A hard water supply in your house can be a real pain. Luckily, you do not spend a fortune installing a big water softener to get past this problem. Instead, we show you some easy and natural DIY methods to soften water in your house for everyday use.
You will be happily surprised to see how everyday items like vinegar and soda help you overcome the problem of hard water in your house.
How can I test the hardness of water in my house?
There are a few ways to test the hardness of your water. You can use a home water test kit, which is available at most hardware stores. Or, you can take a water sample to your local water utility company and they will test it for you.Â
The most accurate way to measure the hardness of your water is to use a water hardness meter. This is the method used by municipalities to measure the hardness of their water supply. Once you have determined the hardness of your water, you can decide if you want to soften it or not.
How to soften water without a water softener?
Besides the fact that hard water tastes bitter, it causes white scales on your utensils. Prolonged corrosion with hard water reduces their lifespan and degrades your kitchen’s hygiene. In addition, hard water in the kitchen can jam pipes, drains, and your sink. Below I have written some methods to avoid those problems.
đź’§Make Hard Water Soft by Boiling (Step by Step Guide)
Softening water in the kitchen for drinking and cooking purposes is as easy as boiling the water! Yes, you heard that right. So let’s see how to do it:
- Put water to boil for a few minutes in a big pot or container.
- Boiling coagulated the hardness causing salts in the water. As they solidify, they settle down to the bottom as lumps.
- After turning the gas off, you should leave the water for some time to let the salts settle down.
- You can siphon out the clean water from the top into a new container. Make sure to leave the water right at the bottom of the pot, which has the salt lumps.
- You can store the clean water and use it for drinking and cooking.
đź’§Soften Laundry Water with Common Household Items
Did you know the vinegar that you use in your everyday cooking can save the day for you when it comes to dealing with stubborn hard water.
Hard water can play havoc with your clothes. Besides causing white spots, it can cause pungent odors that never seem to go away. Also, prolonged washing in hard water will damage fabric and reduce their lifetime drastically.
Curing water hardness for laundry is as simple as applying some common household items like vinegar. Let’s see how to do it:
- You should use vinegar in the water you use for rinsing your clothes, never in the water you use for your main wash.
- Add around half a cup of vinegar in a bucket to your rinsing water and leave for some time.
- Wash your clothes in your usual detergent of choice.
- Rinse them in the vinegar-treated water, and ‌rinse them twice or thrice.
- Wrench them properly and let them dry in an airy space with a good amount of sunshine.
Note it is important to dry clothes washed in vinegar-treated water in the open sun. Your clothes might get an unpleasant smell if you dry them indoors after rinsing in vinegar. Vinegar is naturally acidic, and it is common for it to leave this smell behind. Acidity of vinegar is also the property that lends it its water softening abilities.
Pro Tip: You can also make this method better by using baking soda along with the vinegar. Mix some baking soda also to the rinsing water. This works better than using pure vinegar.
đź’§Protect Your House and Plumbing from Hard Water on a Budget
Your plumbing is the thing that hard water poses the maximum danger in your house. Hard water corrodes your pipes and sinks and leaves ugly-looking white scales on their surfaces. These scales are pretty stubborn and it is tough to remove them.
But the worst part is that these scales weaken your pipes and cause them to crack or break without notice. You might wake up one fine morning to find your water supply is dead without you even knowing where the breakage is.
Another danger is that these scales pile up and clog drains and pipes. Again you will be left without supply/drainage and also build-up of water/ waste in the pipes.
If the water is too hard, you need a solid professional water softener plant to cure it to protect your plumbing. However, you can also do it yourself on a budget with the following tricks.
đź’§Soften water in the house for drinking purposes
- You can use your good old method.
- simple boiling to treat hard water for drinking. But there are also a couple of other smart ways that can make you get sweet potable water from your household’s hard water supply.
- Use portable small water filters that fit in your glasses/pitchers.
- People have come up with many ingenious inventions to solve the problem of hard water for drinking purposes. You can now find many creative filters in the market for the same.
These small filters come in various form factors. Some are handheld versions that you can fix to your glass itself to get soft water on the go. Others are a little bigger than the ones you attach to your pitchers and get large amounts of soft water perfect for drinking.
đź’§Use naturally found citric acid to cure hard water
Citric acid is a mild acid perfect for softening hard water. Another advantage with it is that it is naturally found in many fruits and vegetables. Lemon and oranges are two natural sources of citric acid.
You can simply add lemon juice to hard water to make it suitable for all purposes except drinking and cooking. The citric acid neutralizes the calcium salts in water and makes it soft.
What is an alternative to a water softener?
If you’re looking for a water softener alternative, there are a few different things you can try. One option is to install a water filter that eliminates hard water minerals. You can also use a descaling agent to prevent limescale buildup in your pipes and appliances.
Another way to soften water without a softener is to boil it—this will evaporate the excess calcium and magnesium. Just be careful not to boil the water away completely!
Conclusion:
If you’re trying to learn how to soften water without a water softener, you have a few different methods to choose from. You can test the hardness of your water and choose the appropriate method, or boil water to soften it. Whichever method you choose, be sure to follow the instructions carefully and patiently in order to achieve the best results.
