Questions You Should Know about Boiler hard water

The majority of the UK has hardwater. This can cause problems for your heating system or boiler. Let’s discuss why this happens, and how hard water affects boilers, pipes and radiators.

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Soft Water vs. Hard Water

Let’s first define the differences between hard and soft water. Let’s not make the fool of hard water being ice. Water’s hardness is determined by its mineral content and not temperature.

Hard water contains more dissolved minerals, particularly calcium and magnesium. Soft water contains less calcium and magnesium but more dissolved salt. Water softening units use sodium powders to soften hardwater by exchanging some calcium for sodium.

Hard water is defined as water with a calcium and/or magnesium concentration greater than 121 parts per Million. You may need to add a water softening device to your home if your water is extremely hard (200ppm or more), as per UK building regulations.

How can you tell if your water is hard?

Although hard water may be better for your health, some experts warn that it can cause damage to your clothes, skin and appliances. How can you determine the hardness of your water?

It won’t make a big difference and it may be hard to taste. It will taste different depending on what kind of water you drink. If you have dry, itchy skin or hair that isn’t lustrous, hard water might be the problem. The extra minerals make it more difficult to wash off shampoo and soap. Clean glassware and silverware might have spots or minerals on them. Limescale can form if hard water is not treated properly. This will cause limescale to build up on pipes, boilers and kettles.

What is Limescale?

Limescale refers to the chalky-like, hard, white/gray chalky residue you might find stuck to your kettle’s interior. These deposits are composed of calcium carbonate, which builds up when “hard water” flows through. It is common to see limescale buildups in pipes and boilers, especially older ones.

Limescale is similar to limestone and was used to make Eifel marble, a popular building material during the 11th and 12th centuries. You are correct, limescale can also be used as a building material. You don’t want to slowly coat the inside of your pipes with limescale.

How hard water affects your heating system

Although a slight buildup of limescale can be common, it can cause serious problems with your boiler, pipes and radiators. Limescale buildup can cause major problems in the boiler. The heating coil’s performance can be affected if the limescale buildup becomes more severe.

Limescale buildup in other parts of your heating system can cause pipes to become narrower and more difficult to flow. This can slow down the flow of water through the pipes. It can also reduce heat transfer from the water to outside air. Your boiler will need to work harder which can increase your energy costs. This could lead to a shorter boiler life or, in the worst case, a costly boiler failure.

How do you know if your heating or boiler is suffering from limescale buildup? If you hear unusual or rattling sounds, rising utility bills, or if your boiler is not heating as it should, then get it checked by a professional.

What to do if you have hard water

What should you do if you have hard water? Regular boiler maintenance is the best way to prevent limescale buildup. If you live in an area that has very hard water, it may be worth installing a separate water softening unit. A simple and safe DIY tip is to regularly vent your radiators . This won’t cause limescale but will ensure your system runs at its best.

Nu Age is available to help you if you have heating, boiler or radiator problems. We will help you find (and fix!) the problem.

The company is the world’s best Boiler hard water supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

If you’ve ever lived in a home with hard water, you know it can be a little unpleasant sometimes. Soap doesn’t lather up properly, your skin and clothes never really feel clean, and you’ve got to contend with deposits forming on your pipes and fixtures. The reason all of this happens is because hard water has a lot of dissolved minerals and other solids in it, especially calcium and magnesium. Those minerals and solids react with the soap to make the water insoluble, making it harder for it to lather up the soap, and carry away the dirt. 

The good news is, since you’re a human being, those dissolved solids, salts, and minerals are more of a nuisance than a danger. But if you were made of metal, like a boiler, it would be a totally different story. That’s because the same solids that are suspended in the water can really do a number on the metal inside your tank and tubes. As you can probably imagine, then, water treatment is one of the single most important things you can do to extend your boiler’s life, and help keep it running efficiently over time.

DON’T PLAY IT HARD

Untreated water in your boiler is going to cause trouble because as those insoluble solids settle, they’re going to collect on the inside surfaces of your boiler tank. As they do, they’ll start to form a layer of scale. The more scale collects, the more it starts to insulate the boiler’s water tank and slow the rate of heat transfer. If enough of it collects, it will cause enough lost heat transfer between the burner, the boiler tank, and the water to harm your efficiency. Which means you’ll have to keep burning more and more fuel to get the same amount of steam.

Scale does more than harm your efficiency, though. It can also harm your boiler, because as it insulates it begins to cause uneven heating across the tank surface on the fire side. Uneven heating leads to metal stress, which can cause warping and cracking over time. That’s where leaks come from, and nobody wants that. 

SOFTEN IT UP

If hard water is bad, then it makes sense you should use the opposite of that, which would be soft water. But what does that mean exactly? Soft water is water that has been treated with additional chemicals and processes to reduce the insoluble calcium and magnesium and replace them with something that stays in suspension. That softening takes place in, you guessed it, a water softener. And what happens in there is really cool on a molecular level.

Inside a water softener, you’ll find thousands and thousands of tiny resin beads. Those beads are all bristling with sodium ions, because the resin attracts them. As hard water flows through the softener, the calcium and magnesium become attracted to the surfaces of the beads as well, and knock the sodium ions out of place. In effect, the calcium and magnesium swap places with the sodium; the sodium ends up in suspension instead, and the calcium and magnesium end up stuck to the beads.

Since the calcium and magnesium stay in the water softener, they aren’t floating around and collecting on your boiler. The sodium, on the other hand, will do a better job of staying in suspension.

With your calcium and magnesium out of the way, and the sodium in suspension, your boiler will also enjoy a longer life in places other than the tank. Scale can collect in valves, gauges, boiler accessories, and fittings, too. And if enough of it settles and solidifies, it can end up severely hindering the flow of water and steam, and even blocking them off entirely.

SPEAK SOFTLY

Treat your water well, and you’ll treat your boiler well, too. You’ll get longer life, better efficiency, and greater reliability if you keep the calcium and magnesium out of the picture. WARE is here to help.

We even stock Chemicals that take magnesium and calcium out of suspension, and help stop corrosion to help prolong your boiler’s life even more.

Chemical Pumps keep the right mix of water treatment chemicals flowing in to your water softening system and your tank.

Sample Coolers are always a smart way to manage ongoing water treatment monitoring. Since they cool the water sample before analysis, they let boiler operators take water readings safely without the danger of getting scalded. Cooling the sample also helps get a more accurate reading, and it helps prolong the life of the monitoring equipment to some degree, as well. 

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