Hard Water Areas In England: Are You Living In One?

If you live anywhere in England, you’re probably already aware that there are both areas that have hard water and areas that have soft water.
You may even be aware of the ‘divide’ that separates the opinions of people all over the country. Some people prefer soft, others prefer hard, and plenty of people like to argue that their local water is the best.
But where exactly are the hard water areas in England? Based on CaCo3 amounts listed by local water suppliers – alongside research by Bristan.com into water hardness by area, we can get a clear idea of which areas have the hardest water.
Read on to find out if your home town made the list!

Counties in England with the Hardest Water
The counties in England that were found to have the hardest water based on their mg/l of CaCo3 were Bedfordshire, Bershire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire. But within those counties, you may be wondering which are the specific towns with the hardest water.

Hard Water Towns in England
The towns in England found to have the hardest water were Bath (307 mg/l), Bristol (232 mg/l), Guildford (238 mg/l), Hemel Hempstead (303 mg/l), Milton Keynes (308 mg/l), Oxford (278.5 mg/l), Reading (277.5 mg/l), Slough (204 mg/l), Swindon (348.5 mg/l) and Walton-on-Thames (238 mg/l). Other towns that were determined to be hard water areas included Birmingham, Bournemouth, Brighton, Bromley, Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Chester, Colchester, Coventry, Croydon, Dartford, Derby, Doncaster, Dorchester, Enfield, Harrow, Hull, Ilford, Ipswich, Kingston Upon Thames, Lincoln, London, Luton, Medway, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Reading, Romford, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southall Uxbridge, Southampton, Southend on Sea, St Albans, Stevenage, Stoke on Trend, Sunderland, Sutton, Swindon, Telford, Tonbridge, Twickenham, Wakefield, Watford, Wolverhampton and York. You’ll notice that although it can vary, most of the harder water towns are in the southern half of the country, whilst soft water is more common in the north. This is another reason water is often used to describe the differences between regions!

What to do if you Live in a Hard Water Area
If you live in a hard water area and don’t like the taste of hard water, you don’t have to simply put up with it forever.
Instead, you could have a water softener installed, just like the ones we offer at EWT. A water softener will soften your supply and improve its taste, giving you the smoother feel and less chemical taste.

To learn more, go ahead and get in touch with us! We’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have and help you on your way to a better water supply.