Hard Water in Mississauga

The entry in brief

Mississauga's tap water comes from Lake Ontario and is treated by the Region of Peel. It is considered moderately hard, that is, calcium and magnesium are dissolved in it. They pose no health worry, but they leave scale on fixtures, shorten the life of some appliances and make soap less effective. Many households live with it comfortably. Households with tankless heaters or big glass shower screens are the ones who most often find a softener pays its way.

What is going on

As water is heated or evaporates, the minerals come out of solution and form a hard, chalky layer. You see it as white crust on aerators and showerheads and as spots on dishes. You do not see it inside your water heater, where it settles as sediment on the bottom of a tank or lines the narrow passages of a tankless heat exchanger. That hidden scale is the part that costs money, because it makes the heater work harder and can lead to early failure. Region of Peel publishes water quality reports, and you can look up the current hardness figures there.

In order

1. Look for evidence: crust on fixtures, cloudy glassware, scale in the kettle.
2. Clean aerators and showerheads by soaking them in white vinegar, then rinse well.
3. Flush a few litres from the bottom of your tank water heater to clear sediment.
4. If you have a tankless unit, follow the maker's descaling schedule, or book tankless descaling.
5. Decide whether scale is a nuisance you can manage or a cost worth solving.
6. If you choose a softener, consider where it will go, where it will drain and how you will keep it supplied with salt.

Slips to avoid

• Scrubbing scale with abrasive pads, which scratches chrome and finishes.
• Using harsh acids on natural stone around a shower.
• Ignoring a tankless heater's descaling until it shuts down with an error.
• Buying an oversized softener without checking the household's real use.
• Assuming a water filter softens water; most do not.

It is also easy to confuse hardness with other things. A rotten-egg smell from hot water usually is usually the tank's anode rod at work, not minerals. Rusty or brown water from a single tap often means old galvanized pipe. Both are worth mentioning when you call, since they need different fixes.

When the ledger says phone

Call when scale is affecting hot water supply, when a tankless heater shows scale errors, or when you want a softener installed and plumbed with a bypass. We can also check whether low pressure at a fixture is caused by scale or something deeper; our note on low water pressure helps you sort the two. If you are weighing a heater upgrade at the same time, read tank or tankless first, and if you are planning a renovation, a sewer camera inspection before new floors go in is a sensible companion step.