Do you see stains on your countertops where the water has dried? Usually, noticeable stains around faucet aerators, coffee pots, and shower doors. You likely have hard water.
Nate, the No Nonsense Plumber, talks to Better Homes & Gardens reporter Timothy Dale about stains and other telltale signs your home might have hard water.
We’re familiar with this topic, as Cincinnati’s water is known for being hard. Hard does not mean unsafe or undrinkable; it means the water has high levels of dissolved minerals, such as calcium and magnesium. According to Cincinnati’s most recent water quality report, which is always available on the City of Cincinnati website, water from Cincinnati’s plants had an average hardness of 125 mg per liter to 138 mg per liter.
If you have hard water, there are several things you can do. Nate’s top recommendation is installing a traditional water softener that uses salt. The salt cleanses the resin in the softener and sets up the materials for a proper ion exchange, removing hardness from the water.
What is the best type of water softener for the average residential home?
Softener size is based on the number of bathrooms, use, current hardness, incoming water line size, and demands. Most smaller, one-to-three-bath homes are good with a 31k grain softener. For larger homes, Nate recommends a 42k grain softener. He also recommends a higher grain capacity if you have extremely hard water.
Schlueter Plumbing typically opts for Northstar softeners and has had great success with them. Most modern softeners are demand-based, using far less salt than those from years ago. The water softener Nate uses in his home typically uses three to four bags a year for water measuring 34 hardness. Demand-based softeners measure water usage and only recharge when nearing the capacity of the resin vs recharging at a set time, whether needed or not.
If you don’t want to install a water softener, Nate says be cautious about your chosen solution. There is a lot of snake oil in the water treatment industry, such as electronic gadgets that minimize the effects of hardness.
While they may limit some noticeable effects and help with scale buildup, they don’t soften hard water. There are also citrus-based systems that, again, can minimize the impact of hard water but don’t soften it. For soft water’s true effects, a real salt-based softener is still the best practical option.
Nate notes a few other methods to resolve any hard water issues you have experienced in your home. Read Better Homes & Gardens article, Does Your Home Suffer from Hard Water? Here Are the Telltale Signs and Solutions, According to a Master Plumber.
Contact Nate, the No Nonsense Plumber at Schlueter Plumbing, for more professional plumbing advice or if you are unsure how to move forward.