What Are The Problems With Hard Water?
If you have hard water coming through your taps, then you know how frustrating it can be when you don’t have any water softener system. It can’t be used for anything. Speaking of, here are some common problems that come with using hard water.
Stained Clothes
One of the most common things that can occur with using hard water is stained clothes. You don’t want to wash light and delicate clothes with water that’s concentrated in calcium and magnesium, because it will only ruin them for good. Yellow and white splotches are common when washing clothes with hard water and the most frustrating part of it all is the fact that these stains don’t go away.
You can try all of the different stain-removing hacks and you still won’t be able to get them off. Hard water also makes the clothes more fragile and they are more prone to fray and tear apart, if you’re not too careful.
Clogged Drains
If you want to live a life where you’ll be fixing the drains and pipes, then hard water will take you there. Hard water has precipitates of salts that aren’t dissolved, so they get stuck to the metal walls of pipes, drains, and bends and elbows.
This can be quite damaging because you will need to flush the pipes and drains completely and it might also lead to your sink, toilet bowl, or bathtub getting clogged. Changing the drains isn’t something that needs to be done regularly, but with hard water, you can include it in your list of maintaining things timely, and be warned; it’s going to be expensive maintenance.
Skin & Hair Problems
Water might seem like a simple thing that everyone uses mindlessly in their daily lives, but it balances the skin’s pH and keeps the moisture in. However, this fact doesn’t apply to hard water.
Since hard water has an abundant quantity of salts in it that are quite heavy and aren’t dissolved, it can cause your skin to be extremely dry, and patchy and if you have way too sensitive skin, then you need to be prepared for the worst. Eczema, dermatitis, red patches, itchiness, etc. are the norm when it comes to using hard water. Not to mention, it also makes your hair dry and brittle and it can lead to immense hair fall whether hard water is used for bathing or taking a dip in a swimming pool.
So, it’s recommended that you don’t use hard water on your skin and hair because that’s like giving damage a chance to ruin your skin and locks.
Heating Issues
If you use a water heater or boiler for hot water in your home, then you better keep it at bay from hard water. Hard water isn’t something you can use in a water heater. It will cause the important parts and assembly of the heater to get clogged, rusty, and old. It can also lead to the water heater breaking down completely and that’s a huge expense that you don’t want to bear. You can clean your water heater, but hard water will keep causing this problem.
Water heaters specifically come with instructions that they are meant to be operated with soft and treated water only, so you need to consider this fact. The efficiency of the water heater depends on the type of water you’re using and if you’re constantly filling it up with hard water, in hopes that it will work, then you’re wrong.
Scales & Residue
If you’ve used hard water to clean things before, then you would know about those pesky yellow scales and stains that can dry up around the sink bowl and whatever the water comes in contact with. These are precipitates of the salts present in hard water and they stain like a nightmare.
Your usually clean sink and bathroom will look super dirty and downright unkempt and that’s pretty embarrassing, if you think about it. Not to mention, it also leads to a lot of mechanical problems in the sinks and toilets, for instance, your faucets will run slowly and they will also have a tendency to drain at a snail’s pace.
Bad Health
Water has a specific composition that’s deemed safe for drinking. Potable water has minute traces of important minerals and salts that help to keep the electrolyte balance in check, but the same can’t be said for hard water.
First of all, hard water is barely potable. You can’t drink it because it has a weird and pungent taste. However, even if you do decide to chug it down because you have no other option, then you’re consuming a huge quantity of heavy salts that aren’t good at all for your body. Calcium and magnesium may sound non-threatening, but they can lead to a lot of issues in the body. It can lead to indigestion, stomach aches and in the worst cases, ulcers that are untreatable.
So, keeping these scary facts in mind, you must be being mindful about what you’re consuming, because hard water and soft water are two completely different things and can have different effects on the body and digestion, in general. So, use a water filtration system Erie that converts hard water into soft water.
No Lather Equals Waste
You might know this already, but hard water doesn’t exactly produce lather when you mix it with soap or detergent. The calcium and magnesium ions prevent lather from forming and while that can be a frustration in itself, it also causes a lot of waste. When sufficient lather isn’t produced by hard water, it’s natural for you to add in way more soap and detergent than necessary and that can lead to a lot of wastage. You don’t need more detergent; you need to stop using hard water that’s wasting perfectly good detergent.
The ions in hard water don’t allow the detergent to react with the molecules of water and they keep everything intact, instead of coming into contact with the detergent and producing luscious suds. If there are no suds, then the clothes or dishes won’t be clean either and that’s another way of wasting water and detergent and not getting clean things. So, the common culprit in all of these things is hard water.
Dirty Dishes
Last but not least, washing dishes with hard water is equal to not washing them at all, because the water will leave a dirty and sticky film on them. Glass dishes are susceptible to brittleness and they can break easily. As for porcelain dishes, the stains are very obvious and they are a nightmare to get rid of.
If you compare two dishes side by side, you can easily see the difference between their appearance. The dish washed with regular water will be clean and there will be no stains on it, whereas the dish washed with hard water will be sticky and slimy to the touch and it will also have yellow and brown stains, similar to rust. These stains are not only ugly, but they will also weaken the dishes over time and they will break on the slightest impact and that’s a problem.
Conclusion
Hard water is not good for health or general use at all, which is why it’s important to treat it and then use it for drinking or other things around the house. For hard water treatment, go for water softener installation Warren. It will get rid of the minerals that make the water hard.
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