Water Softeners in Uxbridge: Very Hard Well-Fed Town Water

Uxbridge water: just over the line, and still very hard

Durham Region lists Uxbridge's water at 186 mg/L, about 10.9 grains per gallon. Health Canada calls anything over 180 very hard. So Uxbridge is very hard, at the low end of very hard. It is the least hard of Durham's well-fed systems, and it is still harder than the Lake Ontario water in Whitby or Ajax.

Durham also says its water is safe, meets the aesthetic guidelines, and that a softener is a personal preference, not a requirement. That is true and we will say it plainly. Nobody in Uxbridge needs a softener to have safe water.

People choose one anyway, for the reasons you already know. Scale in the kettle. Spots on every glass out of the dishwasher. A crust on the shower head. A tankless heater that needs descaling sooner than the manual says. At 186 mg/L that adds up. A water softener sized for 10.9 grains and your household ends it.

• Softeners sized for 186 mg/L, about 10.9 grains per gallon
• Right-sized, not oversized, for the low end of very hard
• Baseline hardness reading at install, then an after reading
• Tankless heater scale protection
• In-depth well water testing for rural Uxbridge
• Canadian-made systems, built in Barrie

The honest case for a softener at 186 mg/L

Because Uxbridge sits just over the very hard line, the sizing matters more than the sales pitch. A softener built for 25 grains in a two-person house is wasted salt and wasted water. We size for 10.9 grains, your people and your bathrooms, and give you a fixed written price. If a smaller unit will do it, that is the one we quote.

On install day we read the hardness at your kitchen tap before we connect anything. That is your baseline. We install, program from that reading, and read the same tap again. You see both numbers. The after number tells you it works. It tells us it is set up right. If you have a tankless water heater, that after reading is what protects it.

Rural Uxbridge: test the well first

Outside the serviced area, homes rely on private wells, and town water numbers do not apply to you. A well can be harder or softer than town, and it can carry iron, sulphur, nitrates or bacteria that a softener does nothing about. The Region's Health Department tests private wells for bacteria. That is a good start. It is not the whole picture.

Start with in-depth well water testing. We check hardness, iron, manganese, pH, dissolved solids and sulphur on site, send bacteria, nitrate, sodium and metals to an Ontario laboratory, and explain the results in plain language. Then we treat in order: sediment, iron and sulphur, softener, UV. Our well water treatment page shows how the stages fit together.