In the United States, water that comes into your home from a municipal water works is most likely clean and safe to drink. That doesn’t mean it’s free from contaminants. Some contaminants are harmless, but others can be harmful if they’re above a certain level. If you’ve asked for a report from your local water works and you just aren’t comfortable with even small amounts of arsenic, for example, there are ways to make the water that comes into your home even safer.
Test Your Well Water
Unlike the municipal water works, you’re responsible for the cleanliness and safety of your well water. You should test it every year for pollutants. Test strips are available for the laity, but it’s best to send your water to a professional laboratory for a more complete rundown about what’s in it.
Sometimes you won’t even need a test strip to know that there’s something wrong with your water. You’ll notice a rotten egg smell or the smell of bleach. The water may be tinted red, yellow, or black or have sediment. It may have a bad taste.
Shock Your Well
The test may show that while your water has contaminants, it’s not unsafe to drink. On the other hand, a test may reveal pollutants in the water that are well above levels that make your water safe. In that case, you may shock your well, install a water treatment system, or do both.
Shocking the well means adding chlorine to it. Besides high levels of contaminants, you should shock your well if there’s been a flood, if your home has undergone extensive plumbing repairs, or if you’ve installed a water softener. Shocking kills bacteria, but it’s only a stopgap if your septic tank or sewer line has failed. A broken septic tank or main drain can contaminate your groundwater, and shocking your well won’t get rid of the problem.
Install a Water Treatment System
A water treatment system can remove many types of contaminants from your fresh water. This is especially true of the reverse osmosis system, which uses a series of membranes that trap contaminants but lets clean water pass through to your fixtures. Other types of water treatments use charcoal or even ultraviolet light to clean your water.
One type of system that you can use even if your water is perfectly safe and clean is a water softener. This device removes calcium and magnesium ions, which are actually good for health, and replaces them with sodium ions. You use a water softener because water that’s full of calcium and magnesium can clog your plumbing pipes with limescale and even shorten the working life of your water-dependent appliances. Water is necessary to life, and making sure it’s clean and safe is a must. If you have concerns or require water filtration services, contact TNT in Savannah, GA.
