How To Decalcify Water? Best 3 Practical Household Tips

How to decalcify water? – How hard your tap water depends on the region you live in. A simple method for determining the degree of hardness, what works, and indications suggest how you should decalcify your water are explained here.

The lime in tap water is usually neutral in taste, so there is no need to decalcify the water to taste better. Lime contains calcium and magnesium, and the more of it there is in the water, the harder it is.

And indeed, extreme water hardness can have a negative effect on taste – but not on our health. But that doesn’t change the fact that, over time, annoying limescale deposits make themselves felt on kitchen appliances such as coffee makers and kettles, which damage the device’s long-term.

Find out the degree of hardness and decalcify the water will learn as follows.

What are the reasons for water decalcification?

As already explained at the beginning, there are no health reasons for decalcifying your drinking water, and it is solely a matter of personal taste, how you prefer to drink your water from the tap.

However, stubborn limescale deposits can make themselves felt in the bathroom and kitchen. If it is mainly, hard calcified faucets don’t look particularly lovely, and in addition, the water often can no longer flow freely through the tap.

For household appliances (for example, coffee maker, dishwasher, or washing machine), on the other hand, limescale is even more harmful, as it can clog hoses and thus paralyze the entire technology.

Apart from that, the machines have a much higher energy consumption when they are heavily calcified. For these reasons, it makes perfect sense to descale your kitchen machines and bathroom fixtures regularly.

We can easily remove superficial deposits with citric acid. Special descalers are available for coffee machines. However, if you want to descale the water, there are more effective methods.

How to decalcify water?: Three practical household tips

There are several ways to decalcify tap water. Three of them are briefly presented below:

Descaling water while cooking

You can easily decalcify smaller amounts of water by boiling it, as limescale settles on the walls of pots and in the kettle during cooking. Here’s how:

Fill the water into a pot and boil it until bubbling. Alternatively, you can use a kettle.
Pour the water via a coffee filter to filter out the limescale.
Repeat the process to filter out as much lime from the water as possible.

Descale water with table water filter

So-called table water filters filter lime with the help of ion exchangers and activated carbon.
Besides, the table water filter also removes chemicals such as chlorine and metals from the water.
Table water filters are available for purchase for about 30 dollars. However, you must change the filter regularly.

Decalcify water with a filter system

If the water hardness is very high with a high lime content, a home’s professional filter system can be worthwhile.
The systems are installed directly at the water supply and clean the water from lime and impurities with high-quality filter systems.
You can connect water filters directly to the tap. Standard filter models starting at around 50 dollars to reduce the lime content.

FAQ Decalcify Water

Why decalcify water?

Decalcifying water makes sense mainly if the drinking water contains a high proportion of lime. The degree of water hardness varies from region to region, and lime contains magnesium and calcium necessary for a healthy body.

Is it healthy to drink boiled water?

So, in summary, boiling water provides only partial safety. In drinking water, bacteria, such as Legionella, die almost without exception at such high water temperatures. Against heavy metals in drinking water, however, boiling is no help.

How to decalcify water for plants?

We can mix hard water with desalinated water to decalcify water for watering. Alternatively, we can soak peat, conifer compost, or old coffee filters in tap water for about a day. These substances give off a small amount of acid, which lowers the pH in the water used for watering.

Is boiled water less calciferous?

Decalcify water by boiling it: water that is low in carbonic acid can hold less lime in the solution. Therefore, excess lime settles on the bottom and walls of kettles or cooking pots when boiled. Boiling cannot completely decalcify or soften water.

Should tap water be descaled?

Decalcifying tap water is not necessary from a health point of view. However, one argument for descaling tap water relates to our household appliances, and limescale can build up in them and cause damage.

Why should you water flowers with stagnant water?

Stagnant water is better for watering plants than fresh tap water. The effect is the same as boiling: the salts that make the water hard are deposited on the outer walls. Without heat, it just takes a little longer.

Is tap water bad for plants?

Many plants do not tolerate hard tap water, especially plants that need acidic soil to thrive do not do well with hard tap water. These include orchids, azaleas, gardenias, bromeliads, or camellias.

Is mineral water suitable for plants?

Mineral water contains many minerals essential for plants already in dissolved form, such as potassium, sodium, or magnesium. These can be absorbed very quickly and easily by the flowers and make them grow better. However, experts advise not to water permanently with mineral water.

Does boiling water make it softer?

When water is getting boiled, the carbonate hardness precipitates. Some of the lime settles to the bottom of the pot. The boiled water is already much softer than the water you poured into the jar before.

Is boiled water suitable for plants?

While boiled water is beneficial to your plants, distilled water will harm them in the long run by depriving them of salts and other essential minerals.

Why use rainwater for watering?

In principle, the answer is simple; The best watering water is rainwater! It falls from the sky virtually distilled as condensed water vapor and hardly changes the soil’s acidity and nutrient concentration because it contains few dissolved ingredients.

Is boiled water like distilled water?

People often ask: Is distilled water boiled water? No, boiling results in essentially sterile water at best, but it still contains, for example, lime and other minerals. Distilled water is demineralized water.

Should you soften water?

And don’t panic: For health reasons, softening water is not necessary. Whether soft, medium, or complex, our drinking water is of excellent quality and is one of the most strictly monitored foodstuffs.

What are the benefits of descaling?

Descaling prolongs the life of the washing machine. Lime deposits in the washing machine significantly increase electricity consumption when washing clothes—unnecessary energy consumption and, at the same time, a waste of money.

Is there lime in distilled water?

Household products or in the industry uses distilled water. The benefit of purified or distilled water is that it no longer contains lime, and it means that it does not leave lime stains on surfaces after cleaning, for example.

Does mineral water contain lime?

In calciferous regions, the calcium content of drinking water is significantly higher than that of average mineral water; for example, Berlin drinking water contains up to 150 mg of calcium per liter, while some mineral waters contain only a tenth of that.

Conclusion

It is possible to boil the drinking water and then pour it through a coffee filter or similar.

However, descaling in this way is inefficient, time-consuming, and leads to calcification in the kettle or cooking pot.

If only minimal amounts of water are used, this is not a problem. However, in all other cases, the energy expenditure is not worth it.

A water filter is a cheaper, more practical, and environmentally friendly solution for descaling.

Water filters are particularly worthwhile when drinks such as coffee or tea are brewed. Then it tastes much better, and you can enjoy the hot beverage unclouded.

How To Decalcify Water? Best 3 Practical Household Tips

What are the reasons for water decalcification?