Pagham’s water supply is hard. But it needn’t be!

Like most parts of West Sussex and much of the south-east of England, living in Pagham means living with hard water. Don’t blame the rainwater, because this is naturally soft. The culprit is the soil in the ground.

Pagham sits predominantly on chalky soil, containing an abundance of calcium and magnesium minerals. When the rain seeps into the underlay, these minerals have the effect of turning the water from soft to hard.

If you live in Pagham and don’t much like constantly hard water, the best thing to do is have a water softener in your home. You’ll notice the benefits at once! For a start, our skin and hair thrive on soft water. It ensures they stay naturally soft, shiny and vibrant looking. Your laundry will also feel so much softer to the touch, if you have soft water flowing through the washing machine.

On the other hand, hard water is the prime cause of limescale – a real bugbear for homeowners. Thankfully, water softeners are superb at removing scale build-up, preventing it from clogging up pipework and household appliances, like washing machines, kettles and dishwashers. And as for cleaning kitchens and bathrooms, well this is far simpler and less costly with soft water on the go. Surfaces stay shiny and pristine and you won’t get through cleaning products so quickly. Your money will also go a lot further with soft water coursing through your boiler. The system won’t accumulate any scale, making it way more energy efficient. Good to know when energy prices are spiralling. Worryingly, hard water dramatically downgrades heating systems, shortening the lifespan of your household boiler. Not great news!

In Pagham, the water hardness reading is 280 parts per million (ppm). Any measurement above 200ppm is considered hard, so Pagham is towards the top end of the water hardness scale.

Pagham – an Overview

Annual rainfall: 27.86inch or 707.64mm.

Pagham is a coastal village in the Arun district of West Sussex about two miles west of Bognor. The population is around 6,100, consisting of Pagham’s three merging neighbourhoods – the original 13th century village of Pagham, along with Pagham Beach and Nyetimber.
Many of the original bungalow dwellings in Pagham Beach were constructed from old railway carriages before being rebuilt using sturdier materials.

The Site of Special Scientific Interest, known as Pagham Harbour, is to the southwest.

James Biden, US President Joe Biden’s paternal fourth great-grandfather, was christened at the church of St Thomas à Becket in Pagham in 1767. Meanwhile, the motor racing drivers John Watson and Derek Bell lived in Pagham.