Hach Softchek Total Hardness Water Quality Test Strips: Review
A few years ago we paid several thousand dollars to install a salt based water softening system, and it has really improved our hard water problems. Occasionally, the salt will accumulate around the edges of the container, what the company calls “shelving”, and the system doesn’t work properly, resulting in hard water coming into the home once again. Being able to test the hardness of our water was becoming a must.
We decided to buy a product to test our water on a regular basis to be sure that our expensive water softener was working properly, and the product we chose to help us make this determination was Hach Softchek Water Quality Test Strips for Total Hardness.
Hach Strips are Simple to Use
These strips are extremely easy, fast, and convenient to use! The plastic container holds 50 strips, which measure about 4″ long, by 1/4″ in width. The end of the strip has a 1/4″ colored tip. All you do is dip this into your water for one second, and remove. Shake off any excess water, and hold the strip level for only 15 seconds. You then compare the color at the tip of the strip to the hardness chart printed on the side of the container. Soft water will result in the tip turning green, and as the water increases in hardness the color turns to light lime green, gray, clay, rust and finally orange, which means you have very hard water.
At one end of the spectrun, the green color means 0 grains per gallon (soft water), and 25 grains per gallon is very hard water. Most hard water is caused by calcium and magnesium, and causes scale to build up on appliances.
Thoughts
Testing our water on a weekly or bi-weekly basis assures us that our expensive investment in the water softener is paying off. After all, there is no use spending all that money on a softener if it isn’t working properly. Testing our water is really protecting our investment. If we find that the water softener isn’t working properly, we can quickly find out what the problem is and fix it, and won’t risk damage to our water heater and pressure tank.
Before we had the Hach Softchek strips, we were always guessing about the hardness or softness of our water. Now there is no guesswork involved, it only takes a few seconds and we know exactly how hard (or soft) our water is. These water quality test strips are a great tool!
Other Hach test strips are available for testing:
* Alkalinity
* Ammonia
* Arsenic
* Calcium
* Chloride
* Copper
* Iron
* Magnesium
* Nitrogen & Ammonia
* Nitrigen & Nitrate/Nitrite
* pH
* Phosphorus
The 50 count bottle retails for around $8.50.
