Your municipality is likely adding chlorine or chloramines as a general disinfectant. And while its safe to drink, the extra chlorine in your water can leave behind an unpleasant taste and odor, discolor your produce and affect the performance of some ingredients, including yeast. Excess chlorine in municipal water can change the gluten structure of dough, making it tough or slowing the fermentation process.

Temporary Solutions for Municipal Water
• Use bottled water
• Boil your water

Permanent Solution with Filtering
If you’re concerned about your baking this holiday and want to ensure your water’s taste by removing the contaminants from the city water, you might want to consider the benefits of a water filtration system. Water filtration systems provide great tasting water at significantly less cost than bottled water. A whole home filtration system can provide fresh, filtered water throughout your home with no filters to replace for the life of the system (10+ years) and you can eliminate the need for those expensive refrigerator filters or pitcher filters, saving you hundreds of dollars.
By installing a whole home water filtration system or a 2-in-1 water softener and whole home filter, you can easily filter out chlorine and other impurities from municipal water while improving the taste of your food.
To learn more about selecting the best system for your home, use this handy checklist.

The post Don’t Let Hard Water Minerals Ruin Your Holiday Bundt Cake appeared first on HomeWater 101.

If you don’t have a water softener, the task of installing one isn’t as hard as it might seem. Installing a water softener can save you money in the long run (to help pay off those holiday gift bills) and provide you and your holiday guests with soft, clean water.

DIY Checklist

• Examine the water softener buyers guide
• Determine what kind of water softener you will need and where to find it
• Assess the tools you need to install the system
• Purchase flex connectors to reduce installation time
• Choose the appropriate salt pellets for your water softener. High-quality salts, like evaporated salt, which is the purest form of salt, will result in fewer maintenance problems over time
• Go through a DIY installation checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything

Benefits

• Save 90 dollars per year on appliances
• Save 450 dollars per year on everyday products (shampoo, lotion, cleaning products)
• Save 60 dollars per year on having clean pipes
• Save 200 dollars per year on clothing and towels
• Save up to 29 percent on water heating energy costs in just one year

Whether you’re at the beginning of your water softener search or simply in maintenance mode, there are easy tips for every stage of the DIY process. After examining all the different components, you’ll be able to strike the perfect balance and find the best water softening solution for your home.

The post Quick DIY Install Tips To Help Your Holidays Be Bright appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Assistance may lie with a water softener. It removes hard water minerals, allowing water to effectively clean your skin. Most homes in the United States have hard water.

Here’s how you know if your home – and your skin – can benefit from a water softener.

Razor Burn

As shorts and swimming suits make their summer debut, shaving increases. You may be experiencing increased incidences of razor burn and accompanying shaving bumps. This can be especially painful if your skin is already sensitive from sun exposure. This doesn’t mean you are over shaving, but rather, your water may be hard. A water softener may be the fix your gams need.

Squeaky Skin

Soft, clean skin is one thing, but that dry, squeaky feeling after bathing means hard minerals are stripping your skin of its natural oils. With sunburned skin, you need all the moisture you can get to help your skin heal. Soft water from a water softener naturally helps keep your skin softer.

Clogged Pores

Too much sun can lead to blisters and burns. Heat leads to perspiration, which can also mean oilier skin. If you are seeing more breakouts than normal on your face, don’t immediately blame the sun and heat. Hard water’s high mineral content leaves a film of soap scum on the skin, which can result in clogged pores. The sun and heat will do enough damage. Let your water be your last worry.

Skin-Saving Test

Not sure if you need a water softener? Check out this free and easy test. Test your home water for free. You’ll discover how soft water might be the answer to soothing your skin this summer with a Whirlpool Water Softener from EcoPureHome.

The post Soothing Sun-Ravaged Skin with Soft Water appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Painful shave

Does your shaving cream fail to protect your delicate skin when shaving? Chances are that hard water is making this daily routine a painful chore. Hard water minerals such as calcium and magnesium react negatively with the ingredients in your products. As a result, you don’t get the rich lather you desire and may feel the need to use more product (which quickly becomes expensive). Additionally, hard water minerals prevent your razor from gliding easily over skin, leading to painful cuts and bumps, as well as quickly dulling the blade. By softening your water, you’ll go through your razors at a slower rate, saving you money.

Dry, tangled hair

Hard water causes difficult-to-manage, dry, and tangled hair after washing. The same minerals that build up on your shower doors build up on your hair shaft, making it rough and harder to rinse the soap from. This results in product buildup on your tresses, making them dull, lifeless and hard to style. Water with large amounts of iron can also cause orange, brassy or even a greenish tint to your hair, stripping it of its healthy properties. Some short-term remedies for these hair headaches include a clarifying rinse like apple cider vinegar (ACV) or a chelating shampoo, but they won’t permanently solve your hard water hair woes.

