Under-sink water filter installation in Oxford
Getting an under-sink drinking water filter fitted in Oxford — what it costs, whether you could do it yourself, and where the job stops being DIY.
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.