hard water versus soft water

[jayne]

If anybody has any experience with the difference between washing nappies in soft water as opposed to hard water, please help

A customer of ours has just moved to Newman (iron ore mining area) in WA, and her bamboo nappies have all suddenly started staining, or rather, holding the poo stains.

Can anybody shed any light for us?

and will Calgon help in any way?

[bilbylove]

dunno about hard and soft water, but is she washing in hot water? does she use a little squirt?

[lindys]

Hard water will stain light colours We have both bore water (hard) and rainwater (soft) here and I never wash the light load or nappies in the bore water. Made that mistake with some towels that are forever off white now!

BUT...I would imagine the reason for holding the poo stains is that you need WAY more detergent for hard water.

Not sure about Calgon?

Sorry for being brief, bub needs to go to bed! xx

[jayne]

Hi GiGi

She's doing everything right, cold rinse with Little Squirt , semi-saturated into dry pail, cold pre-rinse, hot wash, liner dry in sun. She has just moved and has the same routine etc etc but now her nappies come out of the wash stained

[johT]

i reckon calgons worth a try then

[nangari]

I've never heard of Calgon but when we lived in Halls Creek, I used to use Washing Soda (I think it's called) to soften the water. It's at the supermarket. Anything's worth a try. We just accepted the fact that our clothes didn't last as long I hope she solves her prob...

[~Cinderella~]

Oh man I feel for her

I moved from hard water TO soft water.... absolute BLISS!!!
Our water was treated bore water (gotta love central west town water aye).

Yep hard water is horrid on nappies. Mine stained and kept the smell.. it also damaged the elastic quick.
Unbeknown to me, I though having abit of smell after a strip wash must have been normal (I started using MCN while in hard water area).
When I moved here to soft water OMG the difference!!!
My nappies are soft and awwwwww. A strip wash really DOES strip wash!!

Little squirt & hot water made no difference.
I would use both.
Yeah the squirt got the poo off, but it didn't 'rinse' at the same time because the water you were using for the LS is still hard water (does that make sense?).
I used to use slightly more detergent.

I did try a water softener for a little while (can't remember what it was called sorry), it made no difference
So I just dealt with having hard water.

[tikki]

We used to live in the Pilbara, and clothes stained from the soil there never came clean. I wonder if the soil itself and fragments of it in the water contribute to making stains hard to move.

[Theresa]

washing soda is supposed to be excellent at softening hard water and cheap as chips....

actually as a side its also really low allergenic and all i use to wash in now!

[jayne]

Thanks everybody XX