Is Manchester a soft water area?

Answer 1

As strange as it may seem, Manchester actually has some of the softest water in the England. This is quite exceptional for an urban environment, where soft water is normally unavailable and it is commonly assumed that all cities in the UK always have hard water - but this is not always the case. This is not due to the copious amounts of rainfall Manchester receives as the prevailing south westerly rain clouds hits the Pennines hills east of Manchester and reverses back around to Manchester. It is actually because Manchester gets the vast majority of its water supply from the Lake District, the rest is normally supplied by the Manchester Reservoirs and Longdendale Chain.

Thirlmere was constructed in the 19th century and Haweswater in the 1920s by the Manchester Corporation who built a large network of reservoirs around the Manchester, Lake District and Pennines. Consequently these reservoirs are now owned by United Utilities. Both of these reservoirs have some of the softest water in the UK due to being upland surface water reservoirs.

Water has little chance of dissolving minerals because water is collected so high up as opposed to letting the water stream downhill on rock as such as collecting minerals. Furthermore, a lot of rock in North West England consists of granite which has less minerals than the chalky substance. The chalky substance is particularly prevalent in Southern and Eastern England, and as such it is one of the reasons why water can be up to 12 times as hard as water from North West England.

Speaking from a personal experience, soft water will not corrode appliances or pipes and generate as much limescale as hard water does. But I have known people who have been accustomed to hard water who move to areas with soft water and have had to have tooth fillings because their teeth is suffering from the lack of minerals it is so used to getting.

ManchesterLake District (Haweswater and Thirlmere)Pennines (Longdendale Chain)1.750 clarke / 25 ppm[36]BirminghamElan Valley Reservoirs3 clarke /

42.8 ppm[37]BristolMendip Hills (Bristol Reservoirs)16 clarke / 228.5 ppm[38]SouthamptonBewl Water18.76 clarke / 268 ppm[39]London (EC1A)Lee Valley Reservoir Chain19.3 clarke / 275 ppm[40]