Soft Water Benefits
Longer lasting appliances
Limescale build up over time on appliances will impact their performance and reduce their life. Any appliance using water is negatively affected – your hot water system, water pipes, showers, taps, washing machine, dishwasher and kettle.
An Energy Savings Study by Battelle looked at the benefits of softened water and the Water Quality Research Foundation found that a water softener is “the best energy saving device you can buy”. In hard water a shower head can completely plug itself with limescale in 16 months, making it unusable
A Water Softener will stop and over time dissolve existing scale. Your showerhead will take a matter of weeks to de-scale and your pipes will be scale free after two years.
But its not just the damage inside the appliance, lime scale is unsightly on your taps, work surfaces and sanitary ware. Installing a water softener will hugely reduce your time and cost to clean your appliances, as you aren’t constantly having to clean off the scale.
Softer, healthier skin and shinier hair
When you wash in hard water, you don’t get a lovely lather with soaps, shampoo and shower gels. This is because hard water minerals do not mix as well with the products you use, so you have to use more products to compensate. The extra soap required to make a lather can irritate your skin. The residue left behind by hardness minerals can also clog your pores and irritate your skin, This can be more pronounced in people who have sensitive skin or suffer from eczema, psoriasis or dermatitis. A scientific study in 2017 by the University of Sheffield and Kings College London found that “exposing the skin to hard water damages the skin barrier – which is our defence against outside threats such as bacteria or sun burn – and increases the sensitivity of the skin to potential irritants found in everyday wash products such as soap or washing powder”
Click here for details of the study
Washing in softened water can improve these conditions. As there are no hardness minerals in softened water, soap and shampoo products lather better (so you use less) and rinse off easier, leaving your skin feeling softer and your hair looking shinier and more manageable. The expensive products you buy to try and counter the effects of hard water will become unnecessary with a Water Softener. Sufferers of skin conditions like eczema often (but not always) notice an improvement in their skin condition when they install a water softener
Sparkling Kitchens & Bathrooms
Hard water leaves its mark everywhere, with a quality water softener you’ll spend much less time cleaning and more time enjoying your home and family. Softened water will make scale disappear, leaving your bathroom and kitchen looking sparkling clean. No more clogged up shower head, chalky marks on your shower screen and lime scale on your taps.
You won’ t need any of the cleaning products you used for getting rid of lime scale, whilst dishes and glasses will sparkle more than before. Softened water doesn’t leave a streaky residue behind, so it’s great for rinsing with as it produces much more of a lather. More lather means more bubbles, more of a solution to wash with and a more effective clean.
Saving you money
Water Softeners are an investment to protect your home and family from the effects of hard water. The initial purchase and installation cost can be higher than a domestic appliance like a washing machine, but over the lifetime of the softener, it will more than pay for its self and actually save you money.
All your household appliances will last longer with soft water . You won’t need to replace your shower heads, taps, boiler or domestic appliances as often as you would with hard water. Increasing the life of your appliances significantly reduces your replacement costs.
When hard water is heated up it forms scale around the element. You can see this in your kettle, but it is also happening inside your hot water system. The thick layer of scale needs to be heated before the water, using more energy and resulting in higher gas and electricity consumption. Softened water will return your heating elements to full working efficiency, thus reducing the amount of energy used and the amount of money you spend on fuel bills.
You will use far less products when washing and cleaning in soft water. For example, with clothes washing detergent you will use at least 50% less product with soft water than you would with hard water. This is also true of all other washing and cleaning products, because soft water produces a better lather, you need less of it to wash or clean. Many cleaning products that are specifically used to remove lime scale will not be needed at all – Making you further cost savings.
Softer Laundry
Ever wondered why your laundry is not as soft as you would like it to be. This is a symptom of hard water. With hard water you have to use more detergent to get your clothes clean, and that detergent isn’t completely removed when your laundry is rinsed. With softened water you can use 50% less washing detergent and it rinses out much easier resulting in softer clothes and saving you money on detergent and fabric softener.
