The Weird Reason Soft Water Feels Slippery and What it Means for the Rest of Your House
If you have ever experienced soft water when you are used to hard water, you will notice it has a slippery or almost slimy feel. It is a surreal experience, but one that has been shared by many. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the water. You eventually get used to the feeling – a feeling that lets you know that your water softener is working.
Why Does Soft Water Feel Slippery?
To understand why soft water feels the way it does, you first have to understand what makes water hard. When water flows from an underground source to your home, it erodes everything it touches. This means that when it passes by bedrock, it breaks down and carries with it microscopic pieces of calcium and magnesium. The fragments are too small to see in your tap water. However, when the water evaporates around your appliances and fixtures, these minerals are left behind. These create that crusty white residue that you see in houses with hard water.
Though you can’t see them in the water, it is easy to imagine what these minerals do to your skin as they pass over them and why hard water has a “texture” to it. Nothing in soft water makes it feel slippery; it is actually the removal of these coarse minerals that makes the water feel smoother on your skin.
Benefits of Soft Water
People often don’t understand the negative effects that hard water can have on their homes and health. After reading these benefits of soft water, you will be wondering why you’ve waited this long to get a water softener.
Longer Lasting Appliances
If you have hard water, you have seen what it can do to a coffee machine or dishwasher. That calcified build-up doesn’t just look bad; it can wreak havoc on your appliances. It won’t kill them immediately. But the build-up will make your appliances work hard to do their job, which will shorten their lifespan.
Long-Term Energy Savings
There is a myth that water softeners waste energy, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, water softeners pay for themselves in long-term energy savings. The same mineral build-up that you see on your faucets and appliances is building up in your pipes. This makes it harder for water to move through them. In addition, the build-up makes it harder for your water heater to heat the water and pump heated water around the home.
Better Clothes
The minerals from hard water will find their way into your clothing fibers, making them stiff and coarse. The change will happen over time, so you won’t see until you buy new clothes and notice how much softer they are compared to your hard-water clothes. Soft water is also better at activating soap suds which makes for cleaner and fresher clothes.
Healthier Skin and Hair
Just like everything else, your hair and skin are not safe from the abrasive minerals in hard water. Hard water can make healthy skins and scalps dry, but that is not the only damage it does. People with hard water often use way more soap and shampoo. This is not only expensive but those products can sometimes bring their own disadvantages.
Embrace the Feeling
It is definitely a surreal feeling that may leave some questioning if there is something wrong with their water. But fear not, that slippery feeling is good.
One way that you can alleviate some of that feeling immediately is by reducing the amount of soap you use since you no longer need as much to get the same clean feeling as you did with hard water. The team at PB Water Softening can help make sure all your softener levels are correct and give you additional advice to help make the adjustment to soft water easier. Contact us for an easy transition away from water that is hard on your clothes, hard on your skin, and hard on your home.
