Does Brita Filter Remove Hard Water

Brita is one of the longest-standing water filter brands, pioneering the revolutionary concept of at-abode water filtration. But can Brita filters filter difficult water? No – Brita'south filtration procedure isn't capable of softening your water.

In this guide, we'll await at hard water in more than item, why Brita's filters tin can't soften difficult h2o, and culling h2o treatment options to consider.

🚱 What is Hard Water?

Difficult water is water that contains calcium and magnesium minerals. The more than calcium and magnesium minerals water contains, the harder the h2o.

How do you know if you have hard water? Measure it.

According to the EPA, water hardness can be classed in 4 categories:

Hardness	Grains per Gallon (GPG)	Parts per Meg (PPM) & mg/L
Soft	<3.5	0 – 60
Moderately Hard	iii.6 – seven	61 – 120
Hard	vii.1 – 10	121 – 180
Very Difficult	>10	>180

Calcium and magnesium are the two hardness minerals responsible for calibration – the white, crude deposits that build up around faucets and on shower screens.

Scale buildup causes a host of issues around the home, including plumbing and cleaning issues. If you have even moderately difficult water, your skin and pilus health may suffer, and over fourth dimension, the calibration will decrease the lifespan of your appliances and slow down the flow of water in your pipes. You'll need to use more lather in your washing motorcar and dishwasher, and your cleaning duties will become considerably harder.

Hard h2o = more money and endeavor on maintaining your home and keeping up with your daily chores.

Thankfully, there are water treatment solutions available that tin soften water – merely Brita isn't one of them.

💭 Do Brita Filters Soften Hard Water?

Brita filters don't soften h2o.

Brita'southward pitchers are the almost popular drinking water filters offered past the brand. There are two water filter cartridges bachelor for the pitchers: the Standard filter, and the LongLast+. The LongLast+ can remove a handful of extra contaminants compared to the Standard filter, just neither filter tin soften hard h2o.

You tin as well buy canteen filters, faucet filters, and dispensers from Brita. The bottle filters and faucet systems use carbon filters, while the dispensers use the Standard and LongLast+ filters. None of these filter types filter difficult water, either.

The key thing to understand hither is that Brita filters work as filters, not softeners.

This means that they tin can remove contaminants from drinking water – such equally chlorine (taste and odor), mercury, atomic number 82, asbestos, benzene, cadmium, and copper – but they can't soften h2o.

What's confusing is that Brita water filters do utilise an ion exchange filter resin, and if you know anything about the softening procedure, you'll know that ion exchange typically removes calcium and magnesium. All the same, in this case, the ion exchange filter just removes copper, zinc and cadmium.

Brita coconut-based activated carbon media

Evidently, Brita water filters tin can remove temporary hardness like calcium bicarbonate, but they can't remove permanent hardness, like calcium sulfate – so they're no good for tackling hardness in the long run.

Brita filters volition give you cleaner, amend-tasting tap water.

📤 Tin can Yous Filter Difficult Water Through a Brita?

Yes, you can filter hard water through a Brita filter. However, the hardness minerals would eventually build up inside the filter cartridge.

Imagine that the hardness ions in your water were red food coloring. Every time y'all filtered water through the bullpen, some of the carmine food coloring would stick to the filter media. Eventually, the media would go completely saturated with carmine food coloring, and the filter cartridge would be bright cherry-red.

This concept explains how hardness ions tin build upwardly in a Brita bullpen filter over time. You might non notice the scale edifice up to begin with – but a few weeks later, the scale may have formed a layer over the filter media that drastically reduces filtration time and prevents the Brita filter from doing its chore.

Scale build up inside brita filter cartridge

The result? You end upwards having to expect hours for your bullpen to produce a batch of filtered h2o – and less constructive filtration may mean that you lot're drinking contaminants that the filter is supposed to remove.

If you practice plan to use a Brita filter for your drinking water, we recommend using a softened tap water supply in your bullpen, which won't damage the media with water hardness minerals.

💡 Systems That Tin Deal With Difficult Water

So, now you lot know that Brita filters tin't tackle calcium or magnesium ions – only you take a hard water consequence that yous want to resolve. What'southward side by side?

The most sensible option is to ignore the conventional Brita filter products and buy yourself a system that tin can soften water.

This means not only bypassing Brita water filters, simply h2o filters birthday.

While other h2o filter pitchers may be capable of removing other contaminants that negatively affect taste, they won't be able to turn your hard h2o into soft water.

To soften your water, you need a water softener or a water conditioner. The best h2o softening solutions are outlined below.

Ion Substitution Water Softeners

Ion commutation water softeners, also known as salt water softener systems, use the process of – you guessed it – ion exchange to physically remove hardness ions from tap water.

Water softener systems don't filter h2o – they're designed purely to produce softened h2o. The process involves sending water through a resin tank, which contains salt (sodium) ions.

Here'due south what happens next:

The resin and the hardness ions have reverse charges, which attracts the hardness ions to the resin bed.
When the hardness ions stick to the resin bed, an equal amount of sodium ions are released into the water.
Salt-softened water leaves the tank, and the hardness ions remain stuck to the resin.

Eventually, the softener regenerates, removing hardness ions from the resin and replenishing it with sodium, ready to go again.

Unlike Brita filtered water products, water softener systems are installed at your abode's point of entry, earlier your hot water heater, to intercept your water supply and forbid scale deposits from dissentious your plumbing.

H2o Conditioners

H2o conditioners are the table salt-free alternative to water softening systems. Conditioners don't actually remove calcium and magnesium, and they don't technically produce softened water. Instead, they alter the limerick of magnesium and calcium, preventing them from forming scale.

Here's how the procedure works:

Water flows into the conditioning tank.
The tank contains media, such as template-assisted crystallization (TAC) media. This media crystallizes the hardness ions.
Water flows out of the conditioning tank. The water is still technically hard, but in their new, crystallized forms, the hardness ions are unable to stick to surfaces and cause plumbing problems.

Water conditioners, like softener systems, are installed at water's entry point into your dwelling house. Because conditioners don't physically remove calcium or magnesium, they don't bear on water taste.

However, water conditioners aren't every bit effective at tackling higher concentrations of hardness. For that, you'll need a h2o softener.

Electronic Descalers

Electronic descalers are the final pick to protect confronting mineral impairment in your plumbing. An electronic descaler uses a coil of wire, positioned around your h2o piping, to ship electromagnetic impulses through the h2o, conditioning the hardness ions and preventing scale formation.

While electronic descalers are the near affordable scale prevention pick, their performance isn't backed past much scientific proof, and skeptics say that they're not worth using.

However, descalers are becoming more popular, and many customers have kickoff-hand proof that electronic descalers work. Do your inquiry and read client reviews when because this type of product.

🧠 FAQs

Does any course of filtration soften water?

The only filtration procedure that can tackle hardness is opposite osmosis, which can remove the majority of total dissolved solids from h2o.

Even so, if you run difficult water through an RO membrane for long plenty, the membrane volition somewhen become damaged. It isn't recommended to use h2o with high hardness in a reverse osmosis filtering system because the hardness volition shorten the system's lifespan.