How Hard Water Affects Your Family's Skin and Hair
While hard water is safe to drink, its mineral content creates daily quality-of-life issues. The minerals react with soap to form a residue, rather than a rich lather. This residue clings to your skin and hair, leading to:
- Dry, itchy skin and aggravated eczema
- Dull, brittle, and difficult-to-manage hair
- A feeling of being not-quite-clean after a shower
For families, this also means having to use more soap for bathing children and ensuring baby formula is prepared with water free from excessive mineral content.
Choosing the Right Filtration System for Galliano
With water hardness at 8.9 GPG, you have effective options that don't always require a major investment.
- Recommended: A salt-free water conditioner is often the best balance of cost and performance for this hardness level. It prevents scale buildup in pipes and heaters without the maintenance or salt discharge of a traditional softener. Pair it with an under-sink or pitcher filter for pristine drinking water.
- For High-Usage Homes: A traditional whole-house water softener is also a strong choice, especially if you want the 'slick' feel of truly soft water. A typical system (around $1,500 installed) would pay for itself in about 16.0 years through annual savings of $94 on energy from your Entergy Louisiana Inc bill, detergents, and appliance longevity.
- Bottled Water Alternative: If you spend $600-$900 annually on bottled water, installing an under-sink Reverse Osmosis (RO) system can pay for itself in under two years while providing limitless purified water on tap.