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OpenStats picks for Hamilton — moderate hardness
Hamilton at 120 mg/L is hard enough for kettle scale but often below whole-house softener urgency. Carbon filtration for taste plus hardness strips before you overspend.
Hamilton tap water: Grade B, hardness 120 mg/L
By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources
Direct municipal dataB
Water quality grade
Good
Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines
Lead within guidelinepH in range
Hardness vs provincial average120 mg/L · prov. avg 178 mg/L
Lead vs provincial average0 μg/L · prov. avg 0.4 μg/L
Hardness
120 mg/L
Lead
0 μg/L
≤ 5 μg/L
pH
7.7
6.5–8.5 range
Hardness
120 mg/L
Hard
Lead
0 μg/L
Max: 5 μg/L
pH
7.7
6.5–8.5
Chlorine
0.5 mg/L
Max: 4 mg/L
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Brita Denali pitcher
OpenStats pick for Hamilton at 120 mg/L — everyday chlorine taste
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Waterdrop 15UA under-sink filter
Skip the pitcher wait in Hamilton
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VARIFY hardness test strips
Confirm 120 mg/L before a softener
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Frizzlife SW20 under-sink filter
NSF 53 lead option in Hamilton
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Reading this page
Hamilton water hardness is 120 mg/L, from the city's published water quality reporting.
How to use this page: read the headline metric and provincial comparison first, then supply and treatment notes, then the source footer for the underlying dataset.
Watershed to tap
Supply and treatment
How Hamilton draws, treats, and distributes drinking water, from municipal and utility publications. Chemistry grades above come from separate parameter records; this section does not invent plant lab figures.
Source type
Mixed surface and groundwater
Research confidence: high
Source waters
- Lake Ontario
- Municipal groundwater wells (Freelton, Greensville and other communal systems)
- Town of Grimsby supply (Fifty Road subsystem)
Treatment plants
Woodward Avenue Water Treatment Plant
Primary Lake Ontario plant for the Hamilton/Woodward subsystem. Dual intakes about 915–945 m offshore; rated capacity 909,000 m³/day. Clarification, GAC filtration, chloramination, fluoridation, and phosphate corrosion control.
Distribution
Woodward subsystem serves most of urban Hamilton (about 569,000 residents) plus parts of Haldimand and Halton via 22 pumping stations, 10 reservoirs, elevated tanks, and roughly 2,130 km of watermains. Smaller communal well systems and the Fifty Road (Grimsby) subsystem serve limited pockets.
Health parameters meet Health Canada limits; turbidity above the 1 NTU typical target.
Health parameters meet Health Canada limits; turbidity exceeds the typical 1 NTU aesthetic target.
Figure 1 · Supply chain
From watershed to tap
Compared to provincial average
Ontario · 123 cities in sample
Hardness (city vs Ontario avg)120 mg/L
pH (city vs Ontario avg)7.7
Lead (city vs Ontario avg)0 μg/L
Fluoride (city vs Ontario avg)0.5 mg/L
Provincial average: hardness 178 mg/L · pH 7.5 · lead 0.4 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L
Full parameters
| Parameter | Reading | Health Canada guideline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 120 mg/L | No health limit (aesthetic) | Compliant |
| pH | 7.7 | 6.5–8.5 | Compliant |
| Lead | 0 μg/L | ≤ 5 μg/L | Compliant |
| Fluoride | 0.5 mg/L | ≤ 1.5 mg/L | Compliant |
| Chlorine (free) | 0.5 mg/L | ≤ 4 mg/L | Compliant |
| Turbidity | 2.5 NTU | ≤ 1 NTU (typical target) | Exceeds guideline |
Alberta water licences
WaterRegister.ca
On a private well or holding an Alberta water allocation licence? Water Register maps EPA licence records, transfer comparables, and watershed context across the province.
Explore WaterRegister.ca →OpenStats pick
OpenStats picks for Hamilton — moderate hardness
Hamilton at 120 mg/L is hard enough for kettle scale but often below whole-house softener urgency. Carbon filtration for taste plus hardness strips before you overspend.
As an Amazon Associate, OpenStats earns from qualifying purchases.
· Compare options- Shop on Amazon.caBrita Denali pitcherOpenStats pick for Hamilton at 120 mg/L — everyday chlorine taste
- Shop on Amazon.caWaterdrop 15UA under-sink filterSkip the pitcher wait in Hamilton
- Shop on Amazon.caVARIFY hardness test stripsConfirm 120 mg/L before a softener
- Shop on Amazon.caFrizzlife SW20 under-sink filterNSF 53 lead option in Hamilton
- Shop on Amazon.caBrita replacement filtersRecurring cartridge supply
Source · City of Hamilton drinking water quality page (Woodward system). Last updated 2026-10-07. Refreshed on the site's automated schedule.