Where to Get Information on Water Hardness

As mentioned previously hard water results in less than bright laundry, dull hair, tide marks around the bath and scaling of kettles and other systems for electrically heating water using a coil in contact with water.
You can see a map of hard water areas here: for UK and for USA
To get specific information for your local neighbourhood contact the water department or the local City municipality will provide the answer and here's how to understand the jargon ... hardness is expressed as parts per million (ppm) or mgs/litre (= ppm) or grains per gallon (gpg) and even something called epm (equivalents per million). If you remember: that 17.1 PPM (parts per million), equals 1 GPG then things become a bit simpler to understand. Here's an example ....
Example: You water supply has 300 PPM of calcium. Divide 300 by 17.1.
This gives the GPG (grains per gallon) of hardness which in this case = 17.5 gpg. By referring to the table above this means your water is very hard. To go from gpg to ppm or mg/litre you do the opposite and multiply by 17.1
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