LESLIE: Iron is a very important element to your diet and your health system but not when it’s in your water. Coming up, we have Dennis in Pennsylvania who’s got a question on how to remove that iron from his water.
Dennis, what’s going on?
DENNIS: Well I have very hard water and it shows up in the shower and in the sinks. And especially in the shower, our glass doors, we also have like a white film that builds up, which I’m not sure what that is. And I was hoping that you could point me in the right direction on how to remove those ingredients and prevent hard water stains.
TOM: Sounds like you have very hard water with a high mineral content. That’s usually what that white powder is. Now are you on well water or city water?
DENNIS: Well water.
TOM: Do you have a water softener, Dennis?
DENNIS: No. No I do not.
TOM: Dennis, I think what you need to do is to pick up a water softener because all water softeners will remove iron. The rating for the water softener is going to vary in terms of how much iron that it actually removes. Perhaps a good place to start though, for you, just to identify what you have, is with a water test and the results of that water test would probably be very helpful in determining what type of water treatment equipment that you need. And I think always it’s a good idea that if you do have well water that you test your water periodically just to make sure that there are no contaminants leaking into that that perhaps you’re not aware of. You’ve spotted the after-effects here with the powder on the walls and of course the iron is visible when it gets into your clothes and into your plumbing fixtures and so on. But have a water test done. That’s going to help you determine what type of water softener you need and that should make both of those problems go away fairly quickly.
Dennis, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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