Testing Your Home’s Water Quality: What You Need to Know
Most homeowners never consider the quality of their water until it becomes a problem. The water tastes funny, the smell is off, or white staining occurs around fixtures. Unfortunately, whatever led to these most obvious factors was likely in play long before so that the outcome is inevitable.
Quality of water matters more than that which fills a glass when someone pushes a kitchen faucet handle. It involves plumbing systems, appliances, the efficacy of cleaning solutions, and yes, even health. For this reason, knowing exactly what’s in the water and how to assess for potential problems provides an early warning for prevention instead of costly repairs and health worries.
Why Testing Water Quality Matters
Municipal water treatment does plenty to ensure clean water that’s safe for use, but it does not equalize every water source across town. Water can change based on chemistry in pipes, certain minerals in the ground, sitting stagnant in home plumbing systems. Similarly, well water eliminates the municipal aspect and puts the pressure of responsible water source and quality on the homeowner.
Water that’s too acidic can create extensive problems with pipes, fixtures and stains over time, and unwanted expenses. When people have to replace plumbing systems prematurely or paint every five years due to discoloration of fixtures, home value decreases. Similarly, if buyers suspect issues stemming from non age appropriate expectations in plumbing systems, values decrease.
Water that’s too alkaline leaves behind deposits that clog up pipes and reduce water pressure due to buildup. For appliances like dishwashers and clothes washing machines, the minimum operating potential separates them from the maximum capacities, costing time and creating frustration.
The More Harmful Dissolved Pieces of Water
Acidic and alkaline qualities are only two problems associated with pH levels, and reading them is only part of the necessity of knowing what’s in your water. Heavy metals, bacteria, nitrates and other contaminants, potentially harmful or fatal, are likely in even treated sources.
Cities with old pipe systems often experience heavy metal exposure while people using agricultural runoff from fertilizers often get nasty surprises from their well water.
Understanding pH and What it Means
The pH scale measures acidity and alkalinity, ranging from 0 (pure acid) to 14 (highly alkaline) with neutrality at 7. For this reason, any drinking water should be between 6.5 to 8.5 (7 is neutral). Ideally for plumbing systems it should range 6.5 to 7.5. This represents that anything lower than 6.5 is too acidic and higher than 8.5 is too alkaline.
Water below 6.5 tastes sour or metallic; if it’s blue green under the sink around a copper plumbing joint; it’s a sign of corrosion because copper’s threshold for plumbing is between 6 to 8 (Simon). Additionally, pinhole leaks emerge out of nowhere but have been developing for years due to excessive wear.
Water above 8.5 tastes bitter and feels slippery; it leaves behind white crusty deposits around plumbing fixtures; inside pipes, reducing flow; and inside water heater tanks from hard water buildup against heating elements; coffee pots become filled with deposits causing inefficacy after years of running.
Testing with Digital Water Testers
While a digital water tester is no substitute for sending samples to an off site laboratory, especially for determining complex bacteria issues, digital testers create easy access to determining what’s in your water.
Digital test readings vary based on needs and quality. The most basic testers provide direct access to pH levels only while others determine TDS levels, temperature and more relative variables. Using something like the Yewhick Water pH Tester helps do it yourself homeowners determine where their level stands.
Like pH levels boast significance relative to human thresholds, higher TDS refers to total dissolved solids (minerals, salts) present in a given source of testing. They do not determine good vs bad, as certain areas have higher mineral concentrations, but if TDS levels are extremely high an additional investigation may be necessary.
Temperature matters because if it’s coming straight from the tap versus stagnant in plumbing systems it could behave differently, making a reading inaccurate, most testers can assess temperature automatically.
When to Test
The idea is not to test at one source but multiple locations throughout the home since the same body of water can gain or lose quality through plumbing systems it goes through and how long it sits there.
Most naturally think about testing water quality at the kitchen sink where drinking occurs. But bathroom sinks, outdoor faucets and water heater outlets can all provide different circumstances that give one a baseline assessment for quality, and subsequent changes over time.
New buyers should test their systems before they make any changes as they need a new baseline where potential contamination existed previously. Over time this can help reduce incidence when things go wrong as annual testing can assess months of gradual growth without assuming immediate failure.
Testing after plumbing work or if water looks or smells funny begs concern when preliminary efforts assessed it as previously good looking and feeling quality.
Reading Results
Like numbers with decimals yield reading errors, so digital testers report results to screens but require people to access practicality from those results. For example, a pH reading of 7.2 is fine, but is it highly acidic (or basic), trending downward from 7.5 six months prior? Or newly high from 6.9? This suggests trends that matter more than immediate snapshots since reliable testing occurs over time and not once at a time.
Keeping track of these results matter, as it’s easy to forget numbers unless they become jotted down simply instead of recorded over complicated software for home consumption.
TDS relies on community reports, meaning it’s important to learn what’s typical for your area through neighboring insights or annual city reports so that you don’t assess yours out of context where higher readings are the norm elsewhere but you’ve been left in the dark thus far.
What Happens When There’s a Problem
If your readings aren’t between 6.5 to 8.5 it’s time to assess next levels for treatment systems neutralizing/raising P.H., respectively.. Water softeners can help lower P.H. though they’re not designed primarily for this use, for hard water complication reduces presence of minerals but does not get at the same level.
For minor problems sometimes flushing out the system helps, the same level that’s sitting in your line longer than necessary could emerge with excess chemicals present; if testing shows better right out of the mainline there could be an issue stemming from the lines themselves.
However excess contamination calls for professional intervention, home lab tests can determine basic components, bacteria (rotten egg smell), heavy metals (rust stains), pesticides (green staining), and then if necessary professional help either through content or remediation treatment systems might be needed long term.
Why Testing Before It’s Too Late is Ideal
Consistent water quality testing avoids problems when they’re major; it provides a written account persuasively helpful for insurance claims, home sales or municipal arguments disputing why services aren’t good enough for what’s been assessed in house versus day to day operations.
The cost of a digital tester amounts to less than replacing corroded piping outside excessive wear and tear than letting a home continue on its path toward disaster from a 20 minute solution.
It’s easier not to think about other things until they’re broken or valueless, but without preventative measures clear from reliable testing and adjustments in go to efforts, shame on those who know better but do nothing.
Water quality is only good until it’s limited where problems are far too late. Quality testing with responsible materials helps avoid expensive emergencies while maintaining peace of mind what comes through water systems keeps everything people need it for safe.