Water Softening - Penn State Extension

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- [Susan] Have you ever noticed white, scaly, or cloudy buildup on your pots, glassware, or inside of your coffee pot?

Do your faucets have a crusty sediment on them?

Is your laundry looking a bit dingier and not quite as white as you'd like?

If so, chances are you're dealing with hard water.

I'm Susan Boser, an Extension Educator from Penn State University.

And today, I'd like to talk to you about the effects of hard water on your home water system.

Hard water, while not harmful for human consumption, can wreak havoc on any appliances where water is heated, and even reduce their lifespan or effectiveness.

The residue in hard water comes from the calcium and magnesium that are naturally found in the underground rock layers that groundwater wells are tapped into.

It can also be found in larger-sized wells that can serve entire community water systems.

Harness is measured as parts per million of calcium and magnesium, or as grains per gallon of those same substances.

Water that is over 120 parts per million or over 7.0 grains per gallon is considered hard by drinking water standards.

Water testing can be done to find out the harness level of your water.

Whether or not to treat your water for harness is a personal preference, and the traditional ion exchange water softening unit is the most effective way to do so.

In these units, the negatively charged calcium and magnesium ions in the water are exchanged with the positively charged ions in sodium.

Water softeners work by having the hard water pass through a resin that has been coated with the positively charged sodium ions.

As the water washes over this resin, the ions exchange places, and this resulting water loses its ability to form scale buildup on appliances and in pipes.

The water is now considered softened.

These units are large point of entry water treatment systems.

This means they will treat all the water that is coming into the home.

Maintenance on softener units requires the homeowner to keep the units efficiently full of salt pallets for keeping the resin charged.

Here, the salt is very low.

Most softening units will automatically back flush on a regular basis to maintain the resin's positive charge.

Using sodium pallets will add a small amount of salt to the water, not so much that it can be tasted, but enough that if a person is following a low salt diet, they may want to choose potassium pallets for system recharge instead.

The ion exchange process will work the same, but without the addition of sodium to the water.

Also, softened water is not recommended for watering houseplants.

Other nontraditional softening units using magnets, electronic charges, or citric acid to remove hardness and shown mixed results, and are generally not recommended.

Importantly, if your water has been found to contain bacteria or high amounts of iron, these issues must first be addressed and filtered out before the water enters a softening unit.

If you decide to treat your hard water, remember to first have it tested by an independent lab before deciding on treatment methods.

Get a warranty on treatment equipment and find out maintenance requirements of the unit you are planning to install.

There is no single kind of treatment system that will solve all your water issues, so be sure to research any purchase carefully.

For more information on water softening, visit extension.psu.edu/watersoftening.