More time spent cleaning

Hard water problems go beyond the bathroom by also affecting the time it takes you to wash dishes and the effort it takes to scrub scale buildup from faucets and shower doors. Products don’t work as efficiently as they should, so you may notice a lack a soapsuds and a constant need to reapply soap to your sponge, increasing your cleaning time by up to 50%.

The softening solution

While there are short-term fixes to restore lather to your daily cleaning and grooming routine, you’ll never truly solve your hard water problems until you soften your water. Soft water will not only fix your lather troubles, but will work around the clock to prevent other hard water issues such as spotty dishes, embarrassing stains, scale buildup on your fixtures and scummy shower walls. Find out if you have hard water by taking our free test. Then, find the best water softener for your home with a Whirlpool Water Softener.

The post 3 Ways to Get Your Lather Back appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Do you know where your water comes from? While you may not think much about it, water touches every corner of your home. Most homeowners get their water from a municipal source (versus a private well), but did you know that even water from a city supply could be partially sourced from a well? Your water can come to you in several ways: from the city water supply, a city well or a private well.

Determining your water source

If you rely on your city for water, how can you learn more about where it comes from? Start by checking with your water supplier for more information (their contact information is typically on your water bill). Additionally, you should receive a consumer confidence or drinking water quality report online or in the mail each year. This report tells you where your water comes from and what’s in it and may even include your water hardness (you can test your water hardness for free here). Homes with a private well won’t receive a water report, as they rely on a septic system instead of sewer systems.

Decoding well water differences

If you discover that a portion of your water comes from a well, you may wonder about the quality. Municipal water systems treat all of their water sources, making it safe and clean to drink and use in your home. Homeowners with private wells, which use ground water, are responsible for maintaining their well with regular service and periodically testing for bacteria, pesticides and other common contaminants.

Another characteristic of well water is that it tends to contain more minerals and sediment. Sand and soil can enter wells through infrastructure defects in the well, and the harder your water is, the greater the quantity of calcium and magnesium there will be. Together, these two issues can lead to clogged valves and fixtures, as well as damaged water heaters and appliances.

Selecting the right softener

If your home relies heavily on well water, investing in a system that not only softens but also removes extra sediment and iron is key.

Wondering if your water supply contains too much iron? Unless the water straight from your tap is yellow or orange colored, you may not realize that you have high levels of iron. Ferrous, or clear water, iron completely dissolves in water, which is why you don’t notice it right away. The presence of clear water iron will be characterized by reddish-brown stains in your sink or toilet and yellow-tinged water after your water has sat out. An easy way to rid your household of this problem is to add iron-removing salt pellets to your water softener. Additionally, larger capacity softeners are also capable of removing extremely high levels of ferrous iron. If you find these systems are not taking care of the problem, a separate iron system can be installed before your softener. This system will help remove the iron and eliminate staining.

While you won’t see the damage of sediment-rich water on your fixtures, it can easily cause muddying in your softener or clog pipes and appliances over time—both of which can lead to costly repairs. This is another instance where a more advanced softening and filtering solution will improve the quality of your water and safeguard your home against unnecessary repairs.

Whether you’re on well water, city water or a combination of the two, there is a water system that can meet your needs. From making your hard water soft to including a whole-home filter, your biggest water woes can be easily fixed no matter where your water comes from.

The post Where does your water come from? appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Crusty White Buildup
White crust on faucets and showerheads and cloudy glass on shower doors are telltale signs of hard water. Hard water minerals (calcium and magnesium) are to blame for these bathroom nuisances, causing flaky buildup and inability to fully rinse away soap and cleaners. A water softener removes the excess calcium and magnesium from your water, keeping faucets sparkling and eliminating the problem before the water is even plumbed throughout the house.

Damaged Appliances
Appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers, coffee makers and water heaters are cornerstones of the home and see a lot of use. They also rely heavily on the use of water for proper functioning. If hard water is being plumbed to these appliances, scale can build up in the pipes and within the systems themselves. Because of that, there will be reduced water flow to your refrigerator, and your dishwasher will no longer clean dishes as effectively. A thick layer of lime scale may even build up in your water heater, making it less efficient. And that morning cup of coffee that you love so much may taste worse or take longer to brew. In addition to costly damages, the lifespan of these appliances can be reduced by 30 to 50 percent with hard water. A water softener will minimize the need for costly repairs or premature replacement.

