any water experts out there?

[Apache]

I'm totally pissed off with the stuff we call water leaving marks on my cars, turning stainless and glass into murky looking sh1t, blocking my shower, leaving pink! limescale everywhere. Is there a viable way of filtering my mains? and this stuff cannot be healthy, how many pints of recycled Irn Bru am I consuming?!

[alans]

water softener

[glena]

Seconded! water sotener very good investment, gets rid of all the calcium/chalk deposits hence no more white marks when washing your jam jar, and around the house, check out screwfix for good prices www.screwfix.co.uk

[snorky]

if you don't want the expense of a softener you can buy ( also from Screwfix ) an ioniser that holds the calcium carbonate in solution so it doesn't bugger the kettle and the washing machine / shower etc - about £60..but means you are drinking it instead ! ! !

[pbrettle]

Screwfix is great isnt it.... but as mentioned, water softener is the way forward. You can plumb them in at the mains and then it comes through as cleaner water. Some of the continental ones will also do the chemicals (but they dont put chemicals in the water do they?).....

Kinda expensive to get and fit, but the end result is excellent. My sis has one fitted to her house - for the simple reason that she has had it gutted for renovation works. Therefore simple and easy to fit at that point (retro-fitting is more expensive). But the end result is excellent - but then again she (and I) live in a VERY hard water area..... so it makes an awful lot of sense....

Then again Pete, your area is also pretty hard too. Even the simple stuff like Britta water filters are worth the money. Get one of the jugs that fits in the fridge and you wont believe the difference in the quality of drinking water at least....

[Apache]

yeah, we use the Britta filters and damned effective they are too, thanks guys

[Big_M]

Apache said:

leaving pink! limescale everywhere.

Pink - ours is a greeny blue colour. Mind you our village is fully of OAP's so it obviously did them no harm. I did have a magnet thingy put on the cold water pipe of my last house and that did seem to reduce it no end.

[wedg1e]

Ah good, I'm not the only person getting pink cr@p down my shower wall. Not sure why, but it's only recently (i.e a couple of years) started. Could be down to Northumbrian water piping the stuff all around the northern hemisphere, instead of simply pulling it off the Pennines like they used to. It was gorgeous back then, mind you I remember whan all this was fields...

Ian