Water is very hard - Please help

darkbeatz

Hi,

we moved in to a new house and the water is ridiculous.

I mean it doesnt taste weird or anything like that but both my wife and I have really bad dandruff and our hair feels weird. I reckon its because the water is hard. I live near baltinglass and just wondered if anyone here has had this problem and what they have done about it. I dont know anything about this kind of thing so any info at all would be helpful.

I hope someone can help me with this

babaduck

I used to work in Baltinglass & the water is so hard, it would challenge you to a fight.

Make sure you descale your washing machine, dishwasher & kettle regularly... we used to chuck away a kettle a year because of it. If I lived there, I'd put a water softener/filter on my kitchen tap.

Also, I found that hard water + regular shampoo = very itchy flaky scalp. So I changed to an organic shampoo & conditioner with no Sodium Laureth (the foaming agent) and haven't had a day's trouble since

darkbeatz

cheers for the reply. I have sent off a sample of the water to get analysed. I think Im going to put a softner on the mains. We are kinda finding it unbearable. That shampoo you are talk about, is it hard to get or do most places stock that kind of shampoo?

spud2

Check this site out I have any requirements to use one myself,
www.waterimp.co.uk.

TempestSabre

Water quality is terrible in many parts of Dublin. Our own here in D.15 is a hard as nails. We've an electric filter on the mains, and a filtered drinking tap. But it only helps a bit. Really you need a chemical filter, one of those ones you feed salt etc. A mate has one and his waters perfect.

babaduck

darkbeatz wrote:

cheers for the reply. I have sent off a sample of the water to get analysed. I think Im going to put a softner on the mains. We are kinda finding it unbearable. That shampoo you are talk about, is it hard to get or do most places stock that kind of shampoo?

I am a princess & now use MOP (Modern Organic Products) shampoo http://www.mopproducts.com/ which I have seen here in Blue Eriu & Harvey Nicks... but I get it much cheaper from www.hqhair.com

A friend of mine uses a shampoo called Jason http://www.jasoncosmetics.com/ which she buys in the local health food shop. Your standard supermarket/chemist doesn't carry SLS-free shampoo or conditioner

darkbeatz

thank you

jd6677

TempestSabre wrote:

Water quality is terrible in many parts of Dublin. Our own here in D.15 is a hard as nails. We've an electric filter on the mains, and a filtered drinking tap. But it only helps a bit. Really you need a chemical filter, one of those ones you feed salt etc. A mate has one and his waters perfect.

Can I ask which one does your mate have? I have really hard water in my area and really need to get something done soon

Tks
JD

TempestSabre

I'll ask him.

jd6677

TempestSabre wrote:

I'll ask him.

Cheers thanks a mill

JD

dras

Hi,

We're in hard water area in Galway and find a Britta kettle (like the water filter jugs) are good for stopping scummy tea. Need to change filter about once a month or so. And I use vinegar to clean out the lime in the kettle when changing filters.

Pocari Sweat

Nine schemes out of ten are hard or very hard in Galway.

You would require a salt based water softener on most galway group water schemes, and they would cost ye around a thousand squid installed.

They will save thousands in repairs and detergents and improve yer quality of life. Watch out for rogue sales firms in galway, ther are many and some want over 2 thousand for rough sytems, without back up and service.

Pocari Sweat

Also for scale free drinking filtration, a reverse osmosis filter for around 500 squid, will keep yer drinking water at a level of purity that is far better than any laboratory standards listed for most or all the usual contaminants.

Again watch out for the rogues, they will charge up to 2,000 squid for a 500 euro unit.

311

Theres devices I've seen when I'm in attics ,like a bucket of lime/salt that adds to the water of the tank.
It didn't look expensive at all ,I'd have thought a couple of hundred maybe.

Brian.

Pocari Sweat

_Brian_ wrote:

Theres devices I've seen when I'm in attics ,like a bucket of lime/salt that adds to the water of the tank.
It didn't look expensive at all ,I'd have thought a couple of hundred maybe.

Brian.

Yes you could be mistaken these are just a few hundred squid. They are infact a mini cab, all in one water softener unit. Often installed for 1,000 to 1,500 by pricey firms and can be got mail order DIY for 600 to 800 euro.

Suited really for small houses and apartments for 2 to 3 people, and best not put in the attic for a variety of reasons.

Water softeners don't actually chuck salt into your water supply to stop the lime, but instead use dissolved salt in a brine solution to wash out the inner cylinder of the resin tank that collects lime out of the water and both surplus lime and brine are washed out through a waste pipe to a drain without any reasonable degree of sodium being left in your water.

