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.
Water Can Be Too Hard, But Can Also Be Too Soft
The simple truth: you don’t want to completely remove minerals from your home’s water. They are not “pollutants” the same way bacteria, pesticides, and heavy metals are. Water treatment systems have become so effective that they end up stopping particulates you actually want in your water. This can be an issue with both reverse osmosis filtration systems and water softeners.
Excess calcium and magnesium in household water are harmful for the plumbing and annoying for cleaning. These are important minerals for health: calcium makes up 2% of the weight of the human body, and plays an essential role in body functions like vascular and muscular contraction, regulation of enzymes, and blood clotting. Low magnesium levels contribute to health problems that cause nausea, headaches, and numbness.
The good news here is that you get most of your calcium and magnesium from your food, rather than the water you drink. But stripping most calcium and magnesium from the water through a powerful water softener still robs you of an important source. If a water softener replaces most of these minerals with sodium, it may unbalance an otherwise healthy diet.
Remineralizing
If you’re looking for water softening for your home, in many cases you won’t have to worry that the water softener will completely strip away healthy minerals. If installed correctly, it’ll lower the hardness down to a safe level—for your home and for you. However, in certain situations, a special remineralization device must be included with the water softener to ensure there is still a healthy amount of hard water minerals in the water supply.
This is yet another reason to always trust water treatment installation to professionals. We’ll ensure you have water softening that does the job you need without removing too many of the healthy minerals your family needs to consume daily. We’ll protect your plumbing; we’ll protect you.
Family-owned and operated since 1935. Schedule service for water treatment in the Greater Santa Barbara and Ventura County Area with our team today.