Ways You Can Tell Your House Has Hard Water

Hard water is a common problem affecting residential water supplies. Even the best water treatment plants can’t prevent it, since most hard water minerals enter the water after it has left the treatment plant and is on its way toward homes. The minerals of hard water (primarily magnesium and various calcites) seep through the ground and into the freshwater pipes.

Hard water isn’t unhealthy to drink. In fact, you want some amount of these minerals in your water because they’re essential minerals for good health. But too high a level of these minerals is bad for the plumbing in a house and creates inconveniences with cleaning and bathing. It can even wreck important water-using appliances; the water heater is especially susceptible to damage due to hard water. 

The Signs of Hard Water

Fortunately, hard water leaves a number of telltale signs. If you notice these signs of hard water in your home, we recommend calling us. We’ll test your water to determine its hardness level, and if necessary can equip the plumbing with a water softener in Glendale, AZ to bring the mineral levels down.

• White, flaky residue: Hard water leaves behind calcium deposits on fixtures. If you see a white, flaky material on your faucets and showerheads, this probably means the mineral level is too high.
• Crazy water sprays from showerheads: Has your showerhead started to send water sprays out in odd directions and become generally unreliable? You can find plenty of advice online for how to clean it out, but this ignores that the reason the problem is happening is there is too much limescale from hard water building up in the showerhead.
• Soaps suds take hard work: Do you find that it’s hard to get up a good lather of soap suds when you’re trying to clean around the house? This is a major warning of hard water because soap cannot dissolve easily with such a high mineral content. Instead, the sodium salt in the soap binds to the minerals and turns into soap scum.
• Film on glass surfaces: If you notice a film over the glass of the shower, or other glass surfaces that you’ve washed, this is the soap scum layer from the soap not dissolving in hard water. You may also see this occur in glassware put through the wash. 
• Stringy, limp hair and itchy skin: Soap scum from hard water will also affect you when you bathe or shower, resulting in hair that is lifeless and limp and skin that feels itchy and unclean even after you’ve washed.
• Faded colors from laundry: Hard water tends to cause colors of clothing and other fabrics to fade after they’ve gone through the wash. The soap scum will also give cloth a starchy, coarse feeling.

Don’t try to just “live with” any of these problems, because you may soon end up with clogged pipes and a broken water heater! You want hard water brought under control, and our plumbers can help you do this.

Trust to The Trusted Plumber for all your plumbing needs in Glendale, AZ and the surrounding areas.

This post first appeared on https://www.thetrustedplumber.com