# Water hardness test kit



## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

I know this has been covered on and off before and there is debate as to the best properties of water carbonate , magnesium content - I did some research to find out exactly where my local tap water came from -

http://www.unitedutilities.com/waterquality.aspx - united utilities -post code look up

oh great I thought - my local water is sourced from bore holes and when that runs out the river Dee stumps it up - in effect it varies depending on the bore hole water levels

it also shows as moderately hard 250 ppm - dam - the rest of the effing area and the whole of Liverpool gets nice soft water from the lake district piped past Southport without stopping.

So is the answer Ashbeck to get the hardness down to 35-55 ppm at £1.10 for 5 ltrs

Hand on I thought how about my undersink carbon water filter kit - is it doing anything hardness wise ? - so I picked up a calmag kit for a £4 from toolstation

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p91729?searchstr=water%20teste

you pop 10ml of water in the tube and then add a drop at a time - shake it - and when the water turns pink to blue - count the drops added and multiply by 20 to get your water hardness in PPM parts per million.









Results - tap water 220ppm / with carbon/ scale filter 40PPM - win

am I removing vital other minerals - no idea - probably but at least I'm not throwing hard water through my machine - this is the undersink kit I fitted £29 -

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p84582?searchstr=water%20filter

or you could buy 131 ltrs of ashbeck -

so where does this leave me - I'm not sure, the filters need replacing every 6 months for £9 do they keep the scale down to 40 PPM - I will monitor over the next few months .


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