Testing tap water for hardness with TF-100

[run53]

So, I was told that my town delivers "hard water" to my home. This prompted my wife to tell me I needed to install a water softener system. Before I look into that, I decided to test the water for CH using my TF-100 kit. I used the same procedure I use for my pool testing. My results were about 50ppm of calcium hardness.

So my question is......do the reagents used with the TF-100 measure "water hardness" or just " calcium hardness" and are they the same?

 

[triptyx]

I may get corrected, but they're mostly the same (I'm assuming here that you're mainly only worried about calcium buildup - salt or some other contaminant won't show up on that test). Someone is feeding you a line. If you really want to make sure, you should be able to get a water quality report from your water company - they'll give you the numbers as they've tested it sometime in the last year or so.

I'd love to only have 50ppm CH in my fill water, it's 225 here!

 

[Donldson]

Total hardness includes calcium as well as manganese. Both are important when evaluating water softener needs, but for a pool calcium hardness is the only really important factor. So the TF-100 only checks for calcium.

Now, to do this the R-0010 is added to buffer the manganese. So it might be that you can skip that step and get a TH reading, but I have not confirmed this myself. Still, as triptyx mentioned, you should be able to get a water report that will have this number.