You cannot tell whether your water at home is safe for human consumption by looking at it with your naked eyes. Water that looks clean might have invisible impurities, and you can prove it by testing the quality of water. In this article, you will learn how to test the quality of water at home.
Why test the quality of water at home?
Testing the quality of water is crucial to ensure that the water is safe for human consumption. We should be able to test the water for common contaminants such as pH levels, chlorine, and dissolved solids.
The results you will get after testing will help in making decisions about what type of home water treatment system to invest in.
4 ways how to test the quality of water at home
There are many ways to test the quality of water. These include:
- Home test kits
- Send the water sample to the laboratories.
- Observation and smelling
- Contact the local water municipality
Home water test kits
Using the test kit is one of the easiest and simplest ways to test your water quality at home.
The test kit allows us to test for lead, pesticides, bacteria, copper, arsenic, cysts, viruses, nitrates, nitrites, chlorine, fluoride, water hardness, PH, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and iron.
As you can see, the test kit tests common contaminants found in the water. To get a comprehensive and in-depth result, you need to send water samples to the laboratories.
The test kit includes test strips, color disk kits, and a digital meter.
- Test strip
It only takes 15 minutes or less, and your result is ready.
When using a test strip make sure you follow the right procedure as instructed by the manufacturer. The procedure can vary from one test kit to another, so make sure you read and follow the instructions well.
The common procedure to follow
- Fill the water in a clean container and let it be at room temperature.
- Dip the test kit in water for five seconds.
- Remove the kit from the water and shake off excess water.
- Wait for the kit to change color.
- Compare the color on the chart provided with a testing kit.
- Digital TDS meter
The digital TDS meter is more expensive compared to test strips but provides accurate results.
It is easy to read and use.
The TDS meter tests total dissolved solids (TDS) and PH.
- Color disk kit
Best Hach color disc test kit
Send the water sample to the laboratories
This method can be pricey and take ten days or more to get results. So if you want instant results, sending them to the lab is not for you.
Make sure the test is done by certified laboratories.
Laboratories provide confidence in results you can rely on.
Observation and smelling
You can test the quality of water by smelling and observing it.
The water observation guide
If you observe your water is
- If you notice your water is foamy, this indicates it has the presence of detergent or bleach.
- Yellow, reddish, orange, or brown in water indicates the presence of iron.
- Rotten egg smell, presence of hydrogen sulfide/sulfur.
- White scam on the floor and soap do not lather well because your water is hard.
- The black color indicates the presence of manganese and bacteria.
- Fish smell the presence of organic matter and bacteria.
- Chlorine odor is the presence of excess chlorine from the water treatment plant.
- Metallic taste presence of low PH levels and metal contaminants such as copper and zinc.
Contact the local water municipality
Local water municipalities are meant to test the quality of water in your locality. They test the water quality regularly and make the water quality report data available to the public every year.
You can contact them to provide the report or download it from their website.
This method will provide a water quality report from the treatment plant, but in case your water gets contaminated on its way home or through your home storage, the result will not be appropriate.
How do you test the quality of water at home? Let us know in the comment section below.
