How To Tell If You Have Soft Water

Getting to the bottom of your h2o woes in one case and for all

After experiencing the signs of difficult water in the home, information technology's natural that y'all want to determine the next steps to fix the problems—and fast. And as a quick reminder, hard water usually presents itself in the following means:

Spotty, filmy dishes
Lather that won't lather
Scummy, hard-to-clean tubs and showers
Dry, squeaky skin
Accumulated white crust around faucets, drains and showerheads

The first step to solving hard h2o problems is to implement a water hardness exam and so y'all can find the best water softener solution. Here are a few means to get yous started:

Cheque with Your City
Each year by July 1, you lot should receive a short consumer confidence report or drinking water quality report in the mail or online notification from your water supplier. The report tells you where your water comes from and what's in it, and some reports include your h2o hardness. If yours doesn't, you lot can call your local water municipality, and they should be able to tell y'all.

Easy Ways to Test Your Water

Quick In-Home Testing
Without having to go too far out of your style, 1 of the easiest options for a difficult water examination is with a clear, make clean, empty canteen with a cap, pure liquid lather and h2o right from your tap. Fill the bottle one-third total, add a few drops of pure liquid soap and shake vigorously for a few seconds. If in that location is a distinct lack of fluffy bubbles and the water appears cloudy and/or milky, your water is hard. Soft water would have copious bubbles, and the resting water at the bottom of the canteen would be clear. Keep in mind that because nigh soaps are formulated with detergents, they soap regardless of your water type. For the all-time results, utilize a basic soap, such as Castile, which is free of dyes, perfumes and detergents.

Advanced Testing Methods
The h2o bottle test may work well as a basic assessment, only it isn't the most authentic mode to determine your h2o hardness level. For that, a more than sophisticated hard water test is required. A hard water kit includes examination strips and a colour chart. Y'all can buy a test kit from a domicile improvement store for $5 to $x, or asking a free water test strip from us.

Later on filling a drinking glass with common cold water from your bathroom sink, insert the examination strip for several seconds then remove information technology. Also, information technology's important to note that you should not just stick the strip under running h2o, equally this tin provide inaccurate results. Every bit the strip changes color, compare information technology to the color chart included in your kit. Each color on the chart corresponds to the hardness of your h2o, with results measured in grains per gallon (gpg).

Major home improvement stores and many online retailers sell boosted exam kits that may provide a more than comprehensive h2o cess. These not but test for hardness, they also examination for alkalinity, chlorine, iron, nitrates and/or pH. To obtain the most thorough water analysis, y'all can ship a sample to a tertiary-party lab, which can exam for specialty contaminants such every bit heavy metals and bacteria. This is usually not needed because an in-habitation kit provides instant information and results for about h2o issues. Overall, knowing your water profile tin can assistance you choose the appropriate solution for any h2o problem(s).

Easy Ways to Test Your Water

What's Your Number?
With over 85% of all households experiencing some degree of difficult water, knowing your "number" will let you see where your hardness stacks upwardly. In one case you lot've tested your water with a strip or kit, the next step is to use your "number" to run into just how difficult your water is. The average hardness in the U.South. is virtually 13 grains, which is considered "very difficult." Anything over 14 grains is accounted "extremely hard." Fifty-fifty if you lot don't live in the high hard water zones, a household starts seeing the effects of difficult water at effectually 7 grains of hardness. If you know your hardness number, finding the right softener for your home is easy with this pace-by-pace tool.