Water Hardness Units and Measurement of Water Hardness There are many types Water Hardness Measurement.

Water Hardness Measurement is usually in parts per million (ppm) of Calcium Carbonate equivalent. The most common Water Hardness Units of measurement in India is in parts per million (ppm) of Calcium Carbonate equivalent. In the USA the Water Hardness Units are in Grains per Gallon (gpg). 1 gpg = 17.1 ppm. Different parts of the world have different Water Hardness Measurement or Water Hardness Units as you can see from the following table.

From the above table, water containing about 75 milligrams/litre or less of Calcium Carbonate equivalent (the most common unit of measurement of hardness in India) is considered soft water. At 250 mg/L it is hard water and 350mg/L is considered very hard water. As mentioned before hard water is drinkable and is not harmful to health. But having a bath in hard water feels sticky and we do not get that fresh feeling of having had a bath. To make Hard Water Soft for domestic use, a water softener has been the traditional method in advanced countries of the world. This is a process of ion exchange using special resins and replacing the Calcium and Magnesium ions with Sodium ions. Sodium Chloride or common salt is used for for water softening to regenerate the ion exchange resin. Reverse Osmosis or RO removes all the Calcium and Magnesium from the water and there is no need of adding any Sodium to the water. To get the full benefits of Soft water, the water in the whole house must be softened. Most people use RO only for drinking water purification of hard water. Drinking Hard Water is not at all harmful to health. There is school of thought that drinking hard water, which is alkaline water, is beneficial to health, because of the mineral Calcium and others it contains. Where you really need soft water is to have a bath, to do your laundry and wash dishes. For this you must think of softening the water for the whole house. The latest and the most efficient Salt Free Water Softener is a Nanofiltration unit for your whole house. Nanofiltration is explained in more detail on our page on RO & NanoFiltration . Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis are both Salt Free Water Softener Systems to remove Water Hardness.