All of the water we use in our homes passes through what is called the “Water Cycle”* that you learned about in grade school. Water moves from the earth to the atmosphere and back again in a continuous cycle. The Sun evaporates surface water from lakes and rivers and the land itself. It rises as invisible water vapour. When it binds with dust particles, the result is clouds.
As the atmospheric temperature changes, the water vapour condenses and falls as precipitation. It combines with gases like carbon dioxide as it falls, becoming mildly acidic. Once on the ground it seeps through soil and rock where the acidity causes the water to absorb various minerals that contribute to its hardness. The most common are calcium and magnesium, though the list also includes iron, aluminum, and manganese.
There are several systems for measuring the water hardness. Water is considered hard if it has 120 to 180 milligrams of calcium per litre (mg/L). Soft water has 17.1 milligrams per litre. Since the hardness of your water depends on the local geology, there are variations in different parts of Canada. In Toronto, for example, the water has 121 mg/L of dissolved calcium thus falling into the “hard” category, whereas in Winnipeg, the figure is 77 mg/L or “moderately hard.”
Hard water causes calcium deposits on tubs and tiles, plumbing and appliances. This means cleaning your bathroom is more work and appliances that use hard water have a shorter life. Hard water requires more soap to clean effectively and also leaves a residue on everything from glassware, to clothing to your skin. The dissolved minerals also negatively impact the taste of your drinking water and everything you make with it or cook in it. Many companies offer free water testing to determine if you have hard water in your home.
The optimum solution to hard water is to install a whole house water treatment system.
* Google Images “water cycle”
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