Much like our bodies, our homes rely upon the use of water daily to complete various tasks.

“Water is used in every aspect in life throughout the house. Whether it be your cleaning, your bodies, of course, your health. And some of your most expensive aspects of owning a home, which are your appliances,” said Kyle Scheffler, a hard water specialist with Near Perfect Water.

There are many issues with water that could pop up, but the most prevalent is hard water.

“Hardness is calcium and magnesium that is in the water, so it's essentially dissolved rock that is in the water. Hardness in general it clings to things so you start to experience a buildup on all of your water using appliances like your dishwasher, hot water tank, and washing machine. The majority of municipal water and well water has extremely hard water. By having hard water it limits the efficiencies and limits the life spans of your water using appliances,” said Scheffler.

A few telltale signs may indicate you have a problem.

“Some of the biggest indicators are just water spots, water stains. You notice a slight, calcium white build ups around your faucets. You can also experience it on your shower doors for instance. Your glassware isn't going to be as clean as if you had soft water for instance,” said Scheffler.

If you think you have hard water, an expert can come in and easily run tests to find out if you do and it's done by just adding a few drops of soap to your water.

“What we have here is a mini-softener. What I want to do is fill up some with soft water and some without soft water. This is just pure soap. We're going to do five drops. Then we'll just shake it up. As you can see the city water, the hard water is not sudsing. Compared to this, you can see very clear water with nice suds,” said Scheffler.

When it comes to remediation, you have a few options of water softening systems, some that use salt and some that don't. Systems can run from a few hundred dollars to a few few thousand, depending on the solution that is best for you.