daft batty

I agree with you there, but i meant for a comment on fluoride in tap water.

snowgoose

Never mind all the chemistry stuff - the water in this part of Ontario is very hard and the only solution is a softener; it doesn't imrpove the drinking water at all (it still tastes horrible) ......in fact for those suffering from high blood pressure it's best to avoid the tap water altogether and buy drinking water. However, for clothes washing, bathing, showering etc, it does feel better. Since we started adding the correct amount of salt to the conditioner we've noticed a huge difference - hardly any yucky build-up in the kettle

oceanMDX

Yes, I was recommending using a water softener if they have hard water. I grew up in Waterloo, Ont. where the water was drawn from wells and was very hard - it was essential to soften the water. Where are you in Ontario?

Dorothy

Really? Funny enough I lived in southern Ontario for 43 years and never had a water heater stop working because it became clogged with calcium. We even had the same one in the house I grew up in for over 20 years and only replaced it because we needed a bigger one.

snowgoose

Hi Ocean.......I live near Bayfield, right on Lake Huron.......pretty little place...are you familiar with it? Really touristy in summer, fabulous sunsets, lovely sandy beach, expensive little shops, friendly post office and library.

I agree with Dorothy with regard to water heaters clogging up - mine hasn't, and I don't know of anyone who has had that happen. I have friends up in Listowel who are replacing their water softener after 40-odd years of service.

Canada Jane

We have a well and used this water for drinking etc but found that the kettle was scaling terribly - didn't notice any taste issues though. I have looked high and low for one of those kettle de-scaler metal ball things but could not find one anywhere.

We now have a 5 gallon water dispenser which we use for the kettle, coffee maker etc and it is fine. Our normal well supply is used for everything else.

iaink

Do you have a softener Jane? Round here your water heater wont work efficiently for long without one.

Sears will test your water for free for you to see how bad it is. Ours was 17 grains of hardness and the softener makes a big difference to laundry, showers etc, and is hopefully extending the life and efficiency of the water heater too.

oceanMDX

There is a significant different in the hardness of water drawn from wells vs. water drawn from lakes and rivers. Water drawn from wells (at least in southern Ontario) tends to be very hard, whereas water drawn from surface sources tends to be of moderate hardness - take Lake Ontario for example:

http://www.toronto.ca/water/faq.htm

"Lake Ontario water is considered 'moderate' in terms of water hardness.....hard water does result in more scale buildup and you need to use more soap and detergents."

The hot water tank uses a lot of energy, and even a small scale build up on the bottom of it would reduce its efficiency because scale is a poor conductor of heat.

This shows the relative hardness of water in cities across Canada.

http://www.cwqa.com/html/Hard_water.html

Toronto's source of water is Lake Ontario which is considered to have "moderate" water hardness. Toronto has a water hardness number of 7.5 according to the chart. Now look at the other cities in southern Ontario, places like Kitchener and London. Their water is much, much harder than Toronto's. I grew up in Waterloo, and I know of cases were people didn't put in a water softener when their home was built and they had to replace the water heater after about 5 years because it couldn't provide hot water. Just imagine the energy they were wasting in years 3 and 4! They were getting hot water, but at a high cost. Your hot water tank may have continued to provide you with hot water over all the years you mentioned, but was it heating the water efficiently? Did you cut it open to check for scale to truly find out?

I know for a fact that Waterloo Region gets 80% of its water from aquifers and the rest from rivers (like the Grand River).... and water from the aquifers is very hard water.

Note that all the places (in Ontario) that have soft water (low numbers) are in northern Ontario... and that was my point.... in relative terms, southern Ontario water is generally hard.

BTW... I knew Vancouver had very soft water ... but 0.3, whoa!

oceanMDX

Yes, I've been through Bayfield a couple of times. I would imagine that your water hardness is similar to that of Goderich.... notice from my previous post that Goderich (just to your north) has some of the softest water in southern Ontario.... but you guys are the exception, not the rule. In general southern Ontario's water is rather hard.

A water softener doesn't get clogged up with calcium like a water heater will with hard water going through because a water softener isn't heating the water and it gets the calcuim flushed out if it on a regular basis. And notice that they are buying a new water softener... I would imagine that it's because one is necessary.

BTW, how may people in Bayfield that you know use a water softener?

Novocastrian

I find the water in my swimming pool gets exceptionally hard during the winter, but it's quite soft the rest of the year.

oceanMDX

LOL!

You can fix that if you add enough salt.... like in a water softener. You'll float better too.

Biiiiink

Apart from Winnipeg

oceanMDX

Yeah, that's weird. Maybe the number was so high they were afraid to tell anybody.

Check out the figures for Saskatchewan!

daft batty

Well its all relative I suppose!. I thought Peterborough water was soft but in the link its 7 and according to P'boro Utilities website its 6. But to me, used to London and Bedfordshire water its soft and fluffy.

Dorothy

I grew up in a rural area around Dundas Ontario where we had a well as well as a cistern for backup. Our water was very hard but like I said our water heater was original to the house, which was 10 years old when we moved in in 1965. My parents replaced it in the late 1970's when they discovered that having 4 teenage kids in the house required more hot water than the one we had could put out. Not because it was full of calcium.
I then bought a 27 year old house in Burlington, where the water comes from Lake Ontario and again the water heater worked perfectly for the 9 years we lived there.
I think it's far more likely that your water heater will die of old age than clogged arteries from calcium.