Hard water - need advice

[buckbull]

Just got finished boiling some water and this is what I ended up with. Seems pretty bad. I ordered a hardness test so I can properly size a water softener. This seems excessive, even without a test. Wondering if I need some kind of filter before the water softener. This is city water. Thoughts?

 

[Nick87]

View attachment 355754

Just got finished boiling some water and this is what I ended up with. Seems pretty bad. I ordered a hardness test so I can properly size a water softener. This seems excessive, even without a test. Wondering if I need some kind of filter before the water softener. This is city water. Thoughts?

I'd think so...but I've got no
Experience with city water. I thought it was pre softened? No?

 

[beaglegun]

We run rain water through a ceramic filter and only use that for drinking and cooking. We use city water for everything else.

 

[WyoCoalMiner]

View attachment 355754

Just got finished boiling some water and this is what I ended up with. Seems pretty bad. I ordered a hardness test so I can properly size a water softener. This seems excessive, even without a test. Wondering if I need some kind of filter before the water softener. This is city water. Thoughts?

Your city should be able to tell you what hardness level they are sending your way. Compare this to your test to see if they are FOS. We did and they were.

 

[Bigjay73]

I thought this was an ice fishing thread

 

[Bigjay73]

We run rain water through a ceramic filter and only use that for drinking and cooking. We use city water for everything else.

Illegal to do where I live. Yeah, it's an incredibly stupid regulation

 

[Redmt]

We are on well water and it's very hard even though a softener. Potassium works better than salt but it's super expensive. Just keep turning up your softener until you get the quality your looking for.

 

[fmnjr]

View attachment 355754

Just got finished boiling some water and this is what I ended up with. Seems pretty bad. I ordered a hardness test so I can properly size a water softener. This seems excessive, even without a test. Wondering if I need some kind of filter before the water softener. This is city water. Thoughts?

Wow, I thought we had hard water here in Vegas. Apparently it's not as bad as I thought after seeing this. If the calcium carbonate is that bad, you should see evidence of it around faucet openings. It it's that bad you likely have build up in your home's plumbing system as well. It'll be hell on your water heater too, shortens the life span of them a fair bit.

 

[Redmt]

Wow, I thought we had hard water here in Vegas. Apparently it's not as bad as I thought after seeing this. If the calcium carbonate is that bad, you should see evidence of it around faucet openings. It it's that bad you likely have build up in your home's plumbing system as well. It'll be hell on your water heater too, shortens the life span of them a fair bit.

Our 10 year high end water heaters last 6 years tops. I drain and flush about once a month.

 

[BrentD]

I thought this was what a Hard Water thread would be about.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Our 10 year high end water heaters last 6 years tops. I drain and flush about once a month.

But do you replace the anode rod as required? I'm guessing not...

 

[Redmt]

But do you replace the anode rod as required? I'm guessing not...

There's no anode rod in propane water heaters.

 

[Keep on]

That seems like it's way out of line for city water. Is this what you're normally getting when you boil water? They may have had a polisher or filter bed blow out or something crazy that you got a slug. I have what I consider hard water, and it's nowhere close to that untreated.
Wife always notices first when the salt is getting low on the softener, the glasses will start getting a haze when washed. I put an A.O. Smith softener in about 6-7 years ago. Definitely would not recommend, as it only lasted 6-7 years. Put in an Aquasure system this past year, seems much better built than the Smith, time will tell though.

 

[Bonasababy]

Another one that was fooled! Coming up for us the end of the month....

Reminds me we need to get our water tested again. New place new well drilled about 4 1/2 years ago. We were worried about what our well would turn out to be but testing showed OK if treated and we just have a standard softener. The drinking water we take out of a fridge dispenser with a filter that gets changed every few months and is fine.

 

[Addicting]

Just as a FYI if you get a softener and are on a septic be prepared to have issues. We only got 13 years out of our drain field before the salt plugged it. I don’t know how much salt the previous owner ran but our hardness isn’t bad. I go thru about 10-15 bags a year tops. That salt filled the pores of the soil and basically made it waterproof. The backup of water post septic tank was over 1200 gallons of water. That all had to get pumped out of the dry wells and drain field before we could do any excavation.

We ended up having to dig the entire drain field up and remove the sand and stone. Once backfilled with new stone 1’ below the salt line the system went back to draining fine.

 

[Nick87]

Just as a FYI if you get a softener and are on a septic be prepared to have issues. We only got 13 years out of our drain field before the salt plugged it. I don’t know how much salt the previous owner ran but our hardness isn’t bad. I go thru about 10-15 bags a year tops. That salt filled the pores of the soil and basically made it waterproof. The backup of water post septic tank was over 1200 gallons of water. That all had to get pumped out of the dry wells and drain field before we could do any excavation.

We ended up having to dig the entire drain field up and remove the sand and stone. Once backfilled with new stone 1’ below the salt line the system went back to draining fine.

Knock on wood, but I've never heard of this happening around here. Maybe your guys water is a lot harder? I would say majority use about the same amount of salt as you mentioned.

 

[Redmt]

Just as a FYI if you get a softener and are on a septic be prepared to have issues. We only got 13 years out of our drain field before the salt plugged it. I don’t know how much salt the previous owner ran but our hardness isn’t bad. I go thru about 10-15 bags a year tops. That salt filled the pores of the soil and basically made it waterproof. The backup of water post septic tank was over 1200 gallons of water. That all had to get pumped out of the dry wells and drain field before we could do any excavation.

We ended up having to dig the entire drain field up and remove the sand and stone. Once backfilled with new stone 1’ below the salt line the system went back to draining fine.

That's interesting. Not to disagree but I've never seen that before. Our softener system, several softeners and multiple water heaters, have been on septic for 20 years. It's a 2000 gallon tank and 600 feet of Infiltrator septic. Adding to that our soil is very clay like. It sounds like the leach field was undersized. An Infiltrator system adds %30 to a rock and pipe system.

 

[Wild Bill]

This thread inspired me to call and have our water softener adjusted. Been having some buildup in the shower and toilets, not to the extent of OP.

 

[Addicting]

Knock on wood, but I've never heard of this happening around here. Maybe your guys water is a lot harder? I would say majority use about the same amount of salt as you mentioned.

I am on a sand hill top. When I had my excavator I dug 23’ down and was still on yellow sand. About 4’ of that sandy clay loam with about 6-12” of topsoil. Water perks just fine anywhere on the property. So I was really surprised when we were constantly having water back into the house. We were having to have the tank pumped every spring. Finally I read about salt bridging in the soil. I dug up the first dry well and monitored the water level. After a week of us being gone we came home and it was still full.

I ended up having it pumped out and there was about a foot of black muck at the bottom. Tried agitating it but still couldn’t get it to perc.

Eventually, I rented an excavator and dug it all up. There was about a 1.5’ solid gray wall around everything. The stone was packed as well. Once I broke thru that what water remained drained thru the sand fine. I took all the stone and grey material out and buried it in a borrow pit. Use the clean sand from the pit and added 12 yards of new stone. Reset the dry wells and drain pipes under. System went back to working fine.

I could have likely ran a new drain field without the dry wells. But I like the idea of having them as a settling tank for any fines before the drain.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

There's no anode rod in propane water heaters.

funny, google says otherwise, it does not seem to matter gas vs propane...they all have one....but maybe my googling is bad. Just thought I would mention it, 99% of people have no idea it needs to be replaced regularly.