Water softness testing

[Haines]

Quick question, I have a water test kit that uses the powder and then you count drops for the solution to turn from blue to pink (or vice versa, can't recall at the moment). Anyway, whenever I add the powder the water is already the "right" color; without adding any drops. Does this mean the sample is less than 1 grain hardness? I've thoroughly flushed the sample vial and bottle thinking it was contaminated, also ran water to make sure the sample was fresh.

In the past, the sample took one drop to turn color, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to start the "soft" color or not?

Thanks for the help!

 

[cantbreak80]

"Pink" means hard
"Blue" mean soft

Each drop of the reagent equals 1 grain

 

[Haines]

If it's blue before any reagent is added, then it's less than one grain?

 

[mrfixit]

Yeas less than one grain.. Your water is soft for sure.

If you want to confirm the test kit is good, get some hard water and see the difference in the test.

 

[Haines]

Thank you gentleman, just wasn't sure if it should start blue.

 

[Jeff_L]

Starting blue is great. Test your tap water and see how many grains it is. some softener shave a way to set what the inbound hardness is so it knows when to regenerate appropriately.

 

[2Biz]

If you're running zero grain water, you'll definitely save a ton of $$$ on chemicals!

 

[Greg Pack]

I will say that my Hach kit went bad after a while and loose their ability to change colors vividly. They do expire, and I can verify mine went bad. When I replaced it the color change was significant

 

[rph9168]

Most testing kits have a shelf life that is usually listed somewhere on the instructions. I used to try to carry a new kit along with me as a back up and use it when I thought testing results might be off. It was a good way to double check test results and saved me a lot of problems several times.