Water Hardness

Feranija feranija@net... wrote

Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with household
ingredients ? I know a soap will not produce as much suds in hard water as it
will foam in soft water, but the trouble is I can't compare, I don't know how
much soap foam I should expect in soft/hard water.

You could try it with known soft water,
what is sold in bottles as drinking water.

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water soft or
hard, or something in-between regarding amount of calcium and magnesium it
contains.

One relatively crude approach is to just let it evaporate
complete on glass, see how much salt you end up with.

"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...
Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with
household ingredients ? I know a soap will not produce as much suds
in hard water as it will foam in soft water, but the trouble is I
can't compare, I don't know how much soap foam I should expect in
soft/hard water.

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between regarding amount of calcium and
magnesium it contains. Thank you very much.


"Detergent" is not soap and comes in many forms so the sudsing effect can be
extremely variable whether the water is hard or soft. If I recall, there
used to be some crude tests to categorize water as hard or soft using simple
soap. Don't remember the details or if you could find a "simple" soap
nowadays.

I check my water softener occasionally with a simple hardness test kit.
Easy to use. They should be available at pet stores with an aquarium
department. You want the one that tests for general hardness, GH, which is
a measure of the calcium and magnesium. There is another that tests for
total dissolved solids that you won't want. I recently bought one on-line.
It cost about $8 plus $5 for S&H.

SJF

your water company will have all that info. in fact, it's mailed to my
house twice a year
"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...
Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with
household ingredients ? I know a soap will not produce as much suds
in hard water as it will foam in soft water, but the trouble is I
can't compare, I don't know how much soap foam I should expect in
soft/hard water.

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between regarding amount of calcium and
magnesium it contains. Thank you very much.

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 05:27:32 GMT, in misc.consumers.frugal-living "Nicole H"
wrote:

your water company will have all that info. in fact, it's mailed to my
house twice a year
"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...
Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with
household ingredients ? I know a soap will not produce as much suds
in hard water as it will foam in soft water, but the trouble is I
can't compare, I don't know how much soap foam I should expect in
soft/hard water.

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between regarding amount of calcium and
magnesium it contains. Thank you very much.




http://www.mgwater.com/hardfig4.gif

In article , feranija@net... says...

Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with
household ingredients ?

If you just want to test how a particular
soap or detergent reacts with your water
vs pure water, you can buy a gallon of
DISTILLED WATER at Walmart for 58 cents
(where I live). Be sure it says DISTILLED
and not nursery, drinking or spring water
on the label.

"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...
Please, is there any way to determine hardness of tap water with
household ingredients ? I know a soap will not produce as much suds
in hard water as it will foam in soft water, but the trouble is I
can't compare, I don't know how much soap foam I should expect in
soft/hard water.

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between regarding amount of calcium and
magnesium it contains. Thank you very much.


You could boil away a gallon of water in a glass container, then see how
much residue is left.
=Tock

Tock wrote:
"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between

You could boil away a gallon of water in a glass container, then see how
much residue is left.

Good luck cleaning the glass dish afterwards. I have a nasty habit
of putting water on for tea and then forgetting about it, so I've got
more than one pan with a nasty coat of whatever was in the water.
On a metal pan, that stuff is damn near impossible to clean off.
I tried dish soap, lemon juice (it contais an organic acid, so it
should eat away a thin layer of metal, in theory) , elbow grease,
and finally stainless steel polish, and I still have a layer of
something in that pan. I also did the same thing with a non-stick
pan, and that pan had to go into the trash.

- Logan

Logan Shaw wrote:
Tock wrote:
"Feranija" feranija@net... wrote in message
...

I don't need extremely precise results, I just need to know is water
soft or hard, or something in-between

You could boil away a gallon of water in a glass container, then see
how much residue is left.

Good luck cleaning the glass dish afterwards. I have a nasty habit
of putting water on for tea and then forgetting about it, so I've got
more than one pan with a nasty coat of whatever was in the water.
On a metal pan, that stuff is damn near impossible to clean off.
I tried dish soap, lemon juice (it contais an organic acid, so it
should eat away a thin layer of metal, in theory) , elbow grease,
and finally stainless steel polish, and I still have a layer of
something in that pan. I also did the same thing with a non-stick
pan, and that pan had to go into the trash.

Just dont boil it away, let it evaporate when 99% has been boiled away.

In article ,
Logan Shaw wrote:
[ ... ]
Good luck cleaning the glass dish afterwards. I have a nasty habit
of putting water on for tea and then forgetting about it, so I've got
more than one pan with a nasty coat of whatever was in the water.
On a metal pan, that stuff is damn near impossible to clean off.
I tried dish soap, lemon juice (it contais an organic acid, so it
should eat away a thin layer of metal, in theory) , elbow grease,
and finally stainless steel polish, and I still have a layer of
something in that pan. I also did the same thing with a non-stick
pan, and that pan had to go into the trash.

Use something a bit stronger--LimeAway or C-L-R will get the residue
off.


Gary

--
Gary Heston
The Intel ASCI Red supercomputer placed first in the 11/97 list of
the top 500 supercomputers in the world, at 1.338 TeraFLOPs max.
As of 6/05, it wouldn't make the list.

In article ,
says...

Good luck cleaning the glass dish afterwards.

I feel sure you must know about the commercial
products like "Lime Away" which are made for
dissolving hard water deposits. I used to have
to use it to clean my coffee maker periodically,
until I got wise and began using distilled water.
All of the commercial products work best when
warm/warmed.

A water softener is out of the question for me.