Water Quality In Buenos Aires And Gba

[Girino]

Finally, our stuff has arrived from Europe and we have our dishwasher (yay!).
It is installed and working well. I need to know the water quality parameters in order to set the it properly (to dose salt and polisher basing on the water hardness).
As of now, I am using a teaspoon of washing powder because the standard dose made too many bubbles (I am using Finish powder).

Q1: Where can I get the water quality parameters? I tried googling "calidad de agua" but it is all gobbledygooks with no actual figures.
Q2: Do they have liquid dishwasher detergents here?

We are living in San Isidro downtown. Thanks.

 

[internationalguy]

Find the setting that says: too freaking hard to be real.

 

[Gringoboy]

And for drinking and coffee etc, I would highly recommend a PSA water filter.
We live in Olivos and the water is disgusting and very often brown when it comes out of the tap.
The PSA filter we bought is brilliant and I don't work for them by the way.

 

[thorsten]

Gringoboy: does the PSA system only remove residues in the water or does it also help to get the chloric taste away? And which of their models are you using?

 

[joemama]

I do some homebrewing and water is really important, so I spent some time looking into this. I found the government-provided water analysis here from AySA -> http://www.aysa.com.ar/index.php?id_seccion=725 Click on the 'Informe de Servicios Año 2013' button and then enter the data is asks for.

The actual important stuff starts on page 183 and it describes the various chemical components of the water per barrio.

In contrast to what internationalguy says - the water appears to be very soft. Per the report BA has very low levels of calcium and bicarbonates. Hardness is defined as high mineral content that can't be boiled off. The easiest way to spot hard water is to look at a tea kettle. If there is white stuff left over from boiling then you have hard water. I have used the same tea kettle here for years and never saw any scaling. So personally I think the water in BA is indeed quite soft as they report.

The levels of chorine on the other hand do appear to be a bit high, which you can tell just by sniffing water from the tap.

A few caveats here.

1. The Argentine government is not really known for its data accuracy/honesty. So take the government-provided report with a grain of salt.
2. Plumbing on the local level makes a difference. If you live in an old apartment/house with old pipes that will likely cause differences. This is especially true if you leave for vacation or don't use a faucet for awhile. Seems that whenever I come back from vacation the water from my kitchen facucet will be brown-ish for the first 30 seconds or so of use. I just run it for a few minutes and it seems fine.
3. Since almost all buildings use cisterns this adds another complicating factor that can have a big impact. Instead of the water just coming straight from the water supply it first goes to the roof and sits there waiting to be used. If the cistern having problems (e.g. old/worn down) this can impact the water on a per-building basis. My old apartment once had to repaint the inner lining of the cistern because it had worn out.

 

[PhilipDT]

I do some homebrewing and water is really important, so I spent some time looking into this. I found the government-provided water analysis here from AySA -> http://www.aysa.com....?id_seccion=725 Click on the 'Informe de Servicios Año 2013' button and then enter the data is asks for.

The actual important stuff starts on page 183 and it describes the various chemical components of the water per barrio.

In contrast to what internationalguy says - the water appears to be very soft. Per the report BA has very low levels of calcium and bicarbonates. Hardness is defined as high mineral content that can't be boiled off. The easiest way to spot hard water is to look at a tea kettle. If there is white stuff left over from boiling then you have hard water. I have used the same tea kettle here for years and never saw any scaling. So personally I think the water in BA is indeed quite soft as they report.

The levels of chorine on the other hand do appear to be a bit high, which you can tell just by sniffing water from the tap.

A few caveats here.

1. The Argentine government is not really known for its data accuracy/honesty. So take the government-provided report with a grain of salt.
2. Plumbing on the local level makes a difference. If you live in an old apartment/house with old pipes that will likely cause differences. This is especially true if you leave for vacation or don't use a faucet for awhile. Seems that whenever I come back from vacation the water from my kitchen facucet will be brown-ish for the first 30 seconds or so of use. I just run it for a few minutes and it seems fine.
3. Since almost all buildings use cisterns this adds another complicating factor that can have a big impact. Instead of the water just coming straight from the water supply it first goes to the roof and sits there waiting to be used. If the cistern having problems (e.g. old/worn down) this can impact the water on a per-building basis. My old apartment once had to repaint the inner lining of the cistern because it had worn out.

For some reason that report isn't loading for me but I find it weird that it would say that since the water is actually fairly hard in Buenos Aires

 

[Gringoboy]

I can smell the chlorine in the water direct from the tap about a foot away.
The PSA Senior removes all traces of chlorine as far as I can tell, anyway.
The difference in taste is night and day.
Hey, maybe I should work for them after all lol.
Here's a pic

 

[internationalguy]

Maybe it's the chlorine I sense. I trust a decent report more than my appreciation for water hardness... that said... my hair and skin are not big fans of BA water.

 

[PhilipDT]

Maybe it's the chlorine I sense. I trust a decent report more than my appreciation for water hardness... that said... my hair and skin are not big fans of BA water.

It is hard. 80 ish ppm (in the network, probably more faucet) of calcium carbonate isn't rock hard but it's certainly not soft by any mEans.

 

[PhilipDT]

Q1: Where can I get the water quality parameters? I tried googling "calidad de agua" but it is all gobbledygooks with no actual figures.

Q2: Do they have liquid dishwasher detergents here?

A1: From the above mention AYSA information report. Water hardness in 2012 (the 2013 report still doesn't work for me) was 82.5 ppm.

A2: I haven't seen it in stores all though the do sell the tablets of pre measured cleaner / rinse aid. You can probably by liquid detergent from a cleaning product supply company. Tell them what you want to use it for and ask them to recommend a product to you based on those needs.