardness is that the hard water minerals prevent soap from creating suds and cleaning effectively. The sap binds with the dissolved minerals to form a cloudy liquid that will leave a residue on your dishes, shower, clothing, hair, and skin.
Detergents are formulated with additives to create suds in hard water. This is why these products shouldn’t be used in the above test. Unfortunately, even if you’re using these products, you’ll still need to use increasing quantities in hard water to get those all important suds.
Accurate Water Testing
While this DIY test can provide you with some information, it is not completely accurate. This test will highlight a hard water problem, but it won’t provide a precise number of the water hardness level of your supply. This test highlights a need for more accurate water testing.
A water treatment expert can provide this form of testing. The technician is equipped to test water for the hardness level, pH, total dissolved solids and other possible contaminants. This testing can be tailored to check for the contaminants that are common in your geographical area. For example, if you live in a rural area, it is a good idea to check for nitrates and other chemicals associated with agricultural runoff. The technician can help you to identify the underlying cause of any water problems you may be experiencing, such as strange tastes, odours or aesthetic qualities, such as strange colours.
Treatment Options
Once you have had accurate testing performed, your water technician can help you to understand the testing results and guide you through the treatment options. If the only water quality issue is high hardness levels, a water softener is likely to be the best choice. These devices use ion exchange to replace the magnesium and calcium with sodium ions. This immediately creates softer water to eliminate any hard water issues around your home.
If you have more extensive water quality issues, you are likely to need other types of water treatment. For example, Reverse Osmosis systems can be used to eliminate up to 99.9% of waterborne contaminants. This is a particularly effective treatment method for heavy metals, minerals, bacteria, and viruses. Unfortunately, the semipermeable membrane in RO systems can be vulnerable to clogging and damage if you have high total dissolved solids. In this scenario, you may need to introduce a pre-filter to remove any sediment and larger particles of dissolved solids before it is passed through the RO membrane.
If you have concerns or questions about your water quality, you should consult a professional water quality expert. An experienced professional can perform on site water testing to check for hard water and other contaminants before recommending the treatment options best suited to your water conditions.