Remove Hardness of Water for Your Whole House

Water is an essential compound that all living things need to survive. For this article we will classify water into these two different types; soft water and hard water. Soft water is treated water where sodium is used to filter out impurities, while hard water is composed of dissolved minerals which include charged ions like magnesium and calcium.

Why do we need to remove water hardness?

Hard water can be present anywhere that is rich in minerals like calcium, copper, iron and other heavier metals naturally occurring in rocks and soil. In our household we use water for cooking, cleaning, washing, and most importantly for drinking. Prior to heavy industry polluting our rivers, streams, lakes and our own carelessness with our natural reserves, drinking water from the faucet was considered safe however as the years passed by you can no longer guarantee the water entering our homes is entirely free from harmful heavy metals.

Chlorine has now been a major part of municipal water treatment for nearly 100 years. About 98% of municipal water treatment facilities now use chlorine as the primary disinfectant and the vast majority of U.S. residents receive chlorinated drinking water through their home faucets. Chlorine is listed as a known poison. Chlorinated water has been linked to the aggravation and cause of respiratory diseases like asthma because it vaporizes much quicker than water itself. Before installing any water filtration equipment we recommend doing a water test to check the level of hardness and impurities that are present in your household water.

Getting a free water test from your Culligan man  is probably the quickest and reliable method for most homeowners. Some municipalities will publish test results but these summaries may not help you to understand what impurities make water hard. To remove hardness of water in Montgomery County  it is best to understand the properties of those particles that cause hard water. Not all whole house water filtration systems  are designed to remove all impurities. These whole house units are designed as a point-of-entry system that filters water directly as it enters a home plumbing system from a municipal or private well water source.

Point of use systems are designed to filter household water just at the tap. But for effective results, you must select the best water filter for hard water  and in some cases this may be a combination of the whole house water filter and also a counter top or under the counter model depending upon the amounts of lead, iron, chlorine and biological impurities.

Water filter system and Reverse Osmosis

The hard water filtering process is often done in stages with the first stage designed to remove the larger particles that may clog the finer filters found in the later stages.  By removing chlorine and other harmful chemicals at the point-of-entry, whole house water filters not only provide cleaner, healthier water, but better air quality, as well since the chlorine no longer vaporizes in the home during showers or running a dishwasher for example.  Today, most water filtration methods uses activated carbon to effectively separate impurities by means of both physical and chemical processes. Most water filtration systems leverage this activated carbon filters to help remove pesticides and other harmful chemicals. Lesser developed areas of our region contain higher concentrations of impurities and therefore a water filter system in Chester County  for example may not be as necessary of one in a more industrialized section of Delaware County..

Reverse osmosis is a very effective process used specifically for drinking water as it that is heavy in sodium content and other compounds that have a large molecular composition. Clean water passes through the tiny pores preventing larger contaminants from passing through. If pesticides and herbicides are used such as with farming communities, it is important to combine the reverse osmosis system with a carbon filter system to address the smaller molecular makeup of these harmful chemicals. Beach towns low in crop production benefit most from areverse osmosis system like Atlantic County .