Water Hardness

DaireQuinlan

Hi, is there a way of finding out the hardness of my water supply? Churchtown, Dublin 14.

Irish Water: Mairead

Hi DaireQuinlan,

Thanks for your query.

Water hardness levels can vary across the country, depending on the soil and rock types in certain regions. However, hard water does not affect the quality of drinking water and is not harmful to humans.

If you would like to get your water tested to check if you have hard water, you can find a list of accredited testing facilities here.

You can also check for water quality results for your area here.

I hope you found this information helpful.

Thanks,
Mairead

DaireQuinlan

Hi, thanks for the response.

Yes I know water hardness has little to do with health, I'm installing a dishwasher :-)

If I go to the SDCC site they have a page listing calcium carbonate levels for their area ...

http://www.sdcc.ie/services/environmental-health/water-services/drinking-water i.e.

Typical values for total hardness as Calcium Carbonate are given below:
Ballymore-Eustace Water (supplies to over 90% of County)
mg/L CaCO3 = 50
eH (Clarke or English Degrees) = 3.5
dH (German Degrees) = 2.8
fH (French Degrees) = 5
Mmol CaCO3 = 0.5
American Hardness Degrees (ppm) = 50

I assume you guys have these figures available somewhere for the water supply to various parts of the city. It's not one of the parameters listed in that link you gave me above.

arminkavix

I note that calcium and magnesium are absent from the things that you test for.
Do Irish Water ever consider the environmental impact of the excess energy used, and consequent CO2 emissions, in heating and pumping, not to mention the wasteful early replacement of affected appliances and the attendant CO2.
The amounts are not trivial.
Steam cleaners on sale in Ireland manufactured in European countries advise us that we consult the council data records for the hardness information. Clearly this is not going to yield much information if we don't test for it.
Just wondering if Irish Water ever considered it and what the decision was.

Alun

I've tried, time and time again, to persuade them of the usefulness of providing this information, as every other civilized European country does, but they keep trotting out this nonsensical excuse of it not being dangerous to health, therefore they don't need to test for it. I've given up hope at this stage.