Water hardness by town
Water hardness is published by the water companies for each supply zone, not for a town as a whole, so the number for your street can differ from your neighbour's across town. These pages give the typical figure for the town-centre zone, the water company's own wording on how it varies, where the water comes from, and what the figure means for kettles, washing and pipework. Each page states the date it was checked, and figures are re-checked periodically against the company lookups.
North West England
- Manchester: soft, about 28 mg/l (United Utilities, Broughton zone)
- Liverpool: moderately soft, about 68 mg/l (United Utilities, Liverpool City Centre zone)
- Preston: moderately soft, about 83 mg/l (United Utilities, Preston Central zone)
- Blackpool: slightly hard, about 126 mg/l (United Utilities, Hodder Extension zone)
- Bolton: soft, about 22 mg/l (United Utilities, Bolton Centre zone)
- Warrington: soft, about 22 mg/l (United Utilities, Warrington South zone)
- Wigan: soft, about 28 mg/l (United Utilities, Wigan South zone)
- Stockport: soft, about 28 mg/l (United Utilities, Errwood Road zone)
- Chester: moderately soft, about 97 mg/l (Severn Trent, City zone)
- Carlisle: slightly hard, about 102 mg/l (United Utilities, Carlisle South zone)
All figures are in mg/l of calcium carbonate, converted from the companies' degrees Clark values (one degree Clark is about 14.3 mg/l), and were checked on 18 October 2026. The six bands run from soft (0 to 50 mg/l) to very hard (over 300 mg/l); there is no UK legal limit for hardness. More towns are added regularly.
Not listed yet?
Your water company's own lookup gives the zone figure for any postcode. And a WaterKit strip indicates the hardness band at your own tap in a minute, with the results portal explaining the reading. For the general picture, see hard water, explained and is Manchester water hard or soft?
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.