How Hard is TOO HARD Water?

How Hard is too hard water? How do you know if your water is too hard and you need a water softener for your family? At what point is the hardness level so hard that it damages your appliances, makes your home tough to keep clean and causes itchy and irritated skin? Why do some of your neighbours have water softeners and others don’t? I’m going to show you how hard is too hard when it comes to your water starting right now.
Every home has a multitude of water using appliances, pipe, fixtures and a hot water heater, either the tank type or tankless. When your water is hard it flows over the surfaces but leaves a scale. Not just once, but there are layers added on top of layers. Those layers make your home far more difficult to keep clean, shortens the life of your dishwasher, washing machine and hot water tank. As well as drying out your skin and making your clothes look dingy after washing.

You really need to know your water’s hardness before looking up what levels are too hard but more importantly you need to know some of the symptoms of hard water and check with your family if these are a concern, like:
Do you find it difficult to keep your home clean due to staining around the fixtures?
Are you getting stains in your toilet or around the sink drains?
Water spots on your shower doors and glasses coming from the dishwasher?
Does it take a great deal of soap in your water before you get bubbles?
Any there concerns in your family with dry itching skin and “frizzy hair”?
Laundry looking dingy after washing?

Water Store 1004 King Street Midland, Ontario L4R0B8

0–.5 gpg: Your water has been softened already 1-3.5 gpg: Your water doesn’t require softening because it is coming from a soft water source like surface water from a lake or river. You will get minimal or no scale buildup or staining.
3.5–7 gpg: Water is moderately hard, causing spotty dishes and dry skin. At this level having a water softener is optional but if you have had one in the past and are particular about the cleanliness if you home you will want one again.
7–10.5 gpg: Hard water is packed with minerals at this level, and you likely deal with crusty stained faucets & pipes and possibly reddish rings on your porcelain from excess iron. You will not be able to use an on demand hot water heater or Ultraviolet Disinfection system without first softening the water. You will notice that you are getting scale buildup around faucets and fixtures, toilets will become stained.
10.5–14: Considered very hard, this water exhibits all the signs of hard water all the time. Glass shower doors and dishes will become very spotty. Whenever water sits anywhere in your home you will get a build up of lime scale and it will be difficult to scrub off. Your hot water heater will become less efficient due to the scale buildup and you will shorten the life of your dishwasher and washing machine.
14+: Extremely hard water. Glasses are extra spotty, skin feels super squeaky, dry and scaly. Soap scum will become an issue and there will be scale buildup everywhere. You will need to use far more soap to get clothes, dishes and people clean.
So why do some of your neighbours have water softeners and others don’t? Quite frankly you’ll find that the ones that do are more picky about their home being clean and tidy.
Any questions or comments about this video or water softeners in general? Please enter them below.

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[water_estore]

Do you need a water softener? This video will help you decide!

[D.]

My new favorite YouTube channel. Started small with zero filter in frig. Now I’m going big and will order everything from here

[mg-]

I'm enjoying your vids after having bought a rural 1970's house on a well, my first property not on public utilities. The only lab test I have shows a hardness level of 874 mg/l, which converts to 51 GPG. Using your Compensated formula, from another vid, adding 2.32 for Iron and not having figures for Manganese, it comes out to 55.32 GPG. 55GPG X 1120 gals (average weekly consumption for two people) gives me a needed 61, 600 minimum grain capacity. That seems like a pretty big softener for just two people. I haven't moved in and talked to neighbors about their water, but it seems a very high hardness level for the area where the house is located based on stats. I plan on treating, fixing, and testing everything in the coming months, including replacing the copper with Pex. Now for the questions, can anything in the old system (pump, pressure tank, residue on the pipes, etc.) contribute to the elevated water Hardness result? It's just two people. Am I better off with a larger capacity softener tank (60-70K) and programming to regenerate every 7 days or a smaller tank and regenerating in shorter intervals? Thanks for the helpful content!

[kentm]

Your content is great; it’s really helped me to navigate an industry that has a lot of companies wanting to scam consumers.

I’m wondering if you might have thoughts about this: My 10-year-old condo has pex piping where many of the brass fittings and the water heater have significant scale build up. But when I tested my water hardness it was only 5 GPG. Is that enough to ruin plumbing systems over time, or is it more likely that the hardness in my city varies over time. I have municipal water from Austin Texas where the primary water source is the Colorado river.

I’m having a water softener loop installed, but I’m worried that if the hardness varies here, that might complicate programming the system.

[rachelchapman]

Great video! We had our spring water tested at a lab and total hardness was 493.1 ppm. Is that hard enough to ruin pipes and appliances, laundry, etc? Should I consider a water softener?

[russellyoung]

Good information, very interesting and helpful.

