Quote:
Originally Posted by Bibio
hard and soft water is not dictated by the acidity of it but both often go together. soft water has less salts than hard water.
for domestic tap water to corrode copper piping the acidity would have to be constantly under a pH of 2 which you would notice straight away if you drink it.
living in a hard water area is bad as it has a higher content of salts which build up in pipework etc.etc. soft water areas have no such problem.
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The generally accepted definition of hard water is water containing dissolved calcium from limestone areas. Soft water is pure water with fewer dissolved solids.
Water with ph less than 6.5 can cause corrosion, hard water coats the inside of the pipes (that is the bad news) the good news is that the calcium coating prevents corrosion of the pipes. acidic water ph<7 continually tries to remove the protective oxide coating from metal pipes, hard water covers the oxide coating with a protective layer. Lead pipes in water supplies were not really a problem in hard water areas because inside of pipe was protected by limescale, in soft water areas though they water dissolved the lead and people were drinking it. My brother used to work for a water purification company who supplied treatment equipment to water suppliers like Severn Trent, Yorkshire water etc. They preferred Hard water to soft as it was easier on their equipment as it reduced corrosion problems. If your boiler or heating system has any aluminium in it you should not use soft water, if you have a water softener fitted to your house you should take off the water for heating system ( filling loop ) before the softener. The anti-corrosion heating system additives like Fernox raise the ph of water to protect pipework and boilers.
http://www.kamco.co.uk/GuidanceNotes...structions.pdf
https://www.combimate.co.uk/sof****er-corrosion.html
https://www.water-research.net/index...-zinc-and-more