Hard water is often viewed as little more than an inconvenience, but the truth is that an abundance of minerals and chemicals in your water can have an adverse affect on your wallet, too. To prove it, here are four ways those pesky chemicals are costing you money every day. 

Cleaning Costs

While you might not be able to attribute all of your bathroom cleaning to hard water, that hard-to-remove bathtub ring likely causes you to spend a little more on cleaning products every month. That ring is the product of a chemical reaction, whereby your bathtub reacts with the metal ions in hard water to produce a precipitate, which then forms this grimy ring. 

Hair Care Products

You might think that your shampoo and conditioner are fighting hair dryness caused by low humidity or naturally low levels of oil. However, hard water can play a big role in making your hair feel rough and damaged. If you've tried untold numbers of hair care products without finding a solution, the cause for your hair woes might lie in your water, specifically the ions mentioned earlier, which can interact on a microscopic level with the hairs on your head, keeping them from looking their best. 

Pipe Buildup

Your hard water might be affecting parts of your home you might not even see, specifically your pipes. Much like with your bathtub, your pipes can be home to hard water precipitates, which can build up in your pipes and cause all kinds of trouble. Some signs of hard water buildup in pipes include poor heating, low water pressure, and slow draining of tubs and sinks. If any of these affect your home, you might be on the fast track to having a major costly pipe problem thanks to your hard water. 

Laundry Costs

A fourth area where hard water costs you money is in the laundry room, where hard water ions could be doing all kinds of damage to your clothes. The list of symptoms of hard water that can be seen in your clothes is a long one, and includes things like discoloration and rough feeling fabrics. These detriments can not only wear out your clothes, but also cause you to spend too much on fabric softener you might not need if you treat the problem at its source: your water. 

Few people realize the effects that hard water can have all around their homes, but once it becomes clear how much damage this condition can cause, so does the solution: investing in water softening can take these nasty ions out of your water and suddenly improve many facets of your life, almost like magic.