Hard water
Scale on the kettle, film on shower doors, soap that will not lather. Very common — and usually not a safety issue.
Visible scale
kettle, glass, fixtures
Minerals
calcium & magnesium
Maintenance
descale or soften
What people notice
White scale, spots on glassware, soap that will not lather. Hardness is minerals (mostly calcium and magnesium) — visible and annoying, easy to mistake for “contamination.”
What records usually show
Day-to-day cards may show a hardness number when lab samples exist. We label soft, hard, or very hard from that number (soft ≤60, hard about 60–180, very hard above ~180 mg/L as CaCO₃) and keep the mg/L on the card. Ontario has no health MAC for hardness — it is comfort and appliances, not a safety score. Hardness rarely drives the “worth a closer look” status.
What you can do
- Descaling appliances is ordinary maintenance.
- If scale really bothers you, a softener is the usual tool — see our education page (no products sold here).