The EPA, health boards and EU water directives require sodium levels to be less than 200 ppm in drinking water and a water softener at the very highest levels will only impart around 150 ppm of sodium as a residual trace in mains supplies. Tinned soup has around 20 times the level of sodium weight for weight than soft water. And if you drank soft water exclusively and never had a drop of tea or milk or any other drink, the 2.4 grammes of sodium or 6 grammes of sodium chloride (salt) you are meant to have in your food diet each day, would only be adjusted by a few percent.

311

I'll ask one of the bouchers about it ,they deal with most firms in europe.
I couldn't see anything in the product I seen that would have cost anywhere near what you are talking about. Most of the time a product is expensive because of development ,I know what it looked like ,I just don't know what it was.

This device was on the water storage .
Thanks.

Pocari Sweat

Alternativeley it could be some sort of siliphos dosing system. Food grade siliphos has been around for a while now and is usually found in cartridge form fitted into filter housings prior to mains feed into the house.

However, although it is a catalytic, non-invasive chemical, that is gradually dosed into mains water, coating new pipework with a kind of non stick effect to pipes, its effectiveness is not 100% and it does not actually take dissolved lime out of the water.

Even though scaling is reduced, hard water still remains and causes all the usual increased use of detergents, powders, shampoos, soaps etc used around the house and the hard water still has a harsh effect on skin and clothing.

The siliphos needs replenishment every so often and if fitted in the mains header tank it will fail to capture the mains coming into the house at point of entry, covering main cold tap at kitchen sink and appliances that need protecting that use mains entry water such as washing machine and dishwasher, kettle and iron.

Pocari Sweat

If used on older houses were scaling has already built up, it will not remove scale and increase thermal efficiency in the hot water copper cylinder around the walls and spiral where heat transfer occurs between heating system and domestic hot water.

It is only partly effective, where houses have just been plumbed with new pipes and the siliphos dosed at mains entry point, usually under the kitchen sink where the mains valve usually is, feeding the whole of the house.

A salt based water softener fitted on any age of the house, will strip away all existing scale built up on pipes, cylinders, water heaters, elements and appliances and will further eliminate all new lime entering the property at source.

311

I'm not well up on hard water devices ,it's not really a problem here in dublin.
Just thought I'd mention what I saw in someones house thats all ,
I thought there was a device that's attached to pipework that electrically stops any build ups.

TempestSabre

_Brian_ wrote:

I'm not well up on hard water devices ,it's not really a problem here in dublin....

Depends on the part of Dublin.

311

I have relations around the country and they have hard water alright ,half a bar of soap and you get a single sud if you're lucky.
Never heard anyone complain in dublin.

Edit : I'll try and find out on monday if theres a reasonable solution ,without forking out.
Brian.

TempestSabre

_Brian_ wrote:

...
Never heard anyone complain in dublin...

You have now. I think it depends where your water supply comes from. I've been told that the older areas are fed from Blessington, but newer areas aren't so pull their supplies from further away.

I know theres a big difference in where I used to live and where I live now and theres only a mile in the difference.

Pocari Sweat

You can get only so far with a low budget when dealing with water hardness and when you are looking for a bargain solution, there are good deals on the various types of units, but if you just ask for recommendations from lay-people and buy stuff off the shelf to fit yourself, you may spend alot of money that is going to be wasted.

There are so many firms in ireland that prey on mug punters that don't know what advice to take, and then rip them off with something that does not work.

Water hardness can usually be seen by the damage it does in a short period of time, and when you get to the point where you have been putting up with clogged shower heads, streaks on the shower doors, scaled kettles and sinks, and then your shower or immersion packs up with scale build up and you start paying out 400 euros for shower re-fits etc, then you have to calculate ongings losses, plus double the use of detergents, versus getting the job sorted out professionally at a reasonable cost to cut your ongoing losses.

Either get a company to fit a good quality water softener for 1000 euros fitted, or buy one off the shelf from a company that will come back and set the unit up, programme the valve head and give you instructions on its use and maybe for the smallest units you can pay 600 to 800 euros to stop the rot.

Pay 50 euros for a strap on device that has wires around pipes, and theres the first 50 euros down the drain if you are on hard water.

These electromagnetic physical water conditioners only work at commercial level to a certain extent when paying 5,000 to 10,000 euros for say hotel use on certain parts of hot water circuits, but not cold water mains.

Some water companies in ireland, even many, have for decades long thrived on unsuspecting customers that do not have the first clue with what to do with water problems. Nowadays, competition and clear pricing, warranties, back up service and referrals from happy customers are the way to get best deals.

They say the bitterness of a pig in a poke lingers long after the initial sweetness of a bargain, or some sort of saying like that.

