ScaleGuard Q

Exactly.

Our water is hard which isn't a problem as such, but it has a chemical taste to it especially after standing for a while. Using a Brita filter is the only way we can get a decent flavoured cuppa. It's not a hardship to change it once a month or top the jug up.

The price could put some people off though. 

This variance in hard water is interesting. 'Bunbury' is a regular visitor here and reckons that my hard water in South Norfolk tastes fine. It does to me too.

it seems that a pukka water-softener is the ideal way to go, if one has the space to fit it. My taps get pretty grungy.

John.

"Hard water is good for your teeth, but soft water is better for your skin",

Which must be true... Olive said so, during an ‘On The Buses’ episode 

I used to live in a soft water area and the water tasted okay, and it tastes okay where I live now in the hard water area, the problem is the lime-scale, it has to go somewhere.

Fitting a water softener should not affect the drinking water because should bypass that tap.

To sort out the drinking water supply you need a filter [which is a different thing from a softener] either fitted by the tap or by using a filter jug.

It's interesting that most mineral waters that people buy are usually 'hard' as the name mineral suggests. Many are filtered through limestone to their point of source. Thames water, which is hard, comes out very well against these mineral waters in blind taste tests but I don't think that the hardness directly relates to palatability as one of the nicest waters I've tasted was from a spring in Dartmoor and the water here is very soft, and the soft tap water in Devon, where my family live, is very drinkable. I think how tap water tastes has a lot to do with what is added chemically at the water treatment works, such as the concentration of chlorine.

I use a water softener which is very effective for reducing limescale, with a separate feed off the main to the cold tap in the kitchen. Britas water filters are excellent for making the tap water more palatable, mainly by reducing the chlorine content I think. 

I’ve always wondered why - if you pour a glass of water and drink it strait away it tastes fine, but if you pour a glass of water and leave it for a hour or two before drinking it tastes horrible  

 I agree. 

Debs, mine is a TwinTec softener which sits neatly under the kitchen sink.... fit and forget apart from adding new salt blocks approx. every 6 weeks according to useage of course.

The blue container to the right is the carbon filter for drinking water coming directly off the mains supply and feeding the drinking tap.

Regards the taste of water people prefer, they tend to go for the type they had available where they grew up.  Probably because they got used to it. 

It's soft water where I live and I found I couldn't stand the water on offer in Northampton and London even after living there for a few years.