What Is A Hard Water Filter & Do You Need This Type of Filtration For Your Home?
A hard water filter is a good thing to have if you live in an area with hard water. This type of H20 has high levels of metals, salts, and minerals such as magnesium or calcium. The United States Geological Survey found that only 15% of American homes have what is considered soft H20 - the rest have this more mineralized substance. Drinking it does not appear to pose any health risk; in fact, there is some evidence that the higher levels of minerals it contains makes it beneficial to drink.
Yet many people install hard water filters in their homes, and the reasons are usually more convenience-related than health-related. Overly mineralized H20 builds up mineral deposits on faucets, sinks, tea kettles, and pipes - these deposits clog up faucets and are difficult to remove.
It is also harder to wash clothing, dishes, or yourself in excessively mineralized H20 because soap does not form much of a lather and not all the soap is washed away, usually leaving a film behind. Hair often becomes coarser and skin dryer and itchy when it is not washed in soft H20. All of these reasons make many people install a hard water filter in their homes.
If you are not sure whether you need one of these devices, there is a simple test you can try in order to determine this. Take an ordinary bar of soap, hold it under the faucet, and try to work up a good lather. If you do not produce much foam and lather, you probably do have excessive minerals and metals flowing out of your faucet.
Hard water filters (also called "water softeners") essentially work a chemical change on H20. The active ingredient is sodium chloride (table salt). This salt activates beads made of ion exchange resin inside the filter, and the resin replaces the hard minerals in H20 with softer minerals such as sodium or potassium. The end product is a soft H20 that rinses away without leaving residue, is gentle on hair and nails, and doesn't leave annoying mineral deposits on faucets and pots.
A hard water filter by itself only deals with the mineral content of H20 - it does not remove any bacteria or chemicals that might have slipped into the drinking supply. These contaminants are more prevalent than you might think - public water is "treated" but this process usually involves simply running H20 through a sediment filter and adding some chlorine, which is a chemical that does not kill off all microbes and is linked to cancer. What you end up drinking usually contains chlorine, lead, sediment particles, pathogens, and other unsafe and undesirable contaminants.
Because of this, a hard water filter needs to be used in conjunction with an H20 purifying system that removes all traces of chemicals and bacteria so that what you drink is completely safe. Since the purpose of a hard water filter is only to make sure that H20 creates good lather and doesn't leave any deposits behind, you may be drinking and bathing in unsafe water if you only use this type of purifier system.
Hard water filters can be a valuable addition to your in-home H20 treatment system. Once you have ensured that your drinking supply has been cleaned of all contaminants, you can then run it through a hard water filter in order to have soft water that doesn't leave deposits on your pots, clog up your sinks, or make it difficult to wash your hair and skin.
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