Water softeners in Swords, Co. Dublin. Supplied and fitted.

How hard is the water in Swords?

Swords, Malahide and most of north Co. Dublin are on the Leixlip supply: Liffey water treated at Leixlip and piped across the north of the county. The Liffey picks up limestone minerals on its way through Kildare, so the water arrives at around 200 mg/L of calcium carbonate. That is the hard band. It is nothing like as bad as Balbriggan or Meath, but it is enough to coat an immersion element and block a shower head over a couple of years, and anyone who grew up on the soft south Dublin supply notices it straight away.

What hard water does in a Swords home

• Immersions and hot cylinders. Scale builds on the element and the coil, slower to heat and quicker to fail.
• Electric showers. The heater can scales up and the flow drops away.
• Combi boilers. Scale on the plate heat exchanger throttles the hot water.
• Dishwashers, washing machines and kettles all scale and go early.

Softener or conditioner at 200 mg/L?

For a family home a softener is still the right answer: it is the only thing that gives you soft water and stops scale completely. In an apartment, or where there is no drain near the mains, a scale conditioner cartridge is the practical alternative, and we fit both. The AquaSilk Midi is the usual fit for the four and five person houses in Rivervalley, Applewood, Boroimhe, Holywell and Ridgewood; the Mini suits apartments and couples; the Maxi is for big multi-bathroom houses. The size picker below marks the right one.

Private wells around Swords

Houses out towards Rolestown, Kilsallaghan, Ballyboughal and the Naul are often on their own well, and Fingal well water is very hard. We send a sample to an accredited lab and specify the system off the results. See our well water treatment page.

Getting it fitted in Swords

Swords is twenty-five minutes from our Dublin base, so it is one of our busiest areas, with Malahide, Portmarnock, Kinsealy, Donabate, Lusk and Rush covered on the same run. Order the softener fitted online or ring us, send a photo of your stop valve and the space beside it, and we book a slot. Two to three hours and you have soft water. The fitted price shown is the full price. For a quote first, use the quote form; the full range is on our main water softener page.