Water Softeners in Richmond Hill, Sized for Lake Ontario Water

Richmond Hill water: hard, at the low end

Richmond Hill runs on Lake Ontario surface water through the York Water System, bought from the City of Toronto and Peel Region. York's latest figure is 127 mg/L, about 7.4 grains per gallon. On Health Canada's scale that is hard, just over the line from moderately hard.

That matters for what we sell you. Richmond Hill water is hard enough to spot glasses and build scale in a tankless heater, so a softener is the fix. It is not hard enough to need a big one. We size it small and tell you so.

Iron is barely there at 0.006 mg/L, and sodium is 16.6 mg/L. York lists Richmond Hill among the communities most affected by late summer and early fall lake algae taste and odour, which is a carbon job, not a softener job. The water is treated, monitored and safe.

Condos and townhouses along the Yonge Street corridor often have no drain for a softener. There, a salt-free conditioner protects the tankless heater and a carbon filter handles chlorine. We tell you honestly what each will and will not do.

• Compact softeners sized for low-end hard water
• Salt-free conditioners for condos and townhouses
• Hardness read before install and after, at the same tap
• Carbon filtration for chlorine and seasonal taste
• Lead testing and RO in pre-1990 homes
• In-depth well water testing for wells at the north edge

Small softeners and condo conditioners

At 127 mg/L, a compact softener handles a Richmond Hill house without working hard. We program it from the reading at your tap and read again after, so you see the change. For condos and townhouses without a drain, a salt-free conditioner often does enough to protect a tankless heater, though it will not give you the slippery feel of softened water.

Chlorine and the late summer lake taste are the other everyday complaints, and a whole-home carbon stage removes both at every tap. For background on the supply, read what is actually in York Region tap water.

Lead, PFAS and RO at the kitchen tap

Homes built before about 1990 can have lead solder and, in the oldest around the village core and Mill Pond, lead service lines. A lab lead test settles it. Reverse osmosis at the kitchen tap removes lead along with the PFAS and pharmaceutical residue households increasingly ask about.

We sample before and after so the result is in numbers, not a promise. Our article on PFAS and pharmaceuticals in drinking water explains what RO can and cannot do.

Wells around Oak Ridges and Lake Wilcox

Oak Ridges and Lake Wilcox sit on the Oak Ridges Moraine, and some properties at the north edge may still be on private wells. York's table does not cover them, and we will not guess at a number. Start with in-depth well water testing.

Then we treat what is actually there, in order: sediment, iron filter if iron shows up, softener, and UV where bacteria does. Our well water treatment page walks through the design.