[jcobra]

Calling all plumbers or people; we have hard water. Like really hard. Coming in from the main waterline I have first a filter, then after I have a Yarna CWD24 Descaler, and finally I have a Whirlpool WHES30, all inline before the GE 50g water heater. All equipment seems to be of newer, or is new, and by all accounts seems to be in good working order. The water softener has not been going through pellets very fast if at all. I’m looking for ideas other than what I’ve already tried, which here’s a snapshot of a few main things I’ve done to try and buff this stuff out;
-Pulled apart and cleaned everything in the Whirlpool including nozzles, venturi, all lines coming out of venturi into the brine-well
-installed a Venturi rebuild kit from Whirlpool
-Emptied salt tank, cleaned and added new salt. I only half-fill the pellets
-break up salt bridges daily if there are any
-ran a bottle of Whirlpool WHEWSC Water Softening Cleanser 16oz, as per instruction
-ran regeneration after all cleaning, rebuilding, bottle of cleaner, salt adding etc.

All lines and Venturi are clean and clear. I’ve blown through them after cleaning. The salt level is reset every time I add salt. I use only the recommended salt. My regen is set to 0200, when nobody is using water. Water hardness level is set to max.

[sikassscivic]

Does a TDS meter measure the hardness ? I was under the assumption that is what they used when they come out to test. Culligan is telling me my TDS tester is not how they test.

[showmeyourstuff]

Gary first of all thank you for taking the time to make these videos, I find them extremely helpful and also interesting on the inner workings of water softeners. I do have a question. My water softener will regenerate at 1200 gallons or 8 days. I rarely use the 1200 gallons before 8 days. How many days is too many between regeneration cycles? Should I raise the days between and rely on using 1200 gallons between regen cycles?

[Cabc]

I'm confused. The home we moved into has a water softener set to 7. My family finds the water does not wash soap off easily but we have water spots on glass doors, etc. I thought the spots were from the salt so thought we should raise the softener level to 15. Not sure if that will help. The company that is supposed to maintain this is extremely expensive, sending out a big truck with two men just to test and they charge over $300 just for a visit. I don't trust their setting as they came out and filled the tank with salt for the previous owner so they had a stake in the house using more salt. I don't trust them as you can tell but don't know how to determine the correct setting.

[claudiadean]

Thank you for the great information. My well water tested at 110 grains per gallon. I have twin tanks and have the softener settings at 150 grains of salt per water. I have all kinds of problems as I have to regenerate my tanks before they reach 0 gallons. Is there anything you would recommend to improve my water situation? Thank you

[jerry]

Have been learning a lot watching these videos! I do understand water level and salt pellet level in the brine tank. My question is my father in law insists his softener needs salt crystals and fill to the top. His installer was Culligan. Is there a difference between the pellet idea and the crystals in the brine tank?

[darkknightlight]

Does getting a water softener remove the build up already in pipes, and say faucets, or shower heads or do we need to clean out somehow. I live in las vegas and my dishwasher already went out on me after 5 years in this house. I am first owner of home, so any build up is on me for not getting water softener earlier. I am planning on getting a salt water tank and a conditioning system along with it. They advertise ws1 as what they use. Oasis is the name of company and I just want to make sure I'm getting what is right. Any input would greatly be appreciated. The Champion is what they call there system.

[dennismysliwy]

I have a clack valve that is leaking at the neck of the tank. Do you recommend any good sealant to apply on the threads when I re install the valve?

[moparscot]

My hardness is at 27gpg and for years I had a WaterBoss softener that “seemed” to do okay. Well time slips away and 16 years goes by with no replacement or resin change. Needless to say my hardness level crept back up to around 7-8 and of course the toilets showed staining. I replaced it with a high quality softener from a local water supply store. My question is now that I have soft water again with it reverse the damage caused earlier in pipes and fixtures over time?

[FaithWRanch]

so 186 GPG is bad? lol I just had a test done on my well. It said that mg/L is 3178. So that equates to 186 GPG. What are my options?

[leannhillegas]

Hi Gary we need help! We have a whirlpool softener that is spewing water out of the top of the motor at the end of the regeneration cycle. We have made sure the venti is not clogged, the drain hose is unclogged, we have replaced the circuit board and motor. It seemed to be working after all our repairs until my husband put cleaner in the tube as instructed and set it to do a manual regeneration. At the end of that regeneration is when we noticed the water was spewing out of the top of the motor. Any ideas?

[AndrewDeLong]

How hard is too hard? How about something on the order of 1, 700 to 2, 000 parts per million? Because that would be the running average of what comes out of my tap if I turn off the softener. Lol.

[Kegels_gti_V]

Can the water be to soft? What do you think?

[bertryan]

Hey Gary my water hardness in gpg is 15 what should I set my water softener hardness on. The old owners had it set on 45