Hard water is a concentration of inorganic minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) in water. The hard thing about hard water is what it does to your house, skin, and pocketbook.
How Do Minerals Get into My Water?
There are a variety of reasons these minerals enter your water. Water, being a universal solvent, naturally attracts what it touches. Generally speaking, when there is a concentration of limestone in nearby soil, the water comes into contact with the deposit and picks up these nasty little minerals that end up in your water.
How Do Minerals Affect My Home?
The effects on your house can be significant and swift. These little molecules “stick” to other hard surfaces in your house. Namely pipes, faucets, appliances, drains, glass, sinks, and their favorite your water heater. Depending upon the hardness of your water these minerals can build up quickly and cause problems. By clogging drains, dishwashers, faucets, and settling on the heating element in your water heater the toll on your pocketbook can be draining!
How Do Minerals Affect My Health?
The last and most irritating point is the effect on your personal health. The molecules in your water block and hinder the effects of detergents and cleansers. Because of the cleanser not properly doing its job there is residual soap which remains on your skin and in your hair. This can cause a myriad of problems most especially to those more susceptible to skin conditions (toddlers, babies, children). There has been more research poured into this area of study recently and results indicate a correlation between hard water and those who develop or have eczema. Suffice it to say Hard Water affects your skin in a negative way.
Many people postulate that drinking hard water also increases the occurrence of kidney stones. These painful little collections of calcium and magnesium afflict 1 in 11 people and, if you have not had one, can be quite painful.
There has been little to no research which supports this theory. However, I would choose to err on the side of drinking less of the mineral of which these dastardly stones are composed, just to be safe.
Having subpar water can have negative effects in many areas of your life. This is owed to the fact that water is an integral part in the day-to-day operation of our lives. Some form of filtration/softening is a way to remedy the nuisance that is hard water.