Got a dishwasher? HUGE savings!

Lazy_Ike

RACHIE77 wrote:

Thanks OP! I live in a hard water area in the South of England (or at least I think it is a hard water area, how would i find out??)

Rachie
Have a look here. dwi = Drinking Water Inspectorate
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/faq/hardness.htm#4

Rockingit

I would have thought a quick look in the bottom of your kettle would be a fair indicator to most of us as to how hard the water is. Hard = lots of nice white limescale. Somebody once told me that in high build-ups limescale is actually poisonous, but I'm not sure about that. If it is.......any one fancy a lawsuit against their water authority??.....only kidding, I think.

RACHIE77

Rockingit wrote:

I would have thought a quick look in the bottom of your kettle would be a fair indicator to most of us as to how hard the water is. Hard = lots of nice white limescale. Somebody once told me that in high build-ups limescale is actually poisonous, but I'm not sure about that. If it is.......any one fancy a lawsuit against their water authority??.....only kidding, I think.

LOL - not much good in looking in the bottom of my kettle cos its fairly new so still pretty shiny! :rolleyes: Looking at the map tho I would say its fair to say i am pretty much certainly in a hard water area, in fact I think our water is so hard other water is scared of it!! :rotfl:

Thanks 4 that!

Rachie

bunking_off

Lazy_Ike wrote:

dwi = Drinking Water Inspectorate
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/faq/hardness.htm#4

Guess I can't quibble with it, because it's a government site, but I did find the map a bit strange. I'm in Lancashire and our water comes from Cumbria....but on the map Cumbria's marked as soft, Lancashire middling - strange given it's the same water.

As I keep tropical fish I do watch these things, and we're definitely soft water here...

sablade

Here's another tip a got from a mate, never use rinse aid try it see if you notice the difference.

Rinse aid is the stuff that makes your glasses go cloudy over time.

Our glasses still look new after dishwashing the same ones for 5 yrs with no rinse aid.

Good for your pocket and the enviroment

Rockingit

Ironically, and I'm no expert, I think that you need more rinse aid for SOFT water areas as that is where you get too many suds because of the soft water...... win some loose some I guess! LOL!!

I don't use any and the results are much better and as you rightly say, no more cloudy glasses. But we do use the 3/4 in 1 tabs and there's probably some in them anyway.

Rockingit

RACHIE77 wrote:

LOL - not much good in looking in the bottom of my kettle cos its fairly new so still pretty shiny! :rolleyes: Looking at the map tho I would say its fair to say i am pretty much certainly in a hard water area, in fact I think our water is so hard other water is scared of it!! :rotfl:

Thanks 4 that!

Rachie

In itself that probably means you're not too bad. Where I live you can see the limescale start to build up after only about 3 boils!!!! :eek:

So 'ard it carries a flick knife.................

ohreally

Rockingit wrote:

We live in a very hard water area, and there is absolutely no way I would ever not use salt.

We live in a very soft water area and have never used salt.We had contractors from all over the UK at our place of work a while back and they all commented on the water....it only took a couple of minutes for a full kettle of water to boil, in there own region it took at least double the time - they couldn't believe it.

sablade

i buy salt in a sack for £10 lasts 5 yrs I buy dishwasher powder from lidl v cheap and i dont buy any rinse aid!

damiandixon

https://www.screwfix.co.uk does a water hardness test kit.

I tried it at home (soft water - kettle does not fur up) and at my mum's (kettle furs up quickly). The results confirmed what we knew.

By the way the calgon website says I have very hard water.

About a year ago I looked at the javascript for thier checker and found that it was hardwired to return hard water. The site has since changed and I can't see the code they use to say if you have hard water or soft.