Water Softeners in Sutton, Jackson's Point and Georgina

Georgina water: hard in town, a different job on the wells

Sutton and the Lakeshore communities get Lake Simcoe water treated at York Region's new Georgina Water Treatment Plant. The old Sutton plant is decommissioned. York says Georgina is supplied by two Lake Simcoe intakes, at the Keswick and Georgina plants. The latest York figure for the Georgina system is 144 mg/L, about 8.4 grains per gallon. That is hard, not moderately hard.

So if you live in Sutton or Jackson's Point and the shower glass clouds over a week after you clean it, that is not your cleaning. It is hardness. A water softener ends it, and that is what we install here most.

York built the new plant with work at Willow Wharf Park and Malone Wharf at Jackson's Point. The water it sends out is treated, monitored and safe. Hardness is a scale problem, not a health problem, and it is the one most Georgina households are still living with.

Outside the serviced areas, Georgina homes are on private wells, and the shoreline has cottages on lake intakes. Those get in-depth well water testing first, before anyone talks about a softener.

• Canadian-made softeners for hard Georgina lake water
• Hardness read before install and after, at your kitchen tap
• Carbon for Sutton's late summer lake taste
• In-depth well water testing for private wells
• Lake intake systems with UV, designed from the test
• Seasonal cottage shutdown and start-up

Softeners for Sutton, Jackson's Point and the Lakeshore

At 144 mg/L, about 8.4 grains per gallon, Georgina's lake water sits in the hard band. You see it on the taps and the glass, and the water heater feels it where you cannot see. A softener sized to your household handles it at every tap, and we read your hardness before and after install so you see the difference in numbers.

Iron is not the town water issue here: York's table shows 0.003 mg/L. Sodium is 38.1 mg/L, so anyone on a sodium-restricted diet should drink from a reverse osmosis tap or have us run the softener on potassium chloride.

York lists Sutton among the communities most affected by late summer and early fall lake algae taste and odour. A softener does not fix taste. A carbon stage on the main line does, and it takes out the chlorine too.

Well water outside the serviced areas

Homes outside the serviced areas are on private wells, and a private well is not town water. Nobody tests it but you. The Town of Georgina has information on private wells and well water testing, and York Region tests private wells for bacteria free of charge. That covers bacteria. It does not cover iron, sulphur, hardness or nitrates.

Our in-depth well water testing covers the rest, and then we build the sequence: sediment, iron and sulphur, softener, UV, only the stages your results need. Our article on iron and sulphur in well water explains the stains and the smell.

Lake intakes from Jackson's Point to Port Bolster

Georgina's cottage water comes off a long stretch of shore: the open lake at Jackson's Point, the cottages around Island Grove, and the properties where the Pefferlaw River meets Lake Simcoe. Lake water changes week to week, so we test it before we design anything, then size each intake system for the cottage's flow and lay it out to drain quickly in the fall. Our page on cottage and lake water systems walks through the stages.

From Island Grove to the mouth of the Pefferlaw River, we pair the fall shutdown with a spring start-up and a bacteria sample, so the water is confirmed before the first long weekend. For the background, see can you drink Lake Simcoe water at the cottage.