Our well water before filtering was high hardness according to the builder when we moved into our new house and we saw that the first time dishes got done. We had SPOTS on all the glasses plates and cups. Then the bathtub junk started and we had lots of scummy caked on stuff that we had to clean out of the showers a lot. SO we put a water filter in and the scummy junk all but disappeared… but water now feels slippery and like it dowes not get all the soap off us when we shower. Is that normal?

After doing a bit of research we found conflicting answers regarding why softened water feels slippery to the touch.

• We read in a Culligan Water (Mid-Missouri) article that soft water does not have ‘scum’ (calcium & magnesium ions bonded to soap particles) that gets deposited on your skin and since your skin therefore has no ‘scum’ on it to cause friction, water then feels slippery.
   
• On a Collective Science Q & A Site we read that the slippery feeling comes from the depositing of soap ions that would ordinarily have bonded with the calcium and magnesium that the water softener took out. Apparently in the absence of those metals the skin’s weakly positive charge becomes a magnet for negatively charged, free-floating soap particles. Therefore, the deposits on skin make water seem slippery.

Which do we believe? Although both answers seem somewhat plausible, we believe that the first answer has a lot more merit. Why do we believe that? Quite simply, since soft water fails to leave deposits on other surfaces that possess weakly positive charge, why would it selectively leave deposits on the skin?

Testing for water hardness (aka: total hardness)

The simplest water test method for hardness involves using a dip-n-read testing product such as the WaterWorks Total Hardness Test Strip. Just dip the indicator test pad into a water sample, remove it, and match the developed color to a corresponding color on the product’s color chart.

Will too much or too little hardness hurt me?

We have yet to hear of any cases where overly hard water negatively affected the health of a person and, coincidentally, we have also not heard of a case where softened water negatively affected a person’s health.

Hard water WILL, however, shorten the life expectancy of plumbing, water heaters, refrigerator ice makers, washers, and any other devices that use (or transport) water in your home. Oh, and it will increase the amount of cleaning you will have to do in the shower stall to get the ‘soap scum’ off of, well, pretty much every surface.

Many times in nature soft water will occur in water that has become acidic for other reasons and for the longest time people blamed the water’s lack of dissolved minerals when they really should have looked much more closely at the water’s obvious acidity problem.

As a general rule, acidic water behaves in a corrosive manner regardless of its dissolved minerals content (hardness). Therefore, when trying to solve corrosion problems in drinking water situations, please stop blaming softened water! 🙂

Got a problem with corrosion in your pipes? Test the acidity of your water with pH test strips or a pH meter because most of the time you will find that your water’s low pH is to blame.

Fairytale: All soft water is salty and corrosive?

We heard another interesting story involving a misinformed plumber telling his unsuspecting, naive customers that soft water is inherently salty and therefore corrosive.

First of all, soft water exiting a water softener should not have become salty unless the salt already existed in the source water or the water softener’s backwash cycle has started to malfunction. Testing your water before it enters the water softener with a device like the HM Digital COM-100 TDS & EC Meter will tell you if your source water contains salt.

Secondly, as we stated earlier, naturally occurring soft water tends to show up in water that has become acidic for reasons other than its soft or hard character. Testing the acidity of your source water with easy, inexpensive pH test strips or a more precise device like the waterproof PH-200 Water Testing Meter will tell you if your source water has too low (or high) of a pH and may need correction.

Note to swimming pool owners…

The rules regarding water hardness and drinking water do not apply to the water in your backyard oasis. The unique chemistry of pool water typically requires that the water contain a lot more hardness, usually in the form of dissolved calcium, to remain in balance.

Interested in learning more about pool water testing? Take a look at the articles posted in our pool water archives.