When you think of your tap water quality, what are the first kinds of words that come to mind? For Perth tap water, things like the taste and smell of chlorine are likely to bubble to the surface. You would be forgiven for not thinking about your water as “hard” or “soft – after all, how can a liquid be hard?
While it sounds somewhat counterintuitive, water hardness is one of the biggest factors impacting how your water affects your home. Your water may not taste or feel particularly different, but Perth water hardness can manifest in a wide variety of frustrating, often quite expensive ways.
This article will take a deeper look into what hard water is, what causes it, and how it specifically impacts people in the Greater Perth area.
What is Hard Water?
While it may seem unusual to describe a liquid as “hard” or “soft”, water hardness is an important metric that can have a significant impact on your home and quality of life. Hardness is a measure of how many dissolved minerals are present in your tap water, primarily focusing on calcium and magnesium.
Water that is considered “hard” has more than 60mg of these dissolved minerals per litre of water. Once your water crosses this threshold, you will likely begin to notice things like limescale spots on your taps and shower screens, a white chalky film building up inside your kettle, and even a slight difference in the softness of your laundry.
Hard water can be difficult to address without a dedicated water softener. The dissolved minerals in Perth tap water are unaffected by the activated carbon cartridges used in common jug filters and benchtop systems. Protecting your taps, fixtures, and appliances from Perth water hardness requires a specialised water softening system – or a whole home filtration system with a built-in water softener.
Is Perth Water Hard or Soft?
Most people living in the greater Perth region will likely have above-average water hardness. The exact qualities of tap water can vary significantly from one home to another, influenced by a wide range of factors like the age and quality of your property’s pipes or whether your home is connected to a rainwater tank. However, for the majority of residents living in homes connected to mains water, the hard water Perth experience will be very familiar.
Water hardness is measured by levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in your water, with anything over 60 mg of calcium and magnesium salts per litre of water considered “hard”. The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) further define water with TDS levels over 200 mg/L as being in a state of “elevated hardness”.
Perth water hardness commonly registers between 120 and 180 mg/L, with the Water Corporation’s latest reports showing that more than 78% of their monitored water sources had high enough TDS levels to be considered hard water. Specific regions (Neerabup, Two Rocks, and Yanchep) even tested above the elevated hardness threshold.
Perth Hard Water Causes
Why does Perth have hard water? It is largely due to where the water comes from prior to the treatment process. Australia is one of the driest countries on the planet, and WA is the country’s largest landmass. We simply do not receive enough rainfall to use surface reservoirs for our disparate, widespread population, so many communities rely heavily on groundwater.
Groundwater is drinking water drawn up from underground aquifers. Since the water comes from tiny cracks and pores in the ground, the quality of the soil and stone around an aquifer has a significant impact on the quality of that water, and mineral deposit levels will be significantly higher than if it was drawn from an above-ground river or rainwater tank.
While the reliance on groundwater varies from one community to another across WA, its prevalence in the capital makes water hardness Perth residents’ common concern. Consuming these minerals is not harmful, so state water providers do not typically devote resources to removing them from the water during the treatment process. However, having hard water in your home can lead to several frustrating and expensive issues.
Impacts of Perth Water Hardness
There are many factors that make water hardness Perth residents’ concern. The most common and easily observable impact is the formation of limescale on any surface where hard water has dried. Calcium, magnesium, and the other minerals that dissolve into hard water may slip through water filters, but they are still solid particles that will be left behind when the water evaporates.
Limescale is the common term for the chalky mineral deposits and white or yellow scales that build up around surfaces that interact with Perth hard water. The minerals bond with glass, metal, and stone surfaces, creating a stubborn residue that can be quite difficult to wipe away. If left untreated, this residue can cause permanent damage to these surfaces, etching glass showerscreens and creating breeding grounds for bacteria that can bore through stone benchtops.
Calcium build-up can also damage the heating elements of things like coffee machines and hot water systems, shortening their lifespans and leading to expensive repairs. Even ordinary pipes and other water-using appliances can be clogged and damaged by the formation of limescale, and mineral stains around taps and fixtures are very common in areas with hard water.
Hard water can also directly affect your shower experience. The high TDS levels in hard water change the way it interacts with products like soaps and shampoos, making them lather less effectively and rinsing them away less thoroughly. This means that you need to use larger amounts of these products to achieve the desired results, working through each bottle or bar faster and increasing the amount of chemicals you are rubbing into your skin. The less effective rinsing also leaves larger amounts of these chemicals to dry on your skin and in your hair, stripping away natural oils and leaving them more prone to damage and irritation.
The same issue happens anywhere else a soap or detergent-based product needs to lather in order to work effectively. Dishes require more dish soap to clean, and laundry detergents and fabric softeners are less effective, sometimes leaving a slight soapy residue on your clothes after they are washed.
Is Your Home in a Hard Water Perth Hotspot
Every home is different, and no two tap water supplies will be exactly the same. Much of Perth’s mains water is drawn from the ground, but the city’s water supply is also supplemented by desalination plants, rainwater dams, and recycled water. This makes it difficult to predict the exact water hardness in a specific Perth home.
Fortunately, the Water Corporation (a government body responsible for supplying water across Western Australia) has provided a number of tools that allow you to check the water for your specific location. This online tool allows you to see a breakdown of which water sources supply your home, including details of how those supplies have changed over time.
They also have a more detailed water resource and licensing register that allows you to view different primary water sources across larger areas. This is a more technical resource, but it functions as a Perth water hardness map.
The Water Corporation has a great deal of information about WA’s water, from articles on specific chemicals and contaminants to archived reports on water quality (including hardness measurements). Their data is an excellent resource to help you make an informed decision about protecting your home from hard water and unwanted impurities.
What Can I Do About Perth Water Hardness?
Addressing Perth hard water can be difficult, with independent water softeners often being expensive and adding a salty taste to your water. Fortunately, a local Perth business has established itself as one of the best solutions for softening your water: Complete Home Filtration.
Our whole-home filtration systems soften your water as it enters your home without requiring an external power source or adding salt to your water. The CHF6000 system has a dedicated ion-exchange softening resin that absorbs the calcium and magnesium particles from your water, replacing them with harmless sodium ions. This significantly reduces hard water damage and limescale formation without affecting the taste of your water.
The Complete Home Filtration system also filters your water through a high-grade, one-micron activated carbon filter and a dedicated KDF 55 cartridge to deal with chlorine, pesticides, bacteria, heavy metals, and more. The system is protected by an Australian-made cover with a UV-resistant coating designed specifically to resist Australian conditions and keep the system cool in our hot summers.
To find out more about our award-winning filtration systems, send us a message below or call our team on 1300 693 458.