Water quality, explained
The town and water system pages on softwater.io answer one question: what is in the water where you live. These pages answer the questions that follow it, in three groups. Hard water covers hardness itself — what it is, how it is measured, what removes it. Filtration and taste covers a different problem: contaminants, odour and the equipment aimed at them. Health and beauty covers the questions about drinking softened water and about skin and hair, written to separate what is documented from what is commonly claimed.
Nothing here is a sales page. Where a number is quoted it is a measured or published one, and where the evidence is unsettled the page says so.
Hard water
What hardness is, how it is measured, and which equipment addresses it. These pages sit behind the town and water system data.
Filtration & taste
A separate problem from hardness. These pages cover taste, odour and contaminant removal — reverse osmosis, whole-house filtration, and where the two get confused with softening.
Water filtration vs water softening
Two different jobs: filtration targets contaminants and taste, softening removes hardness minerals. When you need one, the other, or both.
Reverse osmosis explained
How an RO membrane works, what it does and does not remove, the drain-water ratio, and the remineralisation question.
Whole-house RO vs under-sink RO
Coverage, output rate, storage, cost and complexity — and why most households are served by the under-sink version.
Why does my tap water taste bad?
Chlorine and chloramine, sulfur smell, metallic and musty notes, plumbing causes — and how to tell a treatment issue from a one-off.
Health & beauty
The questions people ask about drinking softened water and about skin and hair. Written to distinguish what is documented from what is commonly claimed, with the sources named.
Is softened water safe to drink?
The sodium question answered with numbers: how much ion exchange adds at a given hardness, and who has reason to care.
Hard water, skin and hair
What the dermatology literature actually supports about hard water, soap scum and skin barrier irritation — and which claims go beyond it.
Filtered water and taste preference
Why people report preferring filtered water, what sensory research attributes it to, and what it does not establish.
8 pages published so far. Looking for a specific figure instead? New Jersey hardness data covers every town on file.