Stop Hurting Your Clothes With Hard Water

(Newswire.net — December 29, 2017) Cheyenne, Wyoming — Doing laundry is a pretty fool-proof task, right? Throw the clothes in the washer, pour in some soap, set the water level you need, wait and just like that clothes become freshly cleaned, or do they just smell fresh? The water used may actually be stopping your detergent from doing its job, specifically hard water. 

Hard water is essentially water which contains sedimentary minerals such as calcium, magnesium, manganese and/or iron. It is recorded as fact that 85% of the water in the United States is deemed to be hard water. The problem with hard water is that it reacts with soaps and detergent in such a way as to reduce their cleaning power since the ingredients are preoccupied with the minerals forming calcium or magnesium salts instead of properly cleaning clothes.

Leaving this issue unaddressed requires 30%-45% more detergent to clean a load of laundry than if soft (mineral free) water was to be used. Hard water also results in clothes being left dingy, stiff, faded in the case of colored and with weakened thread fibers so garments tear easily, and if that wasn’t daunting enough, there’s also scum build up on clothes that can also affect the skin.

“Washing clothes in hard water may lead to irritated skin – especially if you already have sensitive skin or a dermatological condition like eczema,” according to Water Right Inc. “Carrying around a residue of detergent curd on clothes and bed-sheets that are in contact with your skin could lead to an increase in redness, chafing, and dryness.”

The water used for laundry isn’t something most people think about as consequences of ignoring water quality is far-reaching. The AquaTest™ 7 Way Water-Analysis Test Kit by HealthyWiser™ provides quick, convenient and accurate results for measuring the level of total hardness, total alkalinity, free chlorine, bromine, pH, total chlorine and cyanuric acid in your water supply.

Once the water supply has been identified as being hard, the next step is to soften it by installing a filtration system for washing machine inlet pipes. Remedying this matter is important from an economical standpoint, but more importantly, it’s about protecting your family from preventable skin irritants.