Homes in Shoreham-by-Sea receive hard water. This is the reason.

Like everywhere else in West Sussex and much of the south-east of England, living in Shoreham means you are faced with hard water. This isn’t because rain falls as hard water – rainwater is naturally soft. The issue is the soil in the ground.

The soil around Shoreham and further afield is chalky, which contains an abundance of magnesium and calcium minerals. When it rains, the water reaches the soil, where the calcium and magnesium components get to work and turn the soft water hard.

The best solution for Shoreham homeowners who don’t appreciate persistently hard water is to have a water softener fitted. It’s a win-win situation! For a start, our skin and hair respond well to soft water; it prevents them from becoming dry. Wash them in soft water and skin feels silky smooth and hair looks lustrous and vibrant. Laundry also appreciates softened water, since clothing and towels won’t feel starchy to the touch and drained of colour.

One of the major issues surrounding hard water is that it wreaks limescale havoc. Water softeners work wonders at ridding pipework and household appliances of scale. Washing machines and dishwashers work much more efficiently with soft water. Furthermore, cleaning kitchens and bathrooms is easier and you’ll use far less detergents – saving time and money. Your cash will also stretch a lot further with soft water flowing your central heating system. That’s because limescale won’t block up the pipes, which makes it harder and more expensive to generate the necessary amount of heat and hot water in the home. Boilers are costly pieces of kit to replace – water softeners provide them with long-term protection.

If you reside in Shoreham, the water hardness reading is about 284 parts per million (ppm). That’s extremely high! Anything above 200ppm is considered hard.

Shoreham-by-Sea – an Overview

Annual rainfall: 26.73inch or 679mm.

Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a West Sussex coastal town and port, bordered to the north by the South Downs. To the south flows the River Adur and Shoreham Beach lies on the Channel coast. Shoreham is midway between Brighton and Hove to the east and Worthing to the west. The town’s population stood at 20,547 in the 2011 census.

Shoreham Airport, now renamed Brighton City Airport, is the UK’s oldest operating licensed airport. Its centrepiece is a 1936 Grade II listed Art Deco terminal. The Shoreham Tollbridge, which used to cross the River Adur, was the last operational Sussex tollbridge. It closed to traffic in 1968.

Famous people from Shoreham include the comedian Max Miller, the singer Leo Sayer and Nicholas van Hoogstraten, the notorious property developer.