Hard water

[gja1000]

Originally Posted by JJJ

So how do I know if I have hard or soft water

Well, that's a good question! Hard water is slow to lather. When you are in the shower, if you have to put on lots of soap or shampoo to get a good lather, you probably have hard water. It will leave cloudy marks or a cloudy film on your glasses and flatware and also leaves the inside of the dishwasher cloudy. It will create a buildup on shower heads and eventually clog up the holes. The same buildup occurs in pipes too.

When your water is very soft, it feels like you can't get the soap off when you take a shower. Soft was doesn't do any damage to appliances, since there is no mineral buildup.

You can have your water tested to see how hard or soft it is.

[Lindsey]

I was trying to find one of my favorite old commercials to post here but I can't find it! It opens with an older couple sitting on a couch, looking incredulously at a test strip. The woman says "I can't believe it..." her husband says "After all these years!" (leading you to think it's a pregnancy test) and then "... We have hard water!"

[Janet]

That would have been a funny commercial Lindsey. After having soft water all these years...whenever I've had to shower at my Mom's....I itch like the dickens afterwards, dries the skin out horribly.

[JJJ]

Originally Posted by gja1000

Well, that's a good question! Hard water is slow to lather. When you are in the shower, if you have to put on lots of soap or shampoo to get a good lather, you probably have hard water. It will leave cloudy marks or a cloudy film on your glasses and flatware and also leaves the inside of the dishwasher cloudy. It will create a buildup on shower heads and eventually clog up the holes. The same buildup occurs in pipes too.

When your water is very soft, it feels like you can't get the soap off when you take a shower. Soft was doesn't do any damage to appliances, since there is no mineral buildup.

You can have your water tested to see how hard or soft it is.

Hmm, I definitely have hard water then.

[DianaB]

Usually if you have a build up of stuff around your faucets then you have hard water. Ours is hard but not real, real bad.

We have a cement plant near our town and when I was a kid they had something that came out of the smoke stacks that left hard stuff on everything. I can remember washing our car with vinegar.......and everyone had to do it. It was bad!! They have filters at the cement plant that prevent that from happening now. Thank goodness!!!!

[Shada]

Gayle, you can have a water softener put in and still keep a line in your kitchen open using your hard water. I know many people that do this.

As for me, hard water here. To be honest I don't like soft water! I have the same problem using my dishwasher, but its just me so I handwash. Haven't used my dishwasher in a couple years. When I have a large gathering I bring out the nicer paper plates and plastic! Toss in trash and clean up is about done! This year I used aluminium containers for my side dishes too. First time for that, but boy did it save me time in the kitchen.