Hard water solutions in Birmingham
Birmingham has moderately hard water. Here is what that does to your home, what genuinely fixes it, what only appears to, and who can fit it locally.
Moderately hard
Severn Trent Water, South Staffs Water
Water in Birmingham
- Birmingham is the great exception to the rule that big English cities have hard water. Much of the city is supplied by Severn Trent from the Elan Valley in mid-Wales, seventy-three miles away by gravity-fed aqueduct, and that water is soft.
- The picture is genuinely mixed, though, because South Staffs Water supplies parts of the wider area from sandstone aquifers, and that water is hard. Two neighbouring suburbs can have quite different water.
- This makes Birmingham the UK city where checking your actual supplier matters most before buying anything. General advice about 'Midlands water' is close to useless here.
- The Elan Valley supply has been running since 1904 and is a genuine piece of civic history, which is why Birmingham water is a subject locals often know something about already.
- For households on the soft Severn Trent supply, a softener would be money wasted. For those on South Staffs, it may well be justified. Same city, opposite answers.
Your water is moderately hard — worth protecting the boiler, not much more.
Scale will build up slowly on heated surfaces. A scale inhibitor on the boiler is proportionate and inexpensive, and some manufacturers start asking for one around this level. A softener is still difficult to justify on cost. Test your own tap before deciding — at this level the exact figure matters.
Who supplies Birmingham
Water company boundaries do not follow council boundaries. Check your postcode for the supplier at your address.