Severn Trent is planning on selling it’s water to Anglian Water, which illustrates perfectly the fact that we do not have static hardness of water. In order to provide robustness to the water network UK dwellings have never received all it’s water from one source. However, what is relatively new is what the local water networks are planning or have already built. In order to supply water shortages in their area, most networks have devolved a small local network to move water from within their own region. Wessex Water plans to send Wiltshire and Dorset water to Somerset. This will almost certainly cause the Somerset water to become harder.

It is very interesting to note that bore holes in Birmingham will be used to provide the water to Anglian Water, simply because much of Birmingham water comes from  Wales via the Elan aqueduct. It’s own water could well be hard water, whereas the Wales water is soft.

What can upset people is that they have no right to soft or hard water. What is more, this fluctuating hardness can have implications with water treatment devices that depend on a static water hardness. Salt based systems are often calibrated to the water hardness, dishwashers all need calibrating as well. The Aquabion system however needs no calibration.