Your city water supplier is not required to provide you with soft water. Many municipalities reduce the amount of hardness to some degree. But according to the U.S. Geological Survey, 85 percent of American homes are still supplied with hard water. Your city is required to provide you with water test results that show water hardness; just call the number on your water bill. Compare the figure they give you to the Water Quality Association hardness classification system to see if you have hard water.

Many people that use city water choose to soften it to save money on soaps and cleaners. This helps protect their plumbing systems and appliances from scale buildup, provide better water for bathing and eliminate hard water spots.

Over 85% of the United States has hard water. Since hardness is really dissolved rock, the average family of four will have more than 15 pounds of rock per year in their water for each grain of hardness.

These mineral deposits in your home from hard water can:

• Ruin water bearing appliances (cutting the life of washing machines, dishwashers, and hot water heaters by up to 50%)
• Increase energy costs for water heaters by 33%
• Destroy faucets and fixtures (costing hundreds of dollars to replace)
• Buildup scale on fixtures and shower doors
• Clog plumbing (re-piping your home costs thousands of dollars)
• Produce cloudy ice cubes
• Make unsightly rings in the toilet and bathtub (soap scum)
• Dry out skin and hair
• Leave spots and stains on dishes and silverware
• Turn white fabrics gray, fade colored laundry, and cause towels to feel hard and stiff
• Require additional cleaning time and the use of environmentally unfriendly cleaning products with phosphates/water softening agent

When Daylight Saving Time arrives in spring and fall, it’s smart to check on your water softener’s clock to ensure that it’s set to the correct time. This not only makes the equipment “spring forward” or “fall back” with you but also helps you catch accidental changes due to power outages. If your single tank system has the wrong time, it might end up regenerating in the middle of your morning shower! To adjust your softener’s clock, check out your owner’s manual for instructions, or give us a call and we can walk through it together. Every softener is slightly different, so yours might use an app, a digital display, or even an analog clock to set the time. Or if it’s been a while since you’ve had your equipment serviced, schedule a visit from the Water Doctors team!

When you wash in soft water, you feel your skin the way it’s supposed to feel, clean and silky smooth. According to the U.C. Berkeley Wellness Letter, when you wash in hard water, the soap you’re using reacts with the hardness minerals in the water “to form an insoluble residue that’s difficult to wash away.” The “squeaky” feel/sound many people associate with being clean is, in fact, your skin sticking because of this residue. Soft water rinses your skin and hair better than hard water and doesn’t leave a soap or shampoo residue behind. People that use soft water consistently enjoy the “truly clean” feeling they get when washing with it.

Explore the tap water database to learn more about what pollutants have been found in your local tap water, just search by zip code: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/