In many parts of Ireland, water is supplied from lakes, rivers, raintanks and wells, but many sources are from borehole fed group water schemes containing excessively high levels of dissolved lime, with frequent ground water disturbances caused by severe rainfall causing organic colour variations and microbiological issues leading to boil water notices.
An actual average of 250 litres of water is used per household each day, (400 litres is the audited figure including leaks) for all uses: flushing toilets, bathing, watering gardens, etc.
Only 1% of mains fed water is used for drinking, but as 99% is used for the likes of bathing, washing and flushing toilets, the idea of using exceptional quality secondary filtration such as reverse osmosis water filtering and water softening is unlikely to be offered at source by rural water schemes due to to the impossible funding limitations to provide above bottled water quality for the ultimate use of bathing and flushing toilets even if basic EU water limits are just aimed to be met.
So exceptional filtration for the 1% of water we use for drinking and the 99% of household water use for lime removal, is only practical when met by end users. Surprisingly, Galway had a high compliance to EU water standards historically, compared to other counties, but many schemes failed to provide superior water quality for domestic use for reasons listed below:
All water softeners & water softener valves sold by Galway Water since 2005 have been Clack WS1CI commercial quality metered water softeners.
Because the water softener market in Galway and Ireland is competitive, the decision to buy a small or undersized timer water softener because of budget or space restrictions, all too often means that customers end up paying a high price, because these water softeners are over priced, they are high cost to run with excessive salt use / water use / extra servicing and then finally they fail prematurely. A bit like trying to use a moped scooter to tow a caravan.
During the Celtic Tiger years, many water treatment firms used pressure selling techniques and questionable methods to test water, unfortunately money was easily parted with in times of abundant work and accelerating house prices.