We live in an area with very hard water, and so the usual problems this creates.
One particular thing is that we get a lot of flakes of a chalky material building up in the shower head (We've got an "anti-limescale" shower head that you can dismantle to clean it). The shape and nature of these flakes suggests to me that they're the result of limescale building up inside a pipe somewhere in the system, then flaking off and travelling down the pipes until they get caught up in the shower head.
Is there any way I can work out where this buildup is happening, and stop it? Why does it only happen in the shower, and not in the normal taps?
If it makes a difference, it's an electric shower, wheras the other taps (bath, sink etc) are fed off the gas boiler.
Best Answer
A standard water softener will remove most of the calcium ( and Mg, Ba, Sr , etc) from the water supply. It will not remove existing scale in the pipes, etc. It would be expensive to remove the existing scales ; flushing with dilute hydrochloric/muriatic would do it , but not a job for the homeowner. The taps that don't plug may have no strainers; also you may have mostly "temporary" hardness. In temporary hardness , carbon dioxide acidifies the water and keeps the calcium in solution, when the water is heated the CO2 is removed, and then the calcium precipitates/scales.