Why it's Harder to Clean With Hard Water

Nothing is cheap these days, it’s true. One of the (many) reasons we’re so eager to bring top quality water softening solutions to your home, is the amount of money and time we will save you! 

 

And it’s not just the energy efficiency improvements that you will see – it's the day-to-day things that also make a huge difference. Limescale build up on surfaces, taps, showerheads (wherever the water touches, really!) will not only be a drain on your precious time through cleaning and descaling, but is also costing you a lot of money in cleaning products! 

 

Hard water also dramatically reduces the lather from soap products and detergents, so you’re having to replace them more often, costing even more. 

We spend around £2 billion annually on household cleaning products as a country, here in Britain. We also spend the equivalent of around 10 whole days cleaning our homes over the course of a year. And it’s no wonder what with so many areas of the country having hard water. 

 

The amount of work that comes with descaling isn’t the only factor in play – hard water also significantly reduces the efficacy of cleaning products.  

Cleaning and soap products have something called Surfactants (or “surface active agent”) in them. Surfactants are molecules that serve to decrease surface tension (such as between water and air or between water and oil). In the context of cleaning, this helps them to lift dirt off of surfaces. Surfactants are “amphiphilic”, which essentially means they have parts that are hydrophilic (that ‘like’ water) and parts that are hydrophobic (that don’t). The hydrophilic head is surrounded by water and the hydrophobic tails are suspended in the air (this is how they decrease surface tension, by interacting like this with the water-air interface). 

 

When there are enough surfactant molecules, they work together to form structures (micelles) that trap and remove dirt – the hydrophobic tails are attracted to it whilst the hydrophilic heads then pull it off the surface. 

 

These react with the calcium and magnesium ions in hard water forming soap scum, which reduces the ability of the product in question to lather properly. 

 

This is why your washing up liquid, soap, shampoo, surface cleaners, just aren’t creating many soap suds. It also means that you need to use more to get the same result, so you are having to replace them more often, spending more money simply because of the hardness of your home water supply. 

We have a fantastic range of water softener systems, to suit homes of all sizes. Having perfectly soft water will prevent all limescale build up and will completely remove all hardness from your water supply. Your cleaning products will be able to do the job they were designed to do, saving you time, money and a lot of hassle! 

 

To find out how the Pure Water People can save you money and protect your home, feel free to get in touch with us!