Does Melbourne Have Hard Water?

The quality of your water has a subtle but far-reaching impact on your quality of life. From the taste of your morning coffee to how you feel after a hot shower, better water can improve everyday experiences in a multitude of ways. However, an issue with that water can also bring issues into many different aspects of your life.

Melbourne tap water is widely regarded as some of the best in Australia, but there is a lot more to water quality than how it tastes. Melbourne may not have the same concerns about chlorine taste or cloudy discolouration that arise in other cities, but subtler factors can have just as much of an impact on your water quality.

Water hardness is one of the most important factors in how Melbourne water affects your home, but what is it? Is water hardness Melbourne residents’ blind spot when it comes to their famous water quality? This article will explore some of the most common questions about hard water Melbourne locals have asked, clearing up any confusion and offering solutions for anyone who wants to make sure their water quality is as high as it can be.

A black metal water bottle being filled from a kitchen tap between plates of fresh food.

What is Hard Water?

Water is described as “hard” when it contains elevated levels of dissolved minerals, typically calcium and magnesium compounds. These levels are measured in Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), with levels above 60 mg/L considered “hard”.

Water hardness is primarily caused by mineral compounds in different water sources, so a city’s primary water source will significantly impact levels of calcium and magnesium in its tap water. If a town primarily uses groundwater from underground aquifers or river water that flows through limestone banks, it will typically have quite hard water.

Hard water can have a number of frustrating effects throughout your home, from building up limescale in water-using appliances to reducing the effectiveness of skin and hair care products. Calcium build-up can damage hot water systems and wear out the heating elements in appliances like washing machines, reducing their lifespans and often leading to expensive repairs.

A single drop of water dripping from a chrome tap against a blurry yellow background.

Is Melbourne Water Hard or Soft?

According to TDS thresholds and hard water guidelines, most of Melbourne has very soft water. Inner city suburbs typically enjoy TDS levels between 11 mg/L and 38 mg/L, comfortably below the level considered “hard”.

This softness is largely due to Melbourne’s surface reservoirs and dams. Rather than relying on groundwater or rivers with higher mineral contents and susceptibility to environmental influences, the Melbourne water supply comes from rainwater and stable surface reservoirs.

However, this is not a universal experience across the greater Melbourne area. Victoria’s water supply is managed by a number of different bodies and systems, each of which draws their water from different sources. If you live in an area that draws on river water, you may have significantly higher hardness levels.

The Barwon Water area, for example, has a number of testing regions that regularly show TDS levels above 60 mg/L. Several of these providers offer online tools that allow you to look up your address and receive a detailed breakdown of your water’s properties and qualities. This is an excellent way to see if there are any subtle concerns in your water that might need addressing, including whether you should be on the lookout for Melbourne water hardness. 

Melbourne Water Hardness Level Checks

A blanket search for “how hard is Melbourne water” will return page after page of broad results saying that Melbourne as a whole has very soft water. However, every home is different, and there are some simple, analogue checks you can do to see if your home needs that extra level of protection.

The easiest way to detect a rare case of Melbourne hard water is to take a bar of soap and a container of water, then rub the soap between your hands in the water. If the soap lathers easily and bubbles start appearing over the surface, you have soft water.

However, if the water in the container starts to turn murky and the lather takes longer to form, there’s likely to be a higher concentration of dissolved minerals interfering with the lathering process.

Another test is to check the undersides of your taps and shower heads for chalky white residue. This limescale build-up is commonplace in other areas where hard water is more common, but if you are noticing Melbourne limescale then you may need to take steps to investigate and protect your home from hard water damage.

A single drop of water dripping from a chrome tap against a blurry yellow background.

Other Cities vs Melbourne Hard Water Comparisons

The scarcity of Melbourne hard water makes it quite an outlier among most of Australia’s mainland capital cities. Australia is one of the driest countries in the world, so most of its cities aren’t able to rely on rainwater to supply their entire populations.

Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide have some of the hardest water of Australia’s capital cities, with TDS levels regularly measuring more than ten times what is found in some of Melbourne’s testing areas. While most states have issues with hard water damage in rural and regional areas, residents of these major cities also need to take action to protect their homes from water hardness.

Sydney water meets the requirements to be classified as soft, but it does not quite rival Melbourne water hardness results. The NSW capital’s average water hardness is around 50 mg/L, ten milligrams below the hard water threshold but not as soft as Melbourne’s 11-38 range.

However, Melbourne tap water is not the softest in the country. Both Hobart and Darwin commonly have TDS levels around 10 mg/L, making the southernmost and northernmost capitals the leaders in water softness. If someone has moved from one of these cities to an area in the greater Melbourne region that may be on the hard end of the state’s water hardness spectrum, they may need to look into a Melbourne water softener.

Top-down view of a glass of water with shadows and refracted light stretching out across a white tabletop.

How to Deal With Water Hardness in Melbourne

Because people do not often need to consider water hardness in Melbourne, solutions can be difficult to come by. Common carbon water filters will not have any impact on water hardness, and even a dedicated softening jug has no impact on hard water in your shower or laundry.

Fortunately, Complete Home Filtration has systems that can improve water quality for anyone in Melbourne, regardless of their home’s water hardness. Our whole home water filter systems have a built-in ion exchange softening resin to capture calcium and magnesium ions before they can enter your home, replacing them with harmless sodium.

For the broader Melbourne population, the system also filters out 98.5% of chlorine and its by-products. It even has configurations to filter out the chloramines that won’t be blocked by activated carbon filters. Heavy metals, pesticides, and a broad range of unwanted chemicals and contaminants are blocked by the combination of high-grade carbon, mixed media KDF-55, ion exchange resin, and single-micron sediment filters – all covered by an Australian-made cover specifically designed to protect the system from Australian conditions.