Tap water leaving white residue after drying

Question

There is no heating or cooling in this process.

We recently move to a new house and something strange is happening with the water in every tap of the house.

First thing I noticed is when you fill a bucket with the garden hose the bubbles in the water lingered around longer than they should have, ie. normal senario fill bucket with water and bubbles pop immediately, this senario the bubbles take a few good long seconds befor they pop.

Second thing I noticed was after waking away from the garden hose and returning after everything was dry there was white residue all over anything that the water had been on, so I wipe it down and did it again and same thing happened, so I went and tested all the taps in the house with the cold water and the same thing happened for all the taps, so all the taps are using the same water source.

I have heard of white residue being left behind after heating from a source like a kettle but never heard of white residue being left behind from a non heated source.

Is there any way I can find out what this is and should I be worried about this (more than I already am)? Or alternatively does anyone here know what this is?

Answer 1

You either have hard water or a water softener system.
If you have hard water, then the residue is a combination of calcium / magnesium carbonate / chloride.
If you have a water softener system, then the residue is from the salt used to remove the hard ions.