How hard is Sydney tap water? Why would a household in Sydney have hard or soft water? Thinking of a liquid as “hard” or “soft” may seem counterintuitive, but it is a significant metric that impacts how your water will affect your home.
While the texture of your hard water may not be noticeably different from soft water when you drink it, water hardness can affect your home in several different ways. Many Australians live with hard water, but there is a significant amount of variation in hardness from one area to another.
Like so many other factors about your water quality, hardness will vary across the country. This article will explore the causes and effects of water hardness, specifically addressing how it affects the Greater Sydney region and what locals can do to make sure their homes are protected from hard water damage.
What is Hard Water?
Water is described as “hard” when it contains elevated levels of dissolved minerals like calcium carbonate and magnesium. These levels are measured in Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), with levels above 60 mg/L considered “hard”.
A city’s primary water source will significantly impact levels of calcium and magnesium in its tap water, as these mineral compounds typically enter the water at the original source. If a town draws its water from underground aquifers or uses 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.
The elevated mineral content in hard water makes soaps and detergents lather less effectively, so you will need to use larger amounts of products like laundry liquid and fabric softeners to achieve the desired results in your washing if you live in an area with hard water. This decreased efficiency for laundry, skin, and hair care products compounds with the shortened lifespans of appliances to make water hardness an expensive issue.
Is Sydney tap water hard or soft?
While water hardness across New South Wales can vary significantly, the water in the capital city is typically considered quite soft. When measuring for hard water Sydney usually registers an average of 50 mg/L, comfortably below the hard water classification.
While there are still factors that make water hardness Sydney locals’ concern, the relative scarcity of Sydney hard water often makes it less of a priority than chemicals like PFAS and chlorine. These other chemicals and impurities are perfectly valid reasons people in Sydney may wish to improve their water quality, but Sydney water hardness should not necessarily be disregarded.
Sydney Water provides a useful online tool that allows you to see a detailed breakdown of water testing data for your specific home. These metrics include calcium and magnesium levels, which are the main measurements for water hardness.
Why is there less water hardness in Sydney?
The primary cause of water hardness, as we mentioned above, is its original source. Elevated water hardness is typically caused by a town drawing its water from a groundwater source or bore that has a particularly high calcium content.
In Sydney’s case, the softness of the city’s water is due to its surface reservoirs and rainwater catchments. Rainwater is incredibly soft, having very little exposure to mineral compounds from either passing through underground aquifers or running through limestone banks along a river.
Most of Sydney’s water comes from rainwater catchments in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system and reservoirs like the Warragamba Dam (responsible for 80% of Greater Sydney’s water supply). These water supplies are also supplemented by Sydney’s desalination plants, which process water from the ocean to make it drinkable and help water providers keep up with growing populations and different environmental factors like droughts.
Sydney Water Hardness Level vs Wider NSW
While the city of Sydney may have quite soft water on average, the same cannot be said for all of New South Wales. Sydney’s dams and river catchments can supply beautifully soft water to millions of people in the city, but not everyone in the state can draw from the same kinds of sources.
The Tamworth region, for example, includes a number of towns that rely on groundwater to meet their municipal water needs. Groundwater typically has much higher water hardness levels than rainwater reservoirs, and several testing areas in the Tamworth region regularly show TDS levels that exceed not only the 60 mg/L “hard” threshold, but go well above the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines’ 200 mg/L “elevated hardness” threshold.
While the Warragamba Dam contains very soft water, other dams and rivers may flow through areas with higher calcium carbonate levels. Regions to the south and west of Sydney may find elevated water hardness in their tap water, even though their water comes from the same kind of source as the inner city. Every home is different, so it is important to research your region’s water quality and make sure you understand the water in your own home.
How to Improve Sydney Hard Water
Whether you live in a soft water inner suburb or have to deal with constant limescale issues in a different catchment area, a whole home water filter system with a built-in water softener is a good investment to protect your home from unwanted chemicals, contaminants, and hard water damage. Complete Home Filtration is an Australian company with a system designed specifically for Australian water.
We know just how much the quality and characteristics of tap water can vary from one place to another, so Complete Home Filtration water filters are customisable for different concerns and priorities. We have configurations for chloramine, rainwater, pharmaceuticals, and a range of different TDS levels.
Since locals rarely have to worry about hard water Sydney may not have the same range of protection options that you would find in areas like Brisbane or Adelaide. The CHF6000 whole home water filtration system provides a comprehensive level of protection for your home’s specific needs, with a built-in ion exchange softening resin to absorb calcium and magnesium and significantly reduce hard water damage.
If you don’t live in a Sydney hard water hotspot, our system still removes up to 98.5% of chlorine and its by-products and provides protection against heavy metals, pesticides, and a wide range of unwanted impurities as small as a single micron. The system is designed and sold by an entirely Australian company, and the high-grade filters are protected by an Australian Made UV-resistant cover specifically designed to protect it from Australian conditions.
To find out more about our award-winning Better Water systems or organise a quote, fill out our contact form below or call our team on 1300 693 458