Crusted faucets, a flaky kettle and a rumbling water heater all point to hard water. We test the water at your Aurora tap, then fit a softener to the house and its pipes.
Hard water shows up as crust on faucets and spots on glasses. You pay for it in scale inside the water heater, sticky toilet fill valves and worn faucet cartridges, whether the house is a century home near Yonge and Wellington or a new build east of Bayview.
A softener stops that scale where water enters the house. We do not assume how hard your water is; we test at your tap first, because capacity follows the reading and the household. Drains, heaters and repiping are on our Aurora plumber page.
In an Aurora basement, what the main is made of and the pressure it carries matter as much as the hardness reading.
A house near the downtown blocks may have been updated in stages, so the supply can change material between the meter and the laundry room. We trace it before cutting in, and where it is galvanized we check its condition and say if repiping should come first.
An Aurora home built in the 1980s or early 1990s may have grey polybutylene (Poly-B), and one built from the mid-1990s into the 2000s may have orange or blue Kitec. Both are known to fail at the fittings, so if either is where the softener connects to the main, we replace that short section first.
Mechanical rooms toward St John's Sideroad are often boxed in by a finished basement. We route drain and power to open as little drywall as possible and keep the brine tank reachable.
A gauge on the main shows what this house actually gets, and a worn reducing valve can make a good supply feel weak. That reading, not a guess based on the street, decides the softener valve size and whether the reducing valve needs work first.
Hardness is read at a cold tap and a gauge records incoming pressure. An existing softener gets checked to see whether it still works.
We find the shut-off, confirm what the main is made of and locate the nearest drain and outlet. Any section that needs replacing is priced before anything is cut.
With the water off, isolation valves and a bypass go on the main. The drain line gets an air gap, and outdoor taps stay on hard water where the piping allows.
The valve is set for your hardness and household, then run through a manual regeneration and checked for drips. We retest at the kitchen tap and show you the salt fill and bypass.
The kettle stays clear inside. A heater that already holds scale keeps it, so a noisy tank may stay noisy.
In an older house near Yonge and Wellington where galvanized supply stays in use, check under sinks and at exposed joints for damp over the first few weeks. A new weep points to the pipe, not the softener, so call us.
On the newer streets east of Bayview, where we route the drain line around finished rooms, you may hear water running to it overnight while the unit regenerates. We agree the start time with you when the valve is programmed.
Expect a slight pressure drop through the unit, and salt that goes down slowly. If a shower feels clearly weaker than before, or the salt stops dropping, call us to check the valve, bypass and brine line.
The water test and the number of people at home set the capacity. Beyond that, cost depends on the plumbing you already have: galvanized or polybutylene at the main, how far the unit sits from a drain and outlet in a finished basement, a sediment or carbon stage alongside, a tired shut-off or pressure reducing valve, and removing an old unit. We see the space, then quote a fixed price in writing.
Top up before salt drops below the water line in the brine tank, and break up any crust that forms across the top.
When the household grows or shrinks, the regeneration settings should follow, or the unit runs too often or too late.
Where a sediment cartridge catches rust from old galvanized pipe, falling pressure usually means it is due, not that the softener failed.
Spots returning, a brine tank full of water or constant regeneration point to a worn injector, brine line or valve. Our water softener repair service covers Aurora.
A softener removes hardness, protecting every tap and appliance from scale. Whole-home water filtration puts sediment media on the main for rust and particles and carbon for taste and odour, also at every tap. Ordinary carbon handles chlorine but does little against chloramine, so we check which disinfectant your supply uses before choosing the carbon. Reverse osmosis systems in Aurora treat drinking water at one kitchen faucet, including the sodium softening adds. The test shows which you need.
Asked by homeowners from the heritage core to the new streets east of Bayview.
Other help from AquaTec Plumbing for Aurora Village, Aurora Heights and Aurora Highlands.
Book a water and pressure test. We explain the results and quote the right softener in writing first.
