If you live in Ripley, you’ll know all about hard water. Here’s why.

Along with just about everywhere else in the south of England – Surrey included – Ripley gets more than its fair share of hard water. It’s nothing to do with the type of rain. Rainwater is naturally soft. The problem lies in the soil under our feet.

Since Ripley lies on predominantly porous limestone underlay, the water is able to permeate the soil, which contains large amounts of calcium and magnesium minerals. These minerals have the effect of turning the soft water hard.

For Ripley residents, who’d rather not have hard water in the mains supply, the best option is to have a water softener. It will remove hard water immediately! Take skin and hair – they adore water that’s been softened. It guarantees they stay looking healthy and vibrant – not all washed out looking as they tend to with hard water. The same goes for laundry. Notice how stiff and starchy it feels with hard water in the system? With soft water, it’s nice and fluffy to the touch.

Nasty and persistent limescale is all caused by hard water. Water softeners stop scale build-up in its tracks – so that household appliances like dishwashers, kettles, washing machines and irons work can work efficiently, free of clogging limescale. The same goes for central heating systems. Limescale in boilers is a total nightmare. Pipework blocked with the stuff requires boilers to work ever harder to produce the right amount of heat and hot water. This leads to unnecessarily inflated energy bills and the threat of boiler breakdowns or replacement – both fiendishly expensive. And as for cleaning around the home – it’s so much easier to keep kitchens and bathrooms looking the part if you use soft water. It means less effort to achieve sparkling surfaces and less detergents to do the job.

Ripley has a reading of 268 parts per million (ppm) on the water hardness scale. Anything over 200ppm is considered hard – so Ripley is right up there amongst hard water hotspots.

Ripley – an Overview

Annual rainfall: 23.86inch or 606.04mm.

With a population of just over 2000, Ripley is a Surrey village that’s existed since Norman times, alongside its sister village of Send. Between 1813 and 1865, Ripley was actually the post town for the whole area – including Woking. In recent times, Ripley’s been spared all the traffic, with the A3 six lane trunk road now going north of Guildford.
The 2012 Summer Olympics road cycling races passed through Ripley. Since then, the Surrey 100 sportive and race have come through the village each July.

Ripley is the birthplace of the guitarist Eric Clapton, whilst musician Paul Weller is a long-term Ripley resident.