Stiff, Discolored Laundry
The minerals found in hard water deposit themselves onto fabrics, which cause discoloration and stiffness. Laundry detergent does not activate and perform well when used with hard water, which minimizes its effectiveness unless you add more soap to the wash cycle. This quickly becomes costly and wasteful. Soft water will allow you to use less laundry detergent while getting cleaner, brighter and softer results.

If using soft water sounds like a good New Year’s resolution for your household, there’s no better time to find the water softening system for your home. Everyone and everything will benefit—and it will be the easiest resolution you’ve ever made.

The post Three household problems you can solve in 2018 appeared first on HomeWater 101.

You know that water softeners eliminate several headaches around your home—from spotty dishes and stiff laundry to costly appliance repairs. But a common question is whether a softener will also remove important minerals from your water that you and your family need to stay healthy.

Happily, this is not a concern for water softener owners, and here’s why:

1. The minerals found in your tap water are in a form that your body can’t properly digest. If you’re looking to add key vitamins and minerals to your diet, it is more important to focus on the food you eat. A well-balanced meal plan will provide the daily dose of nutrients you need to stay healthy. If you’re concerned about your intake, consider adding a multivitamin or supplement.
2. Water softeners are designed to capture and remove specific minerals (magnesium and calcium) from your water. This process gets rid of the home-damaging hardness minerals and leaves minerals like fluoride (which helps prevent tooth decay) intact.

Not only will a water softener eliminate white, crusty buildup, scum rings in your tub, and spotty dishes, it won’t remove any essential nutrients from your water either. To give your home the gift of good “health,” start by getting a free water test to help you evaluate your water and find the best softening solution for your home.

The post Myth: I’m losing “good” minerals from my water appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Spotty Stemware

Holiday dinner tables gleam when you set out your best stemware—as long as they’re spot-free. To remove hard water deposits, soak your glasses in two cups of warm vinegar (preferably white vinegar) for approximately three minutes. Give them a quick rinse and dry with a lint-free towel to eliminate the potential for the spots and streaks to return.

Clogged Showerhead

Frustrated that instead of a steady, powerful spray, your guests will shower under a slow drip? One of the best defenses in your war on mineral deposits may be sitting in your kitchen cupboard. Pour white vinegar into a small, plastic bag or a shower cap. Pull the bag over the showerhead, secure with a rubber band and leave on overnight. Your showerhead will be clean and look like new—with no scrubbing needed.

Rust Stains

Want to tackle rust before it becomes a major problem? The chemicals in commercial products provide a powerful solution for eliminating scale buildup and rust stains left behind by hard water. Although this solution may be more expensive and contain harsh chemicals, commercial products offer a ready-made, powerful solution for temporarily removing rust stains.

Faucets

If you want to maintain a sparkling, spot-free faucet, squeegee or wipe down the surface after you’re done using it with a squeeze of lemon. Like vinegar, the acidity of lemon juice dissolves the hard water minerals deposited on water fixtures. Let the lemon juice sit for 10 minutes, then simply rinse and wipe dry.

Bathtubs

There’s nothing worse than stubborn spots in your tub. A homemade remedy can temporarily cut through the minerals left behind by hard water. Create this easy remedy by mixing a 50-50 solution of distilled water and vinegar to spot-treat scale. After you apply the solution with a spray bottle, let it sit a couple minutes before wiping clean. To create an even more powerful scrub, combine vinegar with baking soda and smear it on the spots. Let it sit for 15 minutes, add a little elbow grease if necessary and rinse with water.

Shower Doors

If it’s spot-free shower doors you long for, try rubbing a dryer sheet over the water spots. This solution won’t reverse years of spots, but it may be the perfect fix to reverse a few days of buildup. Since you can use a new or used dryer sheet, get into the habit of wiping down your shower door before you throw the dryer sheet in the trash.

The Permanent Fix

The above tips provide temporary solutions to hard water spots, but won’t fix your hard water problems for good. If you are frustrated with the regular maintenance associated with hard water spots, try installing a water softener before your first guests arrive this holiday season. Installing a water softener is a permanent solution because it filters out the hard water minerals before water flows through faucets and showerheads. The only maintenance required is to replenish the salt supply and conduct regular maintenance checks.

Your holiday to-do list can be overwhelming, but following these tips will keep your home sparkling this season, giving you one less thing to stress about.

The post Tips for removing scale buildup before the holidays appeared first on HomeWater 101.

Could hard water be hurting your hair?

