So my wife has been complaining for years about having hard water and how it impacts her hairdo.

We thought about adding a water softener but I thought we’d be first be better off to have the water tested.

When leaving Home Depot recently I noticed they had a free water testing display right by the exit. I grabbed one of the pre-addressed envelope kits, ran tap water in the enclosed bottle, and dropped it in the mail.

Naturally I figured that it was a company sponsoring the testing to ultimately sell me something. However, I didn’t care because I was curious about the results.

They just called and told me they ran two tests. For mineral hardness 3 to 5 grains is ideal and we were 13 grains. For total dissolved solids she told me 150 ppm was ideal and we were at 223 ppm.

Now comes the sales pitch because she said they can do a full test via a home visit by a technician. Home Depot pays for the further testing and he/she can also provide corrective actions.

Hopefully some of you will know based upon the numbers I gave above whether or not we do have an issue or not? Then if yes, would you invite them to do a full test by the technician?

I'm a water scientist, and I work in the area of drinking water quality.

For total dissolved solids (TDS), according to the World Health Organization:

"The palatability of drinking-water has been rated by panels of tasters in relation to its TDS level as follows: excellent, less than 300 mg/litre; good, between 300 and 600 mg/litre; fair, between 600 and 900 mg/litre; poor, between 900 and 1200 mg/litre;and unacceptable, greater than 1200 mg/litre"

So 223 ppm (mg/L) is still excellent.

According to the National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences; I worked there from 1998 to 2005): "Hard water is not a health hazard. In fact, hard drinking water generally contributes a small amount toward total calcium and magnesium human dietary needs."

However, your water is VERY HARD, and probably could/should be softened.

h2oys,
We are blessed with multiple rivers nearby. We have pretty good water here.
But apparently there is a difference in total dissolved solids (TDS) from the Missouri to the Meramec. So it depends somewhat on the source.

http://www.amwater.com/ccr/stlouisregion.pdf

Thank you batty67 & chellim1.

I called our water company, Missouri American Water, and a water quality rep just returned my call.

She said for St. Louis County they pull from both the Missouri River and the Meramec River, but for our area of Chesterfield, our source is the MO River. She added the MO River is naturally high in calcium and magnesium.

Anna also told me their waters hardness range is 6-10 and TDS is 210 to 236. Hence per our Home Depot test results we are high on the hardness and right in the range for TDS.

Looks like a water softener is in our future.


Batty67...a quick google search tells me there are 4 types of softeners: a) Ion exchange, b)salt free, c) reverse osmosis and d) magnetic.

Which, if any, would you recommend for a tight budget minded person?

Or you can spend $30 on a shower head water filter and be done.

City water in Eugene (EWEB) is excellent to taste and feel good. Especially in winter when it comes out colder from the tap. Summer a little less good. And if you let it stand it loses quality. Refrigerate it right away is a good idea. Still spring water from the Cascades is better. Earth-2-O brand my favorite.
Lib as Eugene is, I am pleased with some things around here
http://www.eweb.org/Documents/...-testing-summary.pdf


Anything is better than San Jose water.

I had my dad install an ion exchange (uses “green sand” permangenate) to get iron out of my water in eastern NC....

It was worth it. Had it set up to backwash every other night and I ran that to a drain line into a ditch so that I wouldn’t be dumping bleach heavy water into my septic.

Before the water tasted like blood there was so much iron, after it was glorious and didn’t taste of chemicals.

My neighbor used salt system and his dumped into his septic and he had to have the septic pumped around every year and a half...

So what ever yo go with see if you can dump the backwash outside of your septic, if you are on one.

1 hr and 5 minutes to get an expert answer. SIGforum is slipping...

Never ceases to amaze me. Someone thought we had an unanswerable question about light bulbs the other week. I answered it, not sure if OP ever saw my reply though.

Edit, just saw it was Batty that asked the question, weird.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
My neighbor used salt system and his dumped into his septic and he had to have the septic pumped around every year and a half...

Probably not due to the water softener system, unless it is back-washing at an unusually high rate and/or the septic tank is undersized for the home. And then the danger is as much excess water floating solids into the leach field as it upsetting the tank's ecology.

We have a traditional softener. We're on well & septic. Our softener back-washes every six-seven days. We have our septic tank pumped every three-four years. It's never been over-full.

Mind you: There is just the two of us in the home, and we're very conscientious wrt what we put down the drains. E.g.: TP only in the toilets, and single-ply at that. We use very little bleach. We don't use a garbage disposal in the kitchen and we're careful to trap as many solids as we can in the strainers. We don't wash coffee grounds into the kitchen sink (a big no-no). We wipe excess grease and oil out of pans with paper towels before washing them.

I'm on the Board (volunteer Treasurer) for our community water system, ~330 homes. A few things to note about water softeners. If they are salt based, you are putting all that dissolved salt into your leach field. Think about what adding 100 lbs, or more, to you leach filed is going to do long term. What happens when that salt dissolves/separates from the water.

Water hardness also lines the insides of your copper pipes (actually a good thing). This helps to keep the copper, and possibly lead, from leaching into your drinking water. Because we are a community system we are actually forced to add chemicals to our water to make it hard, based on standards from the .gov. Although we pump and treat the water out of the ground, we are ultimately responsible for the water inside your house!...We have to take samples from inside resident houses several times per year.

I've been kicking around the idea of an under sink reverse osmosis system for drinkinng water myself. Maybe later this spring.

quote:

Probably not due to the water softener system, unless it is back-washing at an unusually high rate and/or the septic tank is undersized for the home. And then the danger is as much excess water floating solids into the leach field as it upsetting the tank's ecology.

We have a traditional softener. We're on well & septic. Our softener back-washes every six-seven days. We have our septic tank pumped every three-four years. It's never been over-full.

Mind you: There is just the two of us in the home, and we're very conscientious wrt what we put down the drains. E.g.: TP only in the toilets, and single-ply at that. We use very little bleach. We don't use a garbage disposal in the kitchen and we're careful to trap as many solids as we can in the strainers. We don't wash coffee grounds into the kitchen sink (a big no-no). We wipe excess grease and oil out of pans with paper towels before washing them.

Pretty much what we did as well at our old house. Also had RO filter in the kitchen for drinking water. Our new house is connected to sewer but find we still don't use the disposal much.