Pocari Sweat

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is gone.

I think thats it.

311

Pocari Sweat wrote:

You can get only so far with a low budget when dealing with water hardness and when you are looking for a bargain solution, there are good deals on the various types of units, but if you just ask for recommendations from lay-people and buy stuff off the shelf to fit yourself, you may spend alot of money that is going to be wasted.

There are so many firms in ireland that prey on mug punters that don't know what advice to take, and then rip them off with something that does not work.
.

The lay people we deal with supply most of the top construction companies with supplies for apartment blocks/housing developments around ireland.
Most companies I know of aren't the way you are making out ,the trouble I think is when people are given the wrong advice by someone who reads books .
One company I know of ,all the family did apprenticships and they all know the ins and outs of plumbing.
If someone walks into a B&Q and asks for something they are not sure about then of course they are going to get into trouble.

Brian.

Pocari Sweat

Your average apprenticed plumber will have no idea how to sort out a water filtration system and know there are not going to be no long term problems.

Pocari Sweat

If you are a firm that offers a proper water treatment service dealing with public / commercial / industrial, then apart from having experienced / highly skilled plumbers, you should also have on staff time served industrial pipefitter/plumbers for the seriously big installations with large bore pipework and more complicated mechanical installations, able to read schematics and work to high tolerances, not some of the family employed novices who are sent on a fas course for a couple of years and can probably fit a bog but not much else.

311

Watersoftner ,standard house 350 euro. thats one price I got.

Pocari Sweat

What are you going to do with a 350 euro, none warrantied, minicab - 2 people, apartment type, water softener?

Are you going to extol the virtues of bugger all cost and try to hamfistedly advise a full household to have it installed with zero knowledge on how to set it up, let alone maintain and service it.

Family spends 350 euro hard earned wages on cheap minicab softener, softener packs up, family loses 350 euros, some bargain hunting nugget with feck all knowledge on softeners ducks for cover.

311

Pocari Sweat wrote:

What are you going to do with a 350 euro, none warrantied, minicab - 2 people, apartment type, water softener?

Are you going to extol the virtues of bugger all cost and try to hamfistedly advise a full household to have it installed with zero knowledge on how to set it up, let alone maintain and service it.

Family spends 350 euro hard earned wages on cheap minicab softener, softener packs up, family loses 350 euros, some bargain hunting nugget with feck all knowledge on softeners ducks for cover.

Thats one price I got ,from an Irish manufacturer who guarantees the product themselves ,while I'm here I might aswell let it be known ,the people I was talking to all said plumbers where charging ridiculous prices to install them.

Brian.

Pocari Sweat

There are no Irish manufacturer's of water softeners.

There are distributors or dealers who assemble valves, vessels and cabinets, but the 350 euro price would probably be for a small capacity 8 or 10 litre minicab softener sold as DIY which is normally russian roulette for the un-initiated who do not have a full profile of their water parameters and what settings to make on the softener to make it work efficiently.

Most standard household softeners need to be of the 20 to 30 litre resin capacity to give the unit a good 10 to 30 year life and allow the user to only have to refill salt once every 3 months instead of every 2 weeks.

Add to this a whole range of features found on more decent models such as volumetric water metering, historic water usage patterns, proportional brining etc and you have a better return on your investment the nearer you get to top specification systems sold for in and around 1000 euros.

When ionics were selling softeners at daft prices like 3,000 to 4,000 euros, certainly they were lunatic prices to pay for what were often old timer based mutton dressed as lamb.

Now the latest designed valves and high capacity units (3 times the capacity and longevity of 350 DIY models) can be got for 1,000 euro installed, warrantied with service and back up.

darkbeatz

thanks for all the info fellas.

pocari you seem to know a lot about this stuff Im impressed. Where can I get one of those softners, installed, warrantied with service and backup?

thanks

Pocari Sweat

What area are you in?

darkbeatz

near baltinglass, a village 5 miles outside it called rathvilly

Pocari Sweat

Poss have a new unit for 700 euros, DIY with all bits, instructions, fittings, can supply.

darkbeatz

I might be interested but cant let you know for about a week. I have a guy who has taken a sample of the water. should have the results next week, ill let you know

cheers

ps have you got a link to the unit you have?

dixiefly

What about the Meath area? Do you have a specification for this unit?

Pocari Sweat

Minicabinet softener, volumetric water metering, historic water usage patterns, proportional brining etc. Size - 22 inch high x 18 inch deep by 12 inch wide. 10 litre resin capacity, 3/4 bag salt cabinet, easily installed, if additional fitting instructions are closely followed, to get it plumbed up in the right place and set up to work efficiently.