Hard water solutions in Oxford
Oxford has hard water. Here is what that does to your home, what genuinely fixes it, what only appears to, and who can fit it locally.
Hard
Thames Water
Water in Oxford
- Oxford is supplied by Thames Water with hard to very hard water, typically 250 to 320 mg/l CaCO₃.
- The city's water comes largely from the Thames and its tributaries plus local groundwater, all of it running over limestone and chalk.
- Oxford's historic centre has an unusually high concentration of listed and conservation-area properties, where plumbing alterations face consent constraints that do not apply in ordinary housing stock.
- College and institutional buildings form a substantial commercial filtration market, with catering operations that need scale protection in genuinely hard water.
- The surrounding Oxfordshire villages include a number of properties on private supplies, where the treatment questions are quite different from those in the city.
You have hard water — scale protection is worth having.
The World Health Organization notes that water at 200 mg/l or above will produce scale, and that is where this band begins. At this level limescale is a recurring cost rather than an occasional nuisance, and many boiler manufacturers require scale protection to keep the warranty valid. A softener is worth costing out properly.
Who supplies Oxford
Water company boundaries do not follow council boundaries. Check your postcode for the supplier at your address.