What makes tap water hard

Algal blooms can also give tap water a moldy aftertaste. No one likes to drink water with a funky smell or flavor. The iron in your water could be coming from rusty pipes. Some people suggest using vinegar to help clean and remove them. Unfortunately, the stains will keep reappearing until you fix your hard water problem.

With hard water, you may find yourself cleaning the bathroom and kitchen more often and using more cleaning product to get the job done. Who wants to do that? Showering is your time to escape the world for ten minutes to wash the dirt and worries away.

But when you have hard water, shower time can be ruined. This makes it harder to get a good lather when you bathe. It also makes it more difficult to wash all the soap off your body, leaving a film of soapy residue on your skin. With hard water, you may not be getting as clean and you may notice your hair is hard to manage. Yes, hard water could even be responsible for your bad hair days.

Scale deposits build up inside your pipes, like plaque inside an artery, constricting the flow of water, eventually leading to backups and the need to call a plumber for help. If you have PVC or copper pipes, this probably is not an issue. However, as water makes its way through the ground and into our waterways, it picks up minerals like chalk, lime and mostly calcium and magnesium and becomes hard water.

Since hard water contains essential minerals, it is sometimes the preferred drinking water. Not only because of the health benefits, but also the flavor. On the other hand, soft water tastes salty and is sometimes not suitable for drinking. So why, then, do we soften our water? The major difference between hard and soft water can best be seen while doing daily housework. Hard water is to blame for dingy looking clothes, dishes with spots and residue, and bathtubs with lots of film and soap scum.

If you or someone in your home is on a low-sodium diet, you should talk with the manufacturer of the softening system to find out how much sodium is being added to the water. You can also try to find a system that uses potassium instead of sodium to soften your drinking water. If you still have health concerns, talk with a cardiologist about how water softening could affect your blood pressure.

Many public water utilities will test home water samples for little to no cost. Higher sodium levels in soft water may be a concern for some people, but that can be managed with a potassium-based softening system.

We'll tell you what the best pH levels for your drinking water are and how you can know if your water is unsafe. And what's the deal with alkaline…. Dehydrated skin can be dry and itchy and appear dull looking. Happily, it's relatively easy to treat with the right lifestyle changes.

Learn about the uses of distilled water…. Chia seeds are versatile and packed with nutrients. Here are 7 chia seed benefits, all backed by science. People have used cayenne peppers medicinally for thousands of years.

They're also nutritious and great for cooking. Here are 6 benefits of cayenne…. Just as in the human body where blood vessels can be reduced in inside diameter due to cholesterol buildup, water pipes can gradually close up resulting in less water movement through the pipe and a lowering of water pressure.

Colors represent streamflow from the hydrologic-unit area. Water hardness is based on major-ion chemistry concentrations. Major-ion chemistry in groundwater is relatively stable and generally does not change over time.

Although this map illustrates data from , these data have been found to be accurate and useful in current assessments. Water hardness was one water-quality parameter studied; results are shown in the map below. Hardness is a property of water that is not a health concern, but it can be a nuisance.

Hard water can cause mineral buildup in plumbing, fixtures, and water heaters, and poor performance of soaps and detergents. Hard water was prevalent in the east-central and western United States, reflecting the distribution of carbonate aquifers and aquifers with relatively high concentrations of dissolved solids.

Want to know more about hardness of water? Follow me to the Chloride, Salinity, and Dissolved Solids website! Looking at water, you might think that it's the most simple thing around.

Pure water is practically colorless, odorless, and tasteless. But it's not at all simple and plain and it is vital for all life on Earth. Where there is water there is life, and where water is scarce, life has to struggle or just "throw in the towel. We need to take the statement "Water is the universal solvent" with a grain of salt pun intended.

Of course it cannot dissolve everything, but it does dissolve more substances than any other liquid, so the term fits pretty well. Water's solvent properties affect all life on Earth, so water is universally important to all of us. Geological Survey to provide a nationally uniform basis for continuously assessing the quality of U.