Hard water just means water carrying dissolved minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium. It is safe to drink and it will not hurt you. What it does is leave a little of itself behind everywhere it goes.
How hard is Prescott's water?
You don't have to guess. The City of Prescott says its own water is “moderately hard, averaging 75 to 130 ppm”, which works out to 4.3 to 7.6 grains per gallon. Keep that number handy. If anybody ever tries to sell you a water treatment system, it is the first thing to ask them about. The city also publishes a yearly water quality report if you want the whole picture, and the U.S. Geological Survey has a plain explanation of what hardness is.
Where it shows up first
The shower head and the faucet aerators go first, because that is where water sits still and dries. Then the glass in the shower, which stops coming clean no matter what you spray on it. Then the dishwasher starts leaving a film. None of that is a failure. It is a warning that the same thing is happening inside the pipes and inside the tank where you cannot look.
The part that costs you
Scale builds up on the inside of a water heater tank and on the heating element. It works like a blanket between the heat and the water, so the unit runs longer to get to the same temperature and works harder every year it does it. A tank that should have lasted a good long while quietly gives up early instead. Anything with a valve in it wears the same way.
On a well? Your water is its own story
A lot of Chino Valley, Paulden, Williamson Valley and the outlying area is on private wells, and well water can be very different from city water. Nobody tests it for you. The EPA puts it plainly: private wells are not regulated by the Federal Government under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension explains what to test a well for and how to read the results, and the Arizona Department of Health Services keeps a list of certified labs.
What actually helps
- Flush the tank. Sediment settles to the bottom and sits there. Draining it out is the single cheapest thing anybody can do for a water heater, and almost nobody does it.
- Clean the aerators. Unscrew them, soak them in vinegar, screw them back on. If one faucet has gone weak and the rest are fine, that is usually all it is.
- Think honestly about a softener. A softener helps, and it also adds a thing that needs salt and looking after. Whether it is worth it depends on how hard your water is and how long you plan to be in the house. On city water you already know the number. On a well, test first.
What does not help
Anything sold as a magnet, a coil you wrap around a pipe, or a gadget that treats water with a field. There is no honest evidence any of it changes the mineral content of your water. If somebody is selling one door to door, that is your answer.
If your water heater is making a rumbling or popping noise, that is sediment boiling underneath it. Worth a call before it becomes a leak on the floor.
— Heritage Plumbing, Prescott
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