We’ve written about water softeners before on our blog, because dealing with hard water is a common trouble homes in the area face. Hard water has a high mineral content, and there are many problems that these minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) create for a household and its plumbing. As a quick refresher, here’s why hard water can be bad news for a house:
- It creates scale deposits inside pipes, leading to clogging, high water pressure, and rapid pipe deterioration.
- It damages water-using appliances, particularly the water heater.
- It leaves behind an unpleasant film on surfaces.
- Soap dissolves poorly in hard water, which results in soapy residue on skin and hair.
- It leeches the color from clothing.
But… there’s something else you need to know about hard water minerals. Hard water is not harmful to drink. In fact, those minerals are important ones for your body’s health—they’re part of the essential vitamins and minerals you hear advertised on food products. And this is why we need to talk about remineralization when discussing the installation of a water softener in Santa Barbara, CA.
You’ve probably heard about hard water and the concerns it can present for a home. The term “hard water” is confusing for people unfamiliar with it, since often the only type of hard water they’re familiar with is ice. What hard water actually refers to is the mineral content of water, specifically levels of the minerals magnesium and calcium. 
If you are concerned about the quality of the freshwater entering your house, you’re not alone. People today are worried about the many types of pollutants, from bacteria to heavy metals like lead, that enter the freshwater system. 
Water isn’t just water. At least, not the water that comes from the taps in your house or into dishwashing and laundry machines. This water has different minerals and chemicals dissolved in it. Some aren’t harmful. Many others are, either for the health of the people who drink them or for the appliances and plumbing exposed to them.
We offer several 
We have bad news for you. The fresh water in your house—the water coming from the bathroom and kitchen faucets, the shower heads, the dishwasher—is low quality. Or at least there’s a high chance that it is. Chemicals, heavy metals, hard water minerals, pesticides, sulfur, and many other contaminants can easily find their way through ground water into the pipes carrying fresh water to your house. Corrosion inside old pipes can also release lead and other impurities.
People are concerned about the quality of the water coming into their homes. Although most people think of the possible health problems from poor water quality due to lead, pesticides, and heavy metals, a more common problem is with hard water, which is found frequently in Southern California. Hard water isn’t harmful to drink, but it creates serious troubles in the plumbing system of the home. It needs the same attention from water treatment professionals as other water quality issues. The sooner you call after you find out you have hard water, the better! 
When we get questions about water treatment systems, the most commonly asked question is usually something along the lines of “Which one is the best?”
If you’ve ever heard about water filtration systems for your home, it was most likely in the form of reverse osmosis systems. While these are popular for an important reason (which we’ll get into below), you should know that there are actually multiple different water filtration options. Which one you need depends on you and your household, and the way to find out is through a water test. Among the many things a water test can reveal, it can tell you about two major issues: the amount of contaminants in the water, and the hardness of the water.