Do you have hard water? Hard water can make life uncomfortable, affecting everything from your morning shower to the longevity of your appliances. Not every home has hard water, but if yours does, you may need to look into softening your water by renting a water softener.
It usually depends on where you live and the quality of the water in your pipes, but if you suspect you’re dealing with hard water, you’ll need to find more info on how to fix the issue, including the rental of a water softener.
Below, you’ll find the 6 most common signs that you have hard water.
1) You Constantly Have Plumbing Problems
There are a number of reasons that you constantly need to call a plumber, from cracked pipes to tossing food waste down the drains, but hard water can be a major contributor to clogged pipes and slow draining.
Hard water can rapidly damage steel pipes. Copper and PVC pipes stand up to hard water a bit better, but nothing is impervious. As limescale builds up inside your pipes, it will restrict the flow of water. That leads to slow draining and even faster build up of clogs. You can remove these with chemicals, vinegar and baking soda, and a blast of boiling water, but until you install a water softener, the problem will keep returning.
Limescale build up around valves will also prevent them from closing completely, resulting in water leakages.
2) Limescale Build Up in Appliances
Some limescale on your kettle or your coffee cop can be irritating, but when it builds up in your dishwasher or you water heater, the problem starts to become expensive. The first signs you will notice are on the kettle, but as build up occurs in your dishwasher or water heater, damage can happen fast.
If you’re using a tankless water heater, you will need to regularly chemically clean the heat exchanger and your plumber should recommend a water softener.
3) Your Glassware Is Stained and Brittle
If you want to know how to tell if you have hard water, take a look at your glassware. Not only will hard water stain your glassware and make glass appear cloudy, it can also make your glasses more susceptible to damage and breaking. You can clean cloudy glassware using toothpaste or vinegar.
Powder dish detergents can also make the cloudiness worse, as hard water makes it harder for them to dissolve. Stick to liquid until you get a water softener.
4) Lacklustre Showers
Feel like your soap hardly lathers when you take a bath or a shower? Hard water doesn’t just result in a shower that feels lacklustre, it also makes it harder to scrub away the dirt. The minerals present in the water prevent soap from forming.
5) Difficulty Cleaning
It shouldn’t take hours to scrub your bathtub clean, but hard water can leave a lot of scale build up and stains in your bathtub, shower, and sink. A water softener can save you a lot of time scrubbing.
6) Spots on Dishes
Are there still spots on your dishes after you’ve washed them, or do you feel a kind of filmy residue afterwards? That’s due to minerals that stay behind after the water has evaporated. Filmy dishes after washing are another sign of hard water.
Don’t let hard water inconvenience you or cost you more money. First trust a professional to assess your situation and if you do in fact have hard water, invest in a water softener right away.
