How Hard Water Affects Your Plumbing

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Do you suffer from frequently clogged pipes, stiff laundry, or dry hair and skin? You’re likely suffering from the effects of hard water.

While hard water is completely harmless to your health it negatively impacts your plumbing system over time. If you have hard water, you’ll benefit from plumbing in Richmond, TX. Our team at Doug Turner Plumbing CO can find a system like a water softener to treat the hard water in your home and offset the negative effects of this type of water.

What Makes Water “Hard?”

The presence of minerals like calcium and magnesium in your water is what makes it “hard.” Water becomes hard when it passes through calcium or magnesium and the ions from these minerals dissolve into the water. Hard water has the following effects on your pipes:

• Scale Build-Up: A good indication that you have hard water is scale build-up on dishes, fixtures, and other appliances in your home. If this is a common occurrence in your home, it’s a sign of a large presence of hard water. This build-up is an eyesore and it’s also a symptom of a larger problem within your system.
• Clogged Pipes: When hard water build up throughout your plumbing system, it slowly starts to clog your pipes over time. This is because these minerals wash through your pipes with the water supply but some of these minerals get left behind, settle, and stick to the surface of your pipes. As time passes, the mineral build-up increases and eventually narrows the passageway of your pipe. This build-up provides the perfect foundation for a clog. If you put something down your drain that you shouldn’t then it easily clogs your drain.
• Dry Skin and Hair: The minerals in hard water makes it very difficult to thoroughly rinse your hair and skin. These minerals leave a build-up behind that results in your hair feeling dry or looking dull. Over time your scalp might even feel dry and itchy. This becomes a problem for many people because they’ll wash their hair more frequently thinking this will alleviate the issue when it exacerbates the problem. If you have conditions like psoriasis, eczema, or simply just have dry skin, then hard water is your worst enemy. Minerals in hard water left behind on your skin absorb the natural moisture and oils from your skin and making it dry and easily irritated.
• Faded or Stiff Clothing: Hard water doesn’t stop in your kitchen or bathroom—it affects your laundry too. Hard water strips away the vibrancy from your clothes much faster than treated water would. It also causes your clothes to feel scratchy and stiff because the residual mineral substance left behind.

What Can You Do?

Many people work around the effects of hard water because they don’t realize that there’s anything they can do to help the problem.  At Doug Turner Plumbing CO, we specialize in installing water softeners. A water softener is a filtration system that removes these minerals from your water supply. This helps eliminate the impact of hard water and increase the overall quality of water in your home.

If you’d like to rid your home of hard water, contact our team today to schedule an appointment.