Hard water is a big problem. You need to soften it, otherwise, you can’t use it for anything. Not even a bath as it can affect your skin and hair and for people with skin conditions, hard water can be a nightmare. This is why using a water softener is so important. Here is everything you need to know about softening hard water for your bath.
Hard Water – Problems It Can Cause
Hard water is water that has more concentration of calcium and magnesium ions. Now, even regular water has a fair bit of magnesium and calcium ions, but the fine line is when the concentration increases beyond a certain point. This leads to:
- Water getting cloudy and whitish in color
- Water ruining silverware by depositing scale on the surface
- Clogging pipes and drains thanks to limescale
- Water not producing lather at all
- Staining clothes and light-colored stuff
- Cloudy glasses from the dishwasher
So, you can tell that hard water is a major problem. It will also lead to you wasting a lot of detergent, washing powder, and other things in the same line.
You want to ensure that you’re not wasting either water or your supplies and in turn, ruin everything that comes in contact with this water, you want to look for remedies and ways by which you can rectify this problem and solve it for good.
Long-term solutions are the best when it comes to softening hard water because it is something that will last you a long time, but if you’re in a pinch, then you can also rely on temporary methods.
Another thing that most homeowners will question about is how do they know whether their water is hard or not. Well aside from the obvious signs, there are also water reports that you can ask for. This will make sure that you know the concentration of the ions in the water. You can either get a water report from your water supply company or you can get your water tested by yourself.
How To Soften Hard Water For A Bath?
So, now that you know that hard water is not for keeps and you need to find ways to deal with it permanently, here are some amazing temporary and permanent fixes you can try to remove hardness causing ions in water. These things will make your water usable for anything, even taking a bath, so that’s amazing.
Get A Water Softener
You need to think about something permanent. A water softener is an amazing way to ensure that hard water is dealt with every single time. If you have a lot of hard water in your house then you need to consider getting a water softener. This is going to soften the water and make it usable for everything around the house.
If you want direct access to soft water in the bathtub then you need to make some changes in how the water softener is connected to the pipe that supplies water to the bathtub. So, whenever you fire up the softener and turn on the faucet of your bathtub, you will get soft water, every single time, which is exactly what you want at the end of the day.
Remember that water softeners don’t purify water. If you need clean drinking water, then install a well water filtration system Derwood.
A Shower Filter Works
If you want soft water in your shower and bathtub at the same time, then maybe a softener will be an overkill. A lot of the time, people don’t need an entire water softener for their homes, especially if there’s only a certain place where there is hard water. So, in this case, you can use a shower filter.
This attaches to the shower head and the neighboring faucets and whenever you open the faucet, the filter will soften hard water immediately. This is an amazing contraption to use if you want something more reasonable because a water softener can be highly expensive at times and a lot of people can’t afford it at times, especially if it’s not something that they particularly need.
Bath Salts To The Rescue
Bath salts aren’t just used to add that pleasant and relaxing fragrance to the bath water. They can also be used as water softening flakes which is amazing and you might have never even thought of bath salts that way.
They contain potassium and sodium ions that go into the bathtub filled with hard water and replace the calcium and magnesium ions. This is an amazing way of getting rid of hard water without investing in a water softener or you can even use it as a trick if your water softener has broken down and there’s nothing you can do right now but you need to take a bath.
This is going to leave your skin and hair feeling like you just washed yourself with the softest of waters, not to mention you’ll be smelling amazing by the time you step out of the bath too.
Use Baking Soda
If you want another quick fix for hard water, because your water softener is down or it hasn’t been maintained, then you don’t need to look anywhere but inside your pantry. All you need is a bit of baking soda. You’ll need half a cup or even a quarter cup of baking soda for a bathtub full of water. Sprinkle it in, mix it with your hand, and leave it to sit for about 15 to 20 minutes. This is going to get the reaction started.
The sodium ions in baking soda are going to replace the calcium ions and your water will be softened in no time. This is a great hack if you really want to take a bath or you’ve already filled your bathtub without powering on the softener, which can happen to most of us.
Apple Cider Rinse
This is something you can do post-bath, especially after dousing yourself in hard water that leaves your skin feeling dry and very itchy. To remedy that, you will need apple cider vinegar. No, you won’t smell pungent after a bath. All you need is a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar and mix it in a bucket of water.
After stepping out of the bath, you want to rinse your entire body with this rinse. This is going to get rid of all the scale on your body and it will leave your skin feeling amazing. Just be careful around the eyes and you’ll be good to go.
Boil Water
You’ll be pulling a Mr. Bean with this one, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So, even though it is impractical, you can’t do anything but boil jugs of water to fill your bathtub.
Boiling water will get rid of hardness from the water and you’ll be left with soft water. So, even though it will take you a couple of rounds to fill the bathtub with boiled water, you’ll get there eventually.
Conclusion
If your skin feels super dry and the water pressure is questionable, then you definitely have hard water and it’s not good to sit around and make your skin worse. You’ll thank yourself for softening the water on time. If you need a stress-free solution, consider water softener installation Gaithersburg.