What does Cedarburg's hard water do inside a water heater?
Cedarburg Light and Water is unusually direct: its supply comes from deep groundwater wells, it is high in minerals, and it is not softened. At about 21 to 24 grains, the appliance that feels that most is the one you never look at, the water heater in the basement.
Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pmWhy heat makes the minerals drop out
Hardness is dissolved calcium and magnesium, and it stays dissolved as long as the water stays cool. Heat changes that. As the water in the tank warms, the minerals come out of solution and settle as a chalky layer on the hottest surfaces, which in a tank heater means the bottom and the element, and in a tankless unit means the inside of the heat exchanger.
The layer is the same scale you see on a kettle, only thicker, because the water heater handles every gallon of hot water the house uses. On Cedarburg's deep well water there is more mineral in every gallon than on most Wisconsin supplies, so the layer builds faster than it would in a lake water suburb.
What the scale does to the heater
Scale is an insulator. Once a layer sits between the burner or element and the water, the heater has to run longer to bring the tank up to temperature, and a gas heater may start to rumble or pop as water trapped under the scale flashes to steam. Owners often describe it as the heater sounding like it is boiling.
Over time the sediment also takes up room in the bottom of the tank and can clog the drain valve, which makes the yearly flush that manufacturers ask for harder to do. On a tankless heater the narrow passages of the exchanger are the first thing to close up, which is why those units ask for a descaling service on hard water.
None of this is specific to one brand. It is what dissolved minerals do when they meet heat, and Cedarburg's utility has already told you the minerals are there.
What changes once the water is softened
A softener sits where the main line enters the house, ahead of the water heater, and swaps the calcium and magnesium for sodium before the water is ever warmed. Softened water carries very little hardness into the tank, so there is almost nothing left to drop out when it heats.
The scale that is already inside an older heater does not vanish; softening stops new layers from forming. That is why many households pair a new softener with a flush of the existing tank, and why a heater installed after the softener starts clean and stays that way.
The softener is set to Cedarburg's published hardness, about 21 to 24 grains, and the plumber confirms the figure with a test at the tap on installation day before anything is set.
Signs a Cedarburg heater is already scaled
A tank that takes longer to recover than it used to, a rumbling or popping sound while it heats, a drain valve that trickles cloudy or gritty water, or a tankless unit that throws a flow or temperature error. Any of these on Cedarburg water usually means mineral, not a failing heater.
If you are weighing a replacement heater, it is worth putting the softener in first. The new tank then never sees the hard water that shortened the life of the old one.
Common questions
Does a softener do anything about the scale already in my water heater?
It stops new scale from forming, because the minerals are taken out before the water reaches the tank. The existing layer stays until the tank is flushed or descaled.
Is 21 to 24 grains hard enough to bother a water heater?
Yes. The USGS scale calls anything above 10.5 grains very hard, and Cedarburg's published range is roughly double that. Every gallon the heater warms carries that mineral load.
Does softened water harm a water heater?
Softened water is what the heater's manufacturer expects. The warning you may have read concerns the anode rod, which can wear faster in softened water; checking it during the yearly flush covers that.
More for Cedarburg homes
- Water softeners in Cedarburg, WI
- Water softener installation in Cedarburg, WI
- Water softener replacement in Cedarburg, WI
- Well water softeners in Cedarburg, WI
- Cedarburg, WI water hardness
- Cedarburg water guides
- The people behind Cedarburg Water Softener Co.
- Get a quote for your Cedarburg home
- Is Cedarburg's water softened? What Cedarburg Light and Water says
- City of Cedarburg water or a Town of Cedarburg well: telling them apart
- Town of Cedarburg wells: what to order from the lab
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