To water soften or not

[Kelvin]

Our water supply is going to come via a private water supply borehole. The water analysis says the water is moderately hard at 76.9 mgCa/l using a scale the first private water company provided me. 
 

I’m currently looking at the treatment plant requirements. I’ve had three companies provide designs and quotes. Two of them have said it definitely needs a water softener. The third has said the hardness level is below the minimum level where they’d recommend a softener. Therefore I need to decide whether to fit one or not. The cost isn’t too bad at £515 for the equipment. The slight complication is that the treatment plant is going to be in the detached garage so my plan would be to have two water supplies to the house one for the softened water that feeds the plumbing and a raw water supply to a single tap in the kitchen for drinking water.
 

Clearly it’d be easier if I didn’t fit the softener. So the question is should I fit the water softener or not? I think I should but value other opinions. 
 

As an aside. I got three quotes as I said. The dearest quote was £23,000 ex VAT! from a well known Scottish private water company. They charged the farmer £18,000 to drill the hole (it’s deep at 147m) The other two were under £10,000 as a like for like comparison for the same treatment design and pump. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Kelvin

[Adsibob]

I would get a water softener. They are fantastic. Yours will just use less salt because there is less limes ale to remove. Otherwise your plumbing fittings will eventually get limescale build up, and you will get streaks on shower screens. It will just take longer for these issues to materialise than if you lived with harder water.

[Kelvin]

What’s confused me is this. Scottish Water consider it moderately soft. It was the first water company that said it was moderately hard. They have a different scale below. 

 

 

 

https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/-/media/ScottishWater/Document-Hub/Factsheets-and-Leaflets/Factsheets/250221SW_FactSheet_12_2020V8webPages.pdf

[Kelvin]

Just to add. My other reasons for questioning  including a softener is that they waste water via the regeneration process and I’d be flushing the salt solution into our sewerage treatment plant. I know they are supposed to be able to cope with it. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Kelvin

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Just to add. My other reasons for questioning  including a softener is that they waste water via the regeneration process and I’d be flushing the salt solution into our sewerage treatment plant. I know they are supposed to be able to cope with it. 

Better to flush salt into the sewer than all the extra cleaning products that would be needed to clean off the limescale… At least that is what a salesman would say.

[Kelvin]

Well the salesman said we don’t need the softener…

[Gone West]

15 hours ago, Kelvin said:

What’s confused me is this. Scottish Water consider it moderately soft. It was the first water company that said it was moderately hard. They have a different scale below. 

 

IIRC when we were in Kent and had a softener we looked at total hardness which was well over 300mg/l. The figure you have been given of 76.9 is for Calcium only. Total hardness consists of Calcium and Magnesium.

[Kelvin]

6 minutes ago, Gone West said:

IIRC when we were in Kent and had a softener we looked at total hardness which was well over 300mg/l. The figure you have been given of 76.9 is for Calcium only. Total hardness consists of Calcium and Magnesium.

Nope it’s the total hardness number. Calcium number was lower 

 

[Gone West]

1 minute ago, Kelvin said:

Nope it’s the total hardness number. Calcium number was lower 

I would question why you have two different values for mgCa/l. Total hardness is just mg/l.

[Kelvin]

Was tested by Scottish Water at their Edinburgh lab which is UKAS accredited. Must just be the way they show it. 

[Gone West]

I would do my own hardness test as their results appear to be ambiguous.

 

https://www.toolstation.com/water-hardness-test-kit/p91729

 

 

[Jilly]

What does inside your kettle look like?

 

[Kelvin]

1 hour ago, Gone West said:

I would do my own hardness test as their results appear to be ambiguous.

 

https://www.toolstation.com/water-hardness-test-kit/p91729

 

 

Good idea. I may even have a kit in the garage. I’m relatively confident in their numbers and methodology though. 
 

The pump company will do another test as part of the commissioning and adjust the treatment accordingly 

[Kelvin]

56 minutes ago, Jilly said:

What does inside your kettle look like?

 

This is the borehole at our plot.