How Do I Know My Well Water Is Safe To Drink?

Not everyone gets their water from the public water supply. Due to location or preferences, some households rely on private wells to secure that valuable natural resource.

Your household may also be dependent on a private well. If that is the case, you should sign up for private well water testing if you haven’t already.

Why is testing the water in your private well so important? You’ll learn the answer to that question by continuing with the rest of this article.

Assessing Your Drinking Water Is Not That Simple

It’s not hard to figure out why getting your well water tested is important. If you are consuming the water coming from that private well, you obviously want it to be safe and clean. However, some homeowners may balk at the idea that they need testing to make that determination.

As long as the water coming from the private well does not look, smell, or taste weird, they may be content to continue using it. Unfortunately, this is not one of those situations where a simple eye, smell, or taste test will suffice.

Per the University of New Hampshire, many of the troubling contaminants that could infiltrate the water supply in a private well are not easily detected by the human senses. Many of those contaminants can make you sick even if they have no quickly noticeable impact on the quality of the well water.

Unless you are content with risking your health every time you drink a glass of water, you should sign up for testing.

What Contaminants Should You Test For?

The importance of private well water testing is undeniable. So, which tests will you need?

The bare minimum is to have your well water put through the basic water potability test. This is a good test because it can detect chloride, coliform bacteria, fluoride, iron, manganese, nitrates, pH level, sodium, and total dissolved solids.

According to the Groundwater Foundation, a basic water potability test also checks for water hardness. Hardness does not affect water’s toxicity level, but it can explain why some of your glasses look scaly and why your clothes feel stiff. If you want to finally pinpoint that issue, signing up for this well water test is also recommended.

You can also get testing done for other possible contaminants if they are not covered by the basic water potability test. Coordinate with testing companies in your area to get the full picture of your water quality.

When You Should Get Your Private Well Tested?

You should get the water in your private well tested at least once per year. Ideally, you want to get the testing done sometime in spring or the early summer.

Contaminants tend to be more abundant in the water supply during that stretch of the year. If contaminants are in your well water, that is the right time to catch them. Hold off on testing until then so you can more accurately gauge the quality of your water supply.

Categorised in: Water Filtration