Water Softeners in Beaverton, Cannington and Sunderland

Brock water: one township, three systems

Brock Township has three municipal systems. Beaverton draws Lake Simcoe water through the Beaverton plant. Cannington and Sunderland run on groundwater wells. The Region of Durham lists Beaverton at 148 mg/L, about 8.7 grains per gallon, hard. Cannington is 312 mg/L, about 18.2 grains per gallon. Sunderland is 345 mg/L, about 20.2 grains per gallon, the hardest municipal system in Durham's table. Both are very hard.

Both Cannington and Sunderland are over 200 mg/L, the level Health Canada's document calls poor. If you live there, you do not need anyone to tell you. You see it every time you look at a faucet.

Durham says its water is safe and that a softener is a personal preference, not a requirement. That is true, and we will say it plainly. People still choose one because scale costs them water heaters, dishwashers and a lot of scrubbing, and in Sunderland and Cannington it costs them fast.

Rural Brock is on private wells, and the Region's Health Department handles private well testing. Those homes, and the cottages on the shore, start with in-depth well water testing.

• Softeners sized for very hard Cannington and Sunderland water
• Compact softeners for Beaverton's hard lake water
• Hardness read before install and after, at the same tap
• Carbon for Beaverton's seasonal lake taste
• In-depth well water testing for rural wells
• Lake intake systems and seasonal cottage service

Softeners for three very different villages

In Sunderland at 345 mg/L and Cannington at 312 mg/L, the water is more than twice as hard as Beaverton's. A softener there has real work to do, and it needs the capacity and the program to match. We read your hardness at the tap before install, set the softener from it, and read again after. On water this hard, the difference between the two numbers is the whole point.

Beaverton at 148 mg/L is hard, not very hard. A compact softener handles it, and the late summer lake taste is a separate job for a carbon stage on the main line. Reverse osmosis at the kitchen tap finishes the drinking water for anyone who wants it.

Well water across the township

Rural Brock is on private wells. The Region's Health Department handles bacteria testing for private wells. That is the public test, and it checks bacteria. Our in-depth well water testing covers the rest: iron, sulphur, hardness, nitrates and more.

Then the sequence runs sediment, iron and sulphur filter, softener, and UV last where bacteria has shown up. For more on the two usual culprits, read iron and sulphur in well water.

Lake intakes from Beaverton to Thorah Island

Brock's shoreline runs from Beaverton along the Lakeshore Road area and out to Thorah Island, with seasonal and year-round homes on lake intakes and shallow wells. We test first, then size each system for the property and lay it out to drain in the fall; our cottage and lake water systems page explains the stages.

On Thorah Island and along Lakeshore Road, the fall shutdown and spring start-up are booked together, with a bacteria sample when the water comes back on. Our guide, can you drink Lake Simcoe water at the cottage, covers the question most owners ask first.