Have you tried every hair product under the sun but still have dry, limp, dull or unmanageable hair? Or what about your hair color? Does it seem to have an orange, green or brassy tint or look faded within a few days of spending a small fortune at the salon? If you’ve noticed any of these problems, hard water may be the culprit.

How the damage is done

The minerals found in hard water (calcium, magnesium and iron) can affect your hair, making your products less effective and your hair more difficult to manage. Just like the scale build-up that forms on your shower doors, faucets and in your pipes, these hardness minerals also build up on your skin and hair. This build-up on the hair can leave it feeling dry and weighed down. Additionally, these minerals combine with your natural oils and can leave a greasy feeling at the scalp. Hard water also makes shampoos, styling products and chemical services less effective because the minerals in the water react with the ingredients in your hair products. This results in less lathering and ineffective cleansing and the inability of conditioners to penetrate the hair follicles (feels dry at the ends). It may even relax your perm.

Four fixes for hard water hair

If you suspect that your hard water is affecting your hair, here are a couple of fixes to bring your strands back to life:

1. Apple cider vinegar (ACV). ACV can reverse the effects of hard water on hair in the short term. ACV acts as a hair clarifier, removing build-up while maintaining hair’s color and shine. After you shampoo and rinse, do a final rinse with the ACV to get rid of hard water minerals.
2. Chelating or clarifying shampoo. This type of hair cleanser is designed to remove heavy build-up. Because this type of shampoo can strip your hair of its moisture, it’s recommended to keep use to once a week, and add an intense moisturizing conditioner to your daily routine to keep your tresses hydrated.
3. Lemon or lime rinse. The juice from lemons (or limes) can reduce the dullness created by hard water and the soap residue that is left behind. Ridding your strands of that build-up will leave your hair shinier, and as an added bonus, lemon juice can help minimize dandruff as well. Simply combine two tablespoons of lemon juice with one cup of warm water, and pour it slowly over your hair after shampooing. Allow it to sit for at least a minute before rinsing it out completely.
4. Water softener. This appliance is a permanent fix that will keep your locks looking vibrant and healthy (no build-up!) while saving you money (less spent on shampoo, conditioner and styling products!). By installing a softener, hardness minerals are removed before water even gets to your showerhead, so you never have to experience dull, limp hair again.

The softening solution

ACV, special shampoos and lemon rinses are great ways to help your hair in the short term, but you’ll never truly be in the clear. A water softener provides 24/7 relief to your household—and hair. An easy first step to get you on your way to softer, healthier hair is by ordering a hard water test strip. Once you’ve tested your water and know your hard water number, you’ll be ready to find the best water softening solution for your needs.

The post What’s wrong with my hair? appeared first on HomeWater 101.

It’s what you don’t see that hurts the home

A home is most likely one of the biggest purchases you’ll ever make, so it’s no surprise you want to keep everything in it running smoothly. But if you’re like 85% of homeowners in the U.S, there’s a silent culprit impacting every area of your abode: hard water. While some signs of hard water are obvious, it’s what you can’t see that’s even more harmful.

Clogged, dirty pipes

The harder your water is, the more minerals are present that can leech onto the insides of your pipes throughout your home. While hard water build-up can occur in all pipes, it is more common in pipes that carry hot water. Eventually, the increased presence of scale begins to constrict the opening in your pipes, reducing the flow and water pressure at fixtures like your showerhead and faucets. In extreme cases, the scale can completely block your pipes and cause them to burst due to pressure buildup. Because you can’t look inside your pipes very easily, this silent problem often goes untreated for many years and only makes itself known when a major (and costly) issue arises.

Inefficient, overworked appliances

Hard water also contributes to inefficient operation of your major water-using appliances, including the water heater, dishwasher and refrigerator. The pipes and valves within these appliances can also become clogged with scale, reducing water flow or causing leaks, resulting in potentially expensive part replacements. This can amount to a 30% to 50% decrease in the lifespan of major appliances due to the extreme wear and tear, as well as increased maintenance needs. Additionally, scale buildup can increase energy bills by up to 29% by reducing the efficiency of your water heater and other appliances, making them work twice as hard to do their jobs.

The water softener solve

During the water softening process, tiny resin beads act as a sponge, absorbing the hardness minerals from your water. This simple process keeps your water from transporting these minerals throughout your house, keeping pipes and appliances clean. Every house has its own specific needs, so the best place to start is by finding the best softening solution for your home. The right water softener will ensure your pipes, appliances and home stay in top working order.

The post Hard water’s impact on pipes and appliances appeared first on HomeWater 101.