Using a water hardness test kit is one of the best methods to test water hardness at home. The kit includes everything needed for the test: a vial, dropper, and a color chart.
The kit is designed to test total hardness from 0-1000 parts per million or 0-58 grains per gallon.
Testing your water hardness helps make sure the right type of water softener system is selected and operates appropriately.
What is a water hardness test kit?
A water hardness test kit is either a water hardness test drop or a test strip that has chemicals in it designed to react with specific ions in water and produce a particular color change.
Comparison table of water hardness kit
| Name | Image | test for | compatible water | Where to buy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hach 145300 test kit |  | total hardness | tap water | Check price at Amazon |
| 2 | Watersafe WS425W |  | hardness, test for iron, chlorine, copper, lead, nitrates, bacteria, pH, nitrites and pesticides | well water | Check price at Amazon |
| 3 | LaMotte |  | Chlorine, Bromine, Alkalinity, pH, Total Hardness | swimming pool or spa | Check price at Amazon |
| 4 | Hach 2745250 test strip |  | hardness | tap water | Check price at Amazon |
| 5 | Industrial Test Systems Test Strip |  | hardness | water treatment, food, beverage, spa, pool, and medical industries | Check price at Amazon |
| 6 | Test assured Bulk Test Strips |  | hardness | tap water | Check price at Amazon |
| 7 | Hone Forest Test Strips |  | hardness | tap water, fish tank/aquarium | Check price at Amazon |
| 8 | JNW Direct Test Strips |  | hardness | tap water, well water, spa, pools, hot tub, and aquarium | Check price at Amazon |
| 9 | Baldwin Meadows 9 in 1 test strips |  | hardness, PH, lead, copper, alkalinity, Iron, Nitrite, nitrate & Chlorine | well water and tap water | Check price at Amazon |
How does the water hardness test kit work?
The water hardness test kit has a chemical in it and is either in the form of a drop or strip.
You fill your test bottle/container with the amount of water dictated by the test kit instructions, dip the strip at one end or add a drop of test drop, and wait a few minutes. The kit is designed such that it will change to a specific color.
If you use a test drop, the water in the bottle you’re testing will change the color.
If you are using a test strip, the test strip will change the color.
The test kit is provided with the standard printed color chart.
Compare the color with the standard printed color chart provided with the kit to know your water hardness level.
Some brands provide a small glass bottle with a line marked on it.
The line is to guide you on how much water level to fill so as to get the right numbers.
Our top pick:
- Test strip: Hach 2745250 Total Hardness Test Strips
- Test strip: Test assured Bulk Water Hardness Test Strips
- Test strip: Hone Forest Water Hardness Test Strips
- Test strip: JNW Direct Water Total Hardness Test Strips
- Test strip: Health mate Water Test Kits
- Test strip: Health metric Premium Water Hardness Test Kit
- Test strip: TestSure 9 in 1 Drinking Water Test Kit
- Test strip: 16-in-1 Water Test Strips by ON4HOME
- Test strip: Baldwin meadows Total Hardness Water Test Strips Kit
- Well water: Watersafe WS425W Well Water Test Kit
- Water hardness drop: Hach 145300 Total Hardness Test Kit
Review of the best Water hardness test kit
[su_box title=”Test strips” box_color=”#1a30ba”]Water Hardness Test Strips
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The Hach 2745250 Test Strips are designed to test total hardness from 0-425ppm or 0-25gpm.
Each package contains 50 strips.
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The Industrial Systems WaterWorks test strip evaluate calcium levels from 0-1000 parts per million or 0-58 grains per gallon with three second test time.
This test kit is used to analyze the water for water treatment, food, beverage, spa, pool, and medical industries.
The package contains 30 test strips and a color chart.
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The test assured test bulk strips evaluate water hardness from 0ppm To 500ppm or 0-30 GPG with 15 seconds test time.
The strips are packed in a seal-able lock pouch which has desiccant for ultimate freshness.
The package includes 35 test strips and a color chart.
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The Hone Forest hard water test kit is designed to test for drinking water’s total hardness, test water to make sure your water softener is working effectively, evaluate the hardness of your fish tank/aquarium, and test water for laundry and dishwasher.
The package includes 100 test strips, desiccant in the bottle, a packing bottle, and a packing color box.
The test strip is easy to use dip the test strip pad in water for 2-seconds, remove, shake off excess water, wait for 40 seconds and match the strip color using the color chart.
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The JNW water hardness test strips easily test to see your water softener, water conditioner and reverse osmosis system are working effectively.
It provides reliable, instant results and is easy to use with clear instructions. You only dip strips in the water and compare them with a large color chart on the bottle.
Each package has a total of 150 strips, which are suitable for testing tap water, well water, spas, pools, hot tubs, and aquariums. The package also comes with an e-book explaining what your results mean and everything you require to know concerning the hardness of your water.
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Health Mate water test kits test for Total Chlorine, pH, Free Chlorine, Alkalinity, and Total Hardness.
It also checks safeness of your drinking water.
Provide easy-to-read results in 30-60 seconds.
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The health metric water hardness test kit regularly tests your water softener, aquarium, pool and spa water.
The package contains 50 strips. The unused strips remain airtight and dry for future use, allowing you to carry out measurements up to 10 months after initial use.
After dipping the strip in water compare with a large color chart on the bottle.
The color chart is easy to read and designed to measure both GPG (grains per gallon) and PPM (parts per million)
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TestSure 9 in 1 Drinking Water Test Kit contains 9-strips in a pack and test any water source for 9 specific harmful contaminants.
It is designed to test Lead, Nitrate, Copper, pH, Iron, Free Chlorine, Total Hardness, Nitrite, and Total Alkalinity.
The test strips are easy to use and provide results in 3-8 minutes.
