The mains water in Midhurst is hard. Here’s why.

If you live in Midhurst, unless you own a water softener, your water supply will be hard.

As with much of West Sussex, Midhurst is located on predominantly porous, chalky soil. This contains an abundance of calcium and magnesium minerals. Although rainwater is naturally soft, every time rains seeps into the underlay, these minerals change the water from soft to hard.

Hard water isn’t actually dangerous – but it doesn’t have a great deal going for it! You’ve probably already discovered that it dries out skin and hair and makes laundry coarse and starchy to the touch – not good. Try and create a nice lather with shampoos and gels and you’re up against it. So, you end up getting through costly cleaning products far quicker than necessary.

An even worse problem is that hard water is the main cause of limescale. That’s why maintaining nice and shiny kitchen and bathroom surfaces is virtually impossible, because the scale keeps returning.

Even more concerning is what hard water does to your central heating system. Within just a few short months, boilers and water tanks can collect an alarming amount of scale. It builds up around pipework, so you end up having to heat the scale before the hot water – meaning boilers have to work ever harder to generate the right amount of heat and hot water. Water tanks also get clogged with scale, reducing storage capacity.

This all amounts to needless energy use and ever higher fuel bills. Plus, you’ll find that the boiler could need completely replacing in half the time it would take if you had soft water in your home. And they cost a packet!

The solution, of course, is to have a water softener installed. Once you’ve paid for the initial investment, you’ll end up saving thousands of pounds on energy costs and repair bills. And softened water is a delight to use – your skin and hair will love you for it!

Midhurst’s water hardness level is around 260 parts per million (ppm). Any reading above 200ppm is considered hard – which means Midhurst is registering a pretty high number! A Scott Jenkins water softener would reduce that level down to virtually zero.

Midhurst – an Overview

Annual rainfall: 29.3 inch or 745mm

Midhurst is a West Sussex market town with many small shops, restaurants and cafes, lying on the River Rother 12 miles north of the county town of Chichester. The town’s population stood at 4914 at the 2011 census. Just across the River Rother, in the parish of Easebourne, is the ruin of the Tudor Cowdray House.

In 2002, Midhurst was rated the second-best place to live in Britain by Country Life magazine. Midhurst featured as a set for the television series Foyle’s War in 2010. Henry VIII visited Midhurst twice, whilst the novelist, H.G.Wells, was a pupil and pupil teacher at Midhurst Grammar School in 1882 and 1883.