The Best Solutions for Hard Water in Your Home

So what does the government do to keep everybody’s water flowing? They use bore water! While bore water is available to keep our supply going, it comes with many minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, creating what is known as "hard water."

We've seen homes in Western Australia that are only weeks old, and the bathrooms are so coated and covered in mineral that you'd swear they hadn't been cleaned in 10 years. This is very upsetting for a lot of customers.

If there’s one way to break a lady’s heart, it’s to destroy her brand new bathroom or washing machine with hard water scale in just a few short weeks of using hard water.

Because of this widespread issue, softening water is becoming a major priority for many. As such, this article will provide an overview of the best solutions for hard water in your home, so you can protect your appliances and keep your surfaces sparkling.

Hard water is simply water with high levels of dissolved minerals, mainly calcium and magnesium. These minerals are picked up naturally as water moves through the ground. While it's safe to drink, the real issue arises when these minerals precipitate out, especially with heat or evaporation, forming limescale. Limescale causes problems for your appliances, pipes and fixtures. 

In appliances like kettles and water heaters, it creates an insulating layer on heating elements, making them less efficient and increasing energy use. This buildup also shortens appliance lifespans and can lead to spotting on dishes and stiff laundry.

For pipes, limescale narrows the interior, reducing water pressure and potentially causing blockages. On taps and shower heads, it leaves unsightly residues and can impede water flow.

Ultimately, hard water isn't just about visible stains; it's about the invisible buildup that degrades the performance, longevity and appearance of your home's essentials.

In this video, learn how to tackle the growing issue of mineral buildup in your home due to hard water. Explore different solutions, from reverse osmosis systems and water softeners to the more cost-effective Limetron water conditioner.

Discover how the Limetron works to prevent minerals such as calcium and magnesium from sticking to your fixtures, appliances and plumbing, without stripping away beneficial minerals. Ideal for homeowners seeking a budget-friendly way to keep their bathrooms and kitchens clean while maintaining healthy water for drinking and gardening.

The truth is, water filters just don't do it. The mineral is so fine that the water just travels straight through.

Even if you put a few water filters in a row and push the water through, the mineral will just go straight through with the water because the mineral is just too fine to be filtered.

Here are a few options to turn hard water into soft water and get the mineral out:

The reverse osmosis system will split the water as it comes through and take all of the mineral out.

You’ll get a litre of waste down the drain and a litre of pure water in your tank. No more hard water calcium! No more hard water stains on the shower glass. 

Here at My Water Filter, we offer a water storage pressure tank to suit reverse osmosis water filter systems. With this tank, there will still be plenty of water for the whole house.

Once the water is in the tank, you’ll need a pump on the other side to pump the water through the house.

Now that the water has no chlorine, there is a risk of bugs and other bacteria growing in there, so you’ll need some UV or different ways of stopping that from happening.

Reverse osmosis systems do remove minerals but can be very expensive, take up a lot of room, require maintenance and waste a lot of water.

The truth is that treating hard water with a reverse osmosis system isn’t the best way to go, and hardly any of our customers have ever gone for it as it’s just too expensive.

Hard water softeners remove calcium, magnesium and other metals, extending the life of the plumbing by reducing or eliminating the scale build-up in pipes and fittings.

Water softeners work and can usually take out about 95% of the mineral if it’s a top quality filter.

You’ll usually pay anywhere between $2000 to $5000 depending on what sort of softener you buy and the size. This ultimately depends on the size of your home.

No matter which way you go, there are a few things you need to know about bore water first. 

The water comes into the softener, and there's a cylinder inside full of media. The media has a charge on it and acts a little bit like a magnet.

As the mineral is coming through the cylinder, it will stick to that media, a bit like a magnet. As soon as the media attracts all the minerals, it releases a lot of salt into the water.

If you’ve got a lot of mineral coming through, the water can get a bit slimy, so you need to put a reverse osmosis system under your sink to clean up the water again and take that sodium out, so it's okay for you to drink. Most people don’t like dealing with the salt, and plants won't be happy about sodium in the water either. As you can see, water softeners can be a lot of work, but they will keep your shower glass clean.

Most people go for what we call a hard water conditioner such as the Limetron hard water conditioner.

This is one of our favourite products that we import to Australia because they work so well and have been sold in 50 countries for over 50 years. It’s time tested, extremely affordable and works like a treat.

The Limetron will treat the water, but it won't take the mineral out. Removing calcium from water isn’t truly necessary because our bodies need calcium, and it’s used in 170 bodily functions every day.

Instead of removing it from the water, it converts the hard water ions into little crystals that wash down the drain instead of sticking to everything.

When the conditioned water evaporates, you can still see a little bit of white here and there on your glass surfaces, but it's not so thick that you can’t wipe it off when you're doing your routine cleaning.

The Limetron water conditioner is a very cheap alternative to sort out the mineral in this country.

Click here to check out all of our hard water solutions and contact us if you have any questions. We're always delighted to help.