Water Treatment
Signs You Have Hard Water in Your Akron Home
If your glasses come out of the dishwasher spotty and your faucets wear a white crust, you have hard water. Almost everyone in Greater Akron does. Here are the signs, what it quietly costs you, and how to deal with it.
The everyday signs
Hard water is water loaded with dissolved calcium and magnesium. You usually notice it as:
- Spotty, cloudy glasses and dishes even after a full wash.
- White or green crust building on faucets, showerheads, and aerators.
- Soap and shampoo that will not lather, and a film left on skin and hair.
- Dry, itchy skin and dull, stiff laundry.
- Lower water pressure at fixtures as scale narrows the openings.
One or two of these and you have hard water. All of them and it is on the harder end.
How hard is hard
Hardness is measured in grains per gallon. Here is the rough scale most labs use.
| Grains per gallon | Rating |
|---|---|
| 0 to 3 | Soft |
| 3 to 7 | Moderately hard |
| 7 to 11 | Hard |
| 11 and up | Very hard |
Most of Northeast Ohio lands in the moderately hard to hard range, and well water out past Doylestown and Seville often runs higher. A two dollar test strip gets you a ballpark, or we can test it on a visit.
What hard water quietly costs you
The spots are annoying. The real bill is hidden inside your equipment.
Scale builds up inside your water heater, whether it is a tank or a tankless unit. It insulates the burner from the water, so the heater works harder, burns more gas, and dies years early. Hard water is the number one reason heaters fail before their time around here. That is why an annual flush matters so much, and why we explain it on our water heaters page.
It also shortens the life of dishwashers, washing machines, and every faucet in the house. You pay for hard water in replacements, not in one big invoice.
How to confirm it
- Look at your fixtures. Crust on the aerator is the clearest tell.
- Run a test strip from any hardware store and match the color.
- Ask for a test on a service visit. We will give you the grains-per-gallon number straight.
What to do about it
The fix for hardness is a water softener, which swaps the scale-causing minerals out before they reach your pipes. If you are also worried about taste, chlorine, or contaminants, that is a filtration question, and the two jobs are not the same. We cover the difference in water softener vs whole-house filtration so you do not buy the wrong thing.
For the equipment side, our water treatment crew sizes and installs softeners and filtration sized to your actual water and household.
Worth doing before you buy a new heater
If you are about to replace a water heater, especially a tankless unit, deal with the water first. Dropping a premium heater onto untreated hard water is how people lose half its lifespan. Soften the water, protect the investment.
Mackin has served Greater Akron since 2009, with 17,000 plus jobs and a 4.9 rating across 600 plus reviews. If you want to know exactly how hard your water is and whether a softener pays off for you, book a visit or call 330-825-3686. We will give you the number and an honest recommendation, no pressure.