Calcium Scale Water Filtration in Perth
While calcium is a healthy mineral that humans require to survive, calcium in tap water leaves damaging deposits on surfaces known as limescale. Throughout this blog, we’ll explore the effect of calcium on your home, water using appliances, and yourself, as well as the different water softeners and water filter options for the removal of calcium carbonate.
Do I Need To Remove Calcium from My Water?
Calcium is just one of many tasteless and odourless contaminant substances in our drinking water supply. While calcium is a healthy mineral for humans, the limescale (a harmful coating left on surfaces) caused by the presence of calcium carbonate is damaging. Hard water can cause scaling on glass shower screens & bathtubs, clogged dishwashers and unusual flavours or a bad taste in tap water.
Hard water can drastically shorten the lifespan of water-based appliances and plumbing fixtures if not treated. Water hardness is generally caused by calcium, which is primarily found in groundwater. Low concentration levels of calcium may not cause significant hardening, but a range of 100 to 500 parts per million (ppm) can be detrimental.
Excessive calcium is not broken down in the body, nor is it absorbed at the cellular level. This leads to calcium deposits building up outside of the cells, contributing to inflexible arteries, joint spurs, and kidney stone issues. Treatment for heart disease, joint pain and removal of kidney stones is challenging and expensive. Drastic reduction in quality of living can come on with no warning, as the calcium has built up silently over many years. This highlights the importance of investing in a water filter solution or water softener system to aid in removing calcium.
Why is Calcium in Water a Problem?
Calcium in water is completely safe to drink, but excessive calcium forms limescale build up in water-based appliances and pipes. Calcium leaves limescale stains and sticky deposits in your plumbing, toilets, showerheads, sinks, dishwashers, and washing machines. This limescale is extremely damaging, affecting efficiencies of appliances such as your hot water system. The only way to prevent scale formation in your home is to remove high calcium content from your water supply.
Time Costs
Scale build up from high levels of calcium in your water supply can lead to excessive time spent cleaning your home and appliances.
- Cleaning the kettle every week
- Cleaning the glass shower screen daily
- Replacing tap washers way too frequently
- Removing build-up from the shower head
- De-scaling the coffee machine
Financial Costs
Not only does calcium build-up force you to spend too much time cleaning, in the long run it also bears a financial cost associated with the purchase of cleaning products, replacement of water-based appliances and plumbing fittings.
- Extra abrasive cleaning products
- Extra time paying the housecleaner
- Premature replacement of hot water system
- Fabric softener in the washing machine
- De-scaler for coffee machine four times per year instead of once
- Increased water bill because of leaking taps you haven’t had time to replace
- Replacing pitted chrome taps/handles for new ones
Health Impacts
Although calcium is safe for human consumption, when consumed in excessive and non-absorbable quantities, it can lead to some of the following health issues:
- Kidney stones
- Gall stones
- Hardening of arteries
- Spurs on joints
Best Filters for Calcium Removal
It is important to understand that a standalone ‘calcium filter’ removes only calcium. It does not remove dirt, dust, heavy metals, chlorine, chlorine resistant cysts or other impurities. At present time, there aren’t any calcium specific whole house water filters on the market. This is because a majority of filtering methods including activated carbon and KDF, are unable to eliminate calcium minerals from your water supply. Although there are no specific calcium filters, WestOz Water Filters supply a few options of alternatives that can aid in the removal of calcium carbonates from your water, providing you with filtered water that tastes great from every tap in your home.
Resin Water Filter System
A resin water filter cartridge is used to treat hard water and as a scale reduction system. This leaves all the benefits of soft, gentle and clear water. The convenient and compact design of the filtration cartridge allows the soft water to be provided at the point of use.
Water softener resin works to remove calcium, magnesium and iron minerals. As the water flows through the mineral tank of the softening system, the dissolved minerals attach themselves to the resin which creates a soft water supply.
Whole House Filter System
A perfect way to protect your loved ones from contaminants in your water supply is with a 3 Stage 10” Whole House System from WestOz Water Filters.
This water filtration system removes calcium and scale, while softening hard water through the use of dedicated resin filters. Anyone who experiences below par water quality should consider a whole house filtration system.
The dedicated filter cartridges consist of a sediment cartridge which functions to remove basic particles, a resin cartridge which softens the water and a KDF Heavy Metal cartridge which works to remove chlorine, heavy metals, bacteria, and other contaminants.
Reverse Osmosis System
A reverse osmosis water filter contains a semi permeable membrane consisting of tiny pores that trap contaminants, including calcium and magnesium carbonate.
Calcium particles are too large to pass through the reverse osmosis membrane and as such are repelled into the reverse osmosis chamber. From here, the calcium and other contaminants are drained with a small amount of waste water.
A reverse osmosis system can remove between 95-99% of calcium carbonate and magnesium minerals from your drinking water supply.