How Moderate Hardness Affects Your Family
While safe to drink, moderately hard water creates quality-of-life issues. The minerals react with soap to form a residue, preventing a clean rinse. This can lead to:
- Dry, itchy skin and scalp
- Dull, brittle hair
- Difficulty creating a lather with soaps and shampoos
For families with infants, using mineral-heavy water for baby formula can be a consideration, although it is not considered a direct health hazard.
Choosing the Right Filter for Brandywine's Water
With water hardness at 5.0 GPG, a full whole-house water softener is typically not a financially sound investment. Your goal is to manage scale and improve drinking water quality without overspending.
- Recommended: A high-quality activated carbon pitcher filter (like Brita or ZeroWater) or a faucet-mount filter will effectively remove chlorine and improve the taste of your drinking water.
- Not Recommended: A whole-house softener, which costs around $1,500 installed, would take nearly 27.8 years to pay for itself through the estimated $54 in annual savings. The upfront cost far outweighs the benefits for this hardness level.
For superior drinking water, an under-sink reverse osmosis (RO) system eliminates the need for bottled water, which costs the average family $600-$900 per year.