Home water testing

Anyone know anything about this?

I remember years ago I asked Welsh Water and they said you can only get it tested if you are a company. Which I thought was odd :/

I believe that your water authority is obliged to send you a report on the water they supply to you, on any one day, if you ask. Obviously if there is local contamination that might not be what comes out of the tap but that is unlikely.

What are you wanting to test for, you can get all sorts of tests which you can use yourself they tend to be produced for gardners and aquarists etc

That surprises me Azz

Up to the curtilage of a property the network is 'public' but after that it becomes private so any water quality tests at your property can be influenced by your own communication pipe / supply pipe that the water company are not responsible for.

That said we test 'first draw adresses' which are the first few properties fed from a service reservoir. The reason being it's sometimes not possible to test at the site of the res in winter and there's minimal chance of water quality difference due to the fact that the water has passed through less network and therefore less chance of encountering something along the way that can affect quality.

I think it would be worth checking again with Welsh Water. Sometimes they're quite grateful for having access to easy samples.

You could try 'Freedom of Information' on the off chance that Welsh Water already have a sampling point close to you. You can probably get results online although that wont tell you about your own individual tap water.

It mentions Welsh Water home testing under the 'Lead in drinking water' link at the foot of this page.

http://www.dwrcymru.com/en/Company-I...r-Quality.aspx

I could have helped you up here but unfortunately that's not much use down there.

You can ask for a report on the quality of your water at home, you can also, of course, hire a private company to conduct tests on your water (the way we do at work to test for legionella etc)

Thanks guys that's really helpful.

I really just want to move now, but I might try WW again and see if they will sample our water, if not maybe look at how much the private tests costs (any ideas Smokey?) as I just have a niggling feeling something's not quite right.

I shall review a thread on another forum as my boys brother has had hellish skin issues and they have had their water tested the owners highlighted blond hair used to turn green!

Verbatim ref water testing:

Rentokil do water testing. Sarah on 01454 774 686 ext- 537. She could then put you in touch with the local office that would deal with your area but service experience wasnt great (local office didnt get back to her)

In the end I went with Southern Counties water - £99 just for metals test upto £174 for full screening. Their number 02392 420 505 or www.southerncountieswater.co.uk This is done by 'mail order'. Results for metals take about 2 or 3 days, bacteria takes longer


hope that helps Azz

I used to be heavily into fishkeeping, so this was always an important topic - what do you want to test for?

Most of the water companies websites will publish data

Thanks for the info Claire, will definitely keep that in mind.

Nick - everything mostly bacteria and general quality of water. However I am set on moving now so it's probably too late for here, but definitely worth bearing in mind for the new house.

If you go to a pet shop you can get a nitrate test kit. Nitrates aren't the be all and end all but high levels can indicate poor quality of water. My tap water comes in at less than 10, most English suppliers achieve 20-40, 50+ is way too high.

To improve quality you can run your water through this for drinking

http://www.ro-man.com/shop/index.php...roduct_id=1847

It's a HMA unit. HMA stands for Heavy Metal Axe.

The 3 stages do

Cholrines and Chloramines removed (Chloramine is Chlorine combined with Ammonia to give scent free water hygeine)

0.5 micron filter - this is such a fine filter it will actually filter out bacteria!

Carbon filter to remove heavy metals.