Understanding hard and soft water

Understanding hard vs soft water isn’t complicated.

Water contains a variety of minerals. The minerals responsible for hard water are calcium and magnesium. Essentially, the more calcium and magnesium present in your water, the harder your water is.

Without getting into too much detail here as we’ll be covering it later, water hardness is measured in parts per million (ppm) and levels vary across the UK.

Your water is classed as moderately hard if you have a reading of 101 – 200 ppm. The higher the ppm the harder your water. Very hard water has a ppm reading of 276+.

In this article we’re going to cover the difference between hard and soft water. You’ll gain an understanding of what causes hard vs soft water, how to identify if you have hard or soft water and the pros and cons of both.

Whilst hard water is nothing to be alarmed about, you’ll also learn about why many people in the UK prefer soft water compared to hard and a little about how you can soften or condition your hard water.

Differences between hard water and soft water

It’s all down to the concentration of minerals in the water.

If your water has a high calcium and magnesium mineral content you have hard water.

If your water has a lower calcium and magnesium mineral content you have softer water.

The sliding scale below tends to be used as a guide to determine levels of water hardness.

• Very hard water: 276 and above (275.00 mg/l up)
• Hard water: 201-275 ppm (200-274.50 mg/l)
• Moderately hard water: 101-200 ppm (100-199.64 mg/l)
• Soft water: 0-100 ppm (0-99.89 mg/l)

The differences between hard water and soft water are visible.

If you live in a hard water area in the UK, you’ll experience and probably get quite irritated with:

• Limescale spots all over your shower screens and limescale deposits on the shower head.
• Limescale build up around plugs and limescale crusting on the end of taps.
• Scaly limescale in your kettle, which then end up floating on the top of your hot drinks.
• Limescale spots on your glasses when they come out of the dishwasher.
• Limescale coming out of your iron.
• Household appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, boilers breaking down more quickly because of the limescale build up in pipes and the internal mechanics.
• Increased energy costs.
• Having to use more self-care products such as shampoo, soap and shower gel just to get some soapy lather.
• Clothes fresh out of the washing machine can be mineral stained and wear out more easily.
• Diminishing water pressure due to the build up of limescale in household pipes.

Because soft water has lower levels of calcium and magnesium, you’ll avoid many of the problems listed directly above. Soap will lather up beautifully, clothes will be cleaner and last longer, and you’ll probably have better water pressure throughout your home.

Soft water will also save you time when cleaning as it won’t take as long, and you should spend less money on cleaning products. We say ‘should spend less money’ because we all know how much people love buying cleaning products they don’t need. This is what we refer to as ‘the Hinch effect’!

What are the causes of hard vs soft water

Hard water has high concentrations of dissolved minerals; calcium carbonate (CaCO3), magnesium carbonate (MgCO3), and occasionally small amounts of silicates of various kinds.

Soft water has lower concentrations of these dissolved minerals.

It’s all to do with geology and where the source of the water is and the rocks and landscapes the water has flowed through and over before reaching the water treatment works and eventually your taps.

How to identify if you have hard or soft water

Aside from just intuitively knowing whether you’ve got soft water vs hard water based on what we’ve already covered in this article we have a couple of other ways you can confirm what you already know.

The first is our postcode checker. Fountain Filters have built an easy to use and free online tool where you can check how hard your water is. If you type in your postcode, it will let you know whether you live in a very hard water, hard water, moderately hard water, or soft water area.

Our postcode checker doesn’t stop there. It will also give you further detail on what your water type means and practical suggestions on how to change it.

The second way you can check hard water vs soft water in the UK is to look at your local water suppliers website and that should tell you approximately what your parts per million (ppm) reading is. The information may be expressed as milligrams per litre (mg/l) or degrees Clark. Don’t be confused – they all mean the same thing.

Common issues with hard water

There are negative side effects with hard water and none of them are to do with drinking it.

As we’ve already mentioned – hard water leaves it’s mark at various locations around your house, including:

• Shower screens and shower heads.
• Polished floors, benches, counter tops, and around tap ends and plugs.
• Household appliances including dishwashers, washing machines, boilers, and kettles.

Limescale can be difficult to remove and no sooner than you think you’ve cleaned it away; over time it comes back and you’re back to square one – unless you do something to sort it out once and for all. More on this later.

Additionally, washing your hair and body in hard water can create issues that you wish weren’t there. Hair and skin can be left feeling dry and itchy which is a major irritation if you already suffer from skin conditions such as eczema, dermatitis, or psoriasis.

Benefits of hard water

Hard water contains valuable minerals such as calcium and magnesium and it’s healthy to drink. We need those minerals in our diet, which is one of the reasons Fountain Filters can’t fathom out why some people choose to drink distilled water. That makes no sense to us.

Hard water is good for the garden. Many plants prefer hard vs soft water just because of the use of sodium chloride (salt) in softened water. Plants and soil just don’t want to drink softened water.  

Reasons to switch to soft water

Even though hard water doesn’t pose any significant health risks, more people want to experience the benefits of soft water compared to hard water. You switch to soft water by treating the hard water in your home.

The main reason people want to switch to softer water is because they are irritated by the damaging effects of limescale on their expensive household appliances. They want to benefit from household appliances lasting longer.

People either opt for salt based water softeners or one of our highly sought after salt free whole house hard water filter systems that conditions the water by changing the chemical properties so that the hard scale doesn’t come out in solution and stick to appliances and pipes.

Or, and becoming even more popular in the UK is protecting a home’s boiler with one of our boiler descalers.

Can you drink softened water

‘Can you drink softened water’ is a question Fountain Filters gets asked a lot.

So, much so, that we wrote an article about it.

The simple answer is ‘yes’, drinking soft water vs hard water is OK in most cases.

In that article we’ve stated that drinking softened water may be safe for healthy adults, but not necessarily children or those that need to follow a low sodium diet.

By softened water, we mean water that has been treated with a water softener.

The water softening process and its safety

Have you ever wondered how a water softener works? Fountain Filters explains is right here for you.

This article ties in quite nicely with our article about whether softened water is safe to drink.

It’s important to always do your own research, because ultimately you must be happy with the water in your home.

Why trust Fountain Filters with your hard water in the UK

Even though we advocate doing your own research when it comes to hard vs soft water, Fountain Filters, a leading UK specialist in treating hard water have been helping people resolve the negative impact of hard water in their homes since 2011.

We receive daily calls and help-desk messages from people who want to move from hard to soft water.

Will you be the next person to contact us on 01352 838 281 or drop a message into our inbox?

We’re here to help.