Why Filtered Water Matters

Why would anyone want a water filtration system? In Arlington, a water filtration system might not make much sense right away because we have a pretty good water system. The water is safe and doesn’t taste too bad. The city’s report on their water can be seen here.

But why settle for water that is simply good. Make the water in your home perfect.

While the City of Arlington does an excellent job of making abundant water safe for drinking, but the City of Arlington drinking water “averages about 90 ppm or 5 grains/gallon. This is considered to be a moderately hard water.” Hard water is not harmful to humans in any way, but without a water filtration system, it comes with its own challenges to your skin, your pipes, and your vegetation.

Your Skin:

Hard water makes it very difficult to rinse most soaps and detergents from the skin. A build up of these soap may also be considered an effect of hard water. This type of buildup can be very irritating, especially for people with sensitive skin. Soap residue can also clog the skin’s pores, which can trap dirt and oil just below the surface of the skin. When this happens, acne and pimples can occur. Installing a water filtration system would go far to eliminate these pitfalls.

Since hard water can prevent soaps and shampoos from lathering properly, many people tend to use more than is necessary. These excess products will usually only lead to more of a buildup on the skin and on the pocketbook. The installation of a water filtration system might be a great expense up front it may save money in the future.

Your Pipes:

Hard water can be very tough on your home’s plumbing, and if you’re living in Arlington (and most or most of Texas), you have hard water. While most ordinary water that is used by homes has some amount of minerals like calcium, lime, and iron, if there are too many of these present in it, they can build up over time and cause your water’s flow to become sluggish and cause other plumbing troubles such as more frequent clogging and lime scale that builds up on both your shower-head and on the doors and walls of your shower. However, the more you know about hard water and its effect on your plumbing, the more you can do to prevent it.

Hard water can damage pipes and shower-heads slowly over time because of the buildup of lime and calcium. These buildups can also appear whitish and crusty. As time goes on, these kinds of deposits can clog the pipes and jets of your faucets and shower, making the water flow slow to a drip. In most cases, you either have to use a harsh chemical solvent to either get rid of this mineral scaling or replace the pipes completely.

Shower-heads aren’t the only plumbing that suffers from hard water. Your faucets in the kitchen and the bathroom can also be affected. Faucets that drip can leave hard water stains on your sinks that are very difficult to eliminate and can also damage rubber washers. It can also gum up the inner workings of the faucet, causing clogs and other problems that will cost hundreds of dollars in plumbing repair. If your pipes are prone to clogs to begin with, hard water will only increase the problem, and most commercial drain cleaners have no effect on mineral buildup. Hard water can impede the function of your shower and faucets, costing you time and money, so knowing the signs and symptoms can help you to address the problem before it gets too serious. One of the best preventative measures to take against pipe build-up is installing a water filtration system to take the minerals out of your water.

Your Vegetation:

Residents of Arlington enjoy a good lawn, and like most Texans, have a great green thumb. Therefore it is imperative to put the highest quality food and water to your lawn and other plants.

When hard water is used for irrigation, it’s the same as adding a small amount of lime every time you water. Over time, this continual addition of lime will increase the pH (the measure of if something is a base or an acid) the measure of of the growing medium. An increase in pH (moving towards a base) is more pronounced in containers because they are watered frequently. Soils, however, are not as affected because rainfall helps to counteract it. Nevertheless, hard water can still cause some problems when irrigating outdoors. In overhead sprinklers, it can cause white, scale-like deposits to develop on leaves as minerals are left behind when the water evaporates. Similar deposits can clog drip-irrigation systems.

Many plants can tolerate a wide range of pH, although some plants—most notably petunias and acid-loving (low pH levels) plants like azaleas—are sensitive to high pH levels. An increase in pH causes young leaves to turn pale and yellowish, while leaf veins remain green. This interveinal chlorosis (a condition in which leaves produce insufficient chlorophyll—the stuff that makes your plants green and converts sunlight into energy) is sometimes referred to as a lime-induced chlorosis and is actually the result of an iron deficiency due to high pH levels. It won’t kill the plant, but it will make it look unhealthy and reduce its vigor.

The best way to eliminate these problems is to install a water filtration system. This is especially true in a place where hard water is present like Arlington, Texas.