What Hard Water Does to a Water Heater

Dissolved minerals stay in solution while water is cold. Heat it, and they come out and deposit on the nearest hot surface — the bottom of a gas tank, or directly on the elements of an electric one.

On a gas heater that layer sits between the burner and the water, so the burner runs longer to do the same job and the steel above it runs hotter than it should. On electric, scale forms on the element itself until it burns out.

Popping or rumbling from the tank, which is water flashing to steam under a sediment layer. Hot water that runs out sooner than it used to, because sediment is occupying volume. Elements failing repeatedly on an electric unit.

Then, eventually, a tank that fails years before it should have.

Flushing the tank periodically removes sediment before it builds into a problem, and it is worth doing on a heater you intend to keep.

Treating the water addresses the cause. A softener stops the minerals reaching the heater at all, which protects the fixtures and appliances at the same time. That is the difference between managing the symptom and fixing it.

We test the water at the house rather than quoting a regional average, because hardness varies by supply and by property across this corridor and a number from somewhere else would be wrong for plenty of houses.