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Z & Y Better Life test strips are total hardness test kits that test drinking water, aquariums, pools and spas.
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On4HOME water test strips have the ability to check levels for total hardness, pH, fluoride, lead, mercury, copper, nitrate, nitrite, residual chlorine, total chlorine, bromine, carbonate, total alkalinity, zinc, aluminum, and cyanuric acid.
It is used to test drinking water, groundwater, pools, spas, hot tubs, and aquariums.
These test strips provide results in 60 seconds and are FDA approved and CE certified for home use.
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Just filter test strips are used to test total water hardness for pools, spas, aquariums, and drinking water.
It provides results in 60 seconds.
The package contains 100 strips plus 25 free test strips, so in total, you get 125 strips.
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The Efantur test strips are used to test total water hardness.
This product contains 150 test strips that provide accurate and fast results.
The Efantur hard water test strips are used to monitor water in places such as fish tanks (aquariums), drinking water, water softeners, pools, wells, laundry, tap water, spa water, and dishwashers.
It measures the total hardness between 0-425 ppm.
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The package includes 100 pieces of water hardness test strips.
It monitors water hardness for laundry, dishwashers, and water sources such as drinking water, home faucets, pools, city water, hot tubs, boiler water, spas, aquariums, and wells (freshwater and saltwater).
For the right results, wait and read the results in 60 seconds.
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The Life2O water hardness test kit is used for testing water softeners, aquariums, pools, spas, drinking water, and well water.
The package contains 100 strips.
This product measures water hardness at 0–25 grains per gallon (GPG) and 0–425 mg/L (PPM).
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Baldwin Meadow’s total hardness water test strips test hardness ranges from 0–425 mg/l.
The kit has 100 test strips.
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[/su_box] [su_box title=”Well water test kit” box_color=”#1a30ba”]Well water test kit
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The watersafe test kit is designed to help test quickly and easily for contaminants found in private water wells.
It is suitable to determine your water hardness, test for iron, chlorine, copper, lead, nitrates, bacteria, pH, nitrites and pesticides.
If you draw water from a private well, it is recommended to test your water once a year or more to ensure the clarity of your water.
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The Industrial Test Systems 481302 is designed to test well water for:
- PH 6.2, 6.8, 7.2, 7.8, 8.4
- Total Alkalinity:0, 40, 80, 120, 180, 240 ppm (mg/L)
- Total Hardness: 0, 25, 50, 120, 250, 425 ppm (mg/L)
- Fe+2: 0, 0.1, 0.3, 1.0, 5.0 ppm (mg/L)
- NO3: 0, 0.5, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 ppm (mg/L)/NO2: 0.15, 0.3, 1, 1.5, 3, 10 ppm (mg/L), 2 tests
Water hardness test kit drops
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The Hach total hardness test kit allows the determination of total hardness as a grain per gallon with a range of 1-30 grains per gallon, but it does not test for magnesium and iron.
This kit includes 5-B and 5-EP models designed for those in need quick check on the efficiency of the water softeners.
It also comes with a test tube that holds a capacity of 5 mL and a measuring bottle.
You can run 50–100 tests using the Hach kit depending on your water hardness.
How does it work?
Put testing water in a test tube; add reagent/chemical to the tube, shake until dissolve, if your water can turn blue meaning your water has zero grains of hardness.
If your water turns pink or purple, you need to add drops until your water changes to blue. Count the number of drops you add. The number of drops you have to add to get the water to turn blue is a grain of hardness.
For example, if you add 15 drops for your water to turn blue, it equals 15 grains of hardness. This means your water is hard.
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The Pentair test kit is a total hardness test kit.
The AQUAX total water hardness test kit help to determine water quality in pools, spas, aquarium, and industries where water hardness is important.
The container contains 100 drops enough to perform multiple tests.
It comes with a straightforward color chart.
[/su_box] [su_box title=”Testing Water hardness with soap kit” box_color=”#1a30ba”]Testing Water hardness with soap kit
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The Amanzi soft water test kit monitors what your water hardness might be.
The kit includes a test bottle, a.5-oz bottle of soap solution, and an instruction guide.
How does it work?
Add water half full in the clear bottle, put one drop of solution from a dropper bottle, shake thoroughly, lasting suds indicate soft water
[/su_box]What to consider when buying a water hardness test kit
- Where to use the hardness kit
A water hardness kit can be used to test drinking water, spas, aquariums, and pools.
There are some that are only meant to test your drinking water or pool water, while others can test all water sources.
Choose a kit that can be used to test the type of water you want.
- Which contaminants can be used to test?
Water hardness not only tests for hardness, but they also test for lead, alkalinity, chlorine, iron, nitrates and/or pH.
The kit that combines testing more than one contaminant offers great awareness of your water.
If you only need a kit that only tests hardness, you can choose the one designed for that use.
- The time it takes to get results.
You should know the length of time it takes to get the results. Other test kits recommend you do more than one round of testing to confirm the taste.
- Easy to analyze the result
The test kit should be easy to use. Most test kits come with a color matching chart. The chart should be easy to use and interpret.
How to Test Water Hardness using test strip and test drop
What does a water hardness testing kit test measure?
The water hardness test kit measures calcium and magnesium.
If you want an instant test of the hardness of your city water supply, well water supply, and pool water right at home without mailing in samples or waiting for laboratory reports, then a water hardness test kit will help with that.
We hope our review of the best water hardness test kit will help you find the right product to meet all your needs.
Most people are concerned about understanding water hardness quality right at home rather than mailing samples and waiting for laboratory results. This can only be done using a test kit.
It also gives you instant basic test hardness of your water supply right in your home without mailing samples and waiting for laboratory reports.
Please tell us which method you use to test the hardness of your water right at home and which brand would you recommend in the comment section below.
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