Hard water isn’t an uncommon trait of water wells, but it’s still a nuisance all the same. Hard water can create hassles around your home by damaging your plumbing and appliances. If you’ve never dealt with hard water before, you may find yourself wondering what exactly it is and what you can do about it. The guide below offers a glimpse at what hard water is and how it affects both your well and your home. 

What Causes Hard Water?

As well water percolates over limestone in the ground, it picks up some extra minerals like magnesium, iron, manganese, and calcium along the way. Water that has too many dissolved minerals in it is called hard water. This water is brought into your home and can damage your appliances and can even affect your hair texture.

How Does It Affect Home Well Systems & Your Home?

The high mineral count in hard water mixes with soap in your pipes and leads to clogs. Even without soap, these minerals can build up in the lines of your plumbing and create blockages. As minerals build up in your pipes, you’ll experience a decrease in water pressure to your home. It’ll also affect the efficiency of your appliances that use water, such as the washing machine or dishwasher. They’re forced to work harder to achieve the same results as they would without hard water gumming up the lines. Hard water can also have corrosive effects on the lines and connections in your plumbing system, leading to costly repairs. 

In your water well, hard water can damage your water well system. The corrosiveness of hard water can damage the well liner in addition to clogging the pump and causing it to seize up. This will impact the flow of water to your home’s faucets. 

How Can You Prevent Hard Water?

Water softeners help to keep the hard water from entering your home. These systems use a process called ion exchange to clean up the excess minerals in your water. This process swaps out positively charged minerals with other minerals like sodium to neutralize hard water. This is the most effective method of keeping hard water out of your home. 

Water softeners are great for stopping hard water from getting from the well to your home, but they don’t do much to treat the well. For hard water in your well, you’ll need to talk to a water well contractor. They can diagnose your well’s hard water issues and discuss water treatment options and high-efficiency pumps to narrow down a solution that’s right for your property. 

If you’re dealing with hard water or you have other concerns about your water well, turn to the experts at Coolwater Drilling in Bremerton, WA. This crew of licensed, insured, and bonded well experts pride themselves on superior service and addressing whatever concerns you have regarding your well. Learn more about them online or call them today with any questions you may have at (360) 830-9005.