Water Softeners.

[Bramleyboy]

We have a water softener which was in the house when we bought it. I keep the salt topped up and recently someone told me about a little electronic water hardness tester which I bought on Amazon for £5. I get a reading of about 280~320 from our taps in the house for hot and cold. This is supposed to be Very Hard! Could the meter be faulty? It gets a reading immediately! Any suggestions please, Bramley.

[woofgang]

Get a chemical hardness kit and do a proper test. If it still shows hard water, find out if the softened stuff goes to all the taps and test one you know it goes to. If you find the water still is hard does it bother you? if it does, get your softener serviced.

[Fitzer]

Don't test from the kitchen cold tap (except as a comparison) as it shouldn't be softened, as per Woofgang you should do a chemical test.

[EDDIE51]

Where are you ? some parts of the UK have very hard water.

[EDDIE51]

280 - 320 means nothing on it's own. I need to know the units it is measuring in. There are 2 main ways to measure water hardness, TDS and micro Mhos (total disolved solids and conductivity)
Where are you? I have worked as a water process chemist so if you tell me where you are I can tell you what hardness to expect.

[EDDIE51]

I think it must be mg/litre look here
http://dwi.defra.gov.uk/consumers/advice-leaflets/hardness_map.pdf
280 320 is very hard.

[EDDIE51]

It looks like your softener is not working.