How to test home water quality
In our household, for at least four years, we have been drinking bottled water on a daily basis and just recently we have learned that probably we have wasted hundreds and hundreds of euros.
On this page, we will show you how to find out if your tap water is safe to drink.
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Test home water for contaminants
The reason why we started using bottled water was that we used to live in a country where the water quality was not the best.
Additionally, we were aware that the water pipes that were used to bring water to the houses were very old.
Even by using chloride, the situation was so bad that there was one time when an entire city had to advise the citizens to stop using tap water for drinking, and for weeks the citizens had to buy and use bottled water.
Then, a few years ago, we moved to another country and, as we were used to, we kept buying bottled water for daily use. But, some months ago, we decided to challenge this decision and our motivations:
– Is our tap water really that bad?
– Does our tap water contains any harmful substances that make it necessary to buy and use bottled water?
After all, we were spending many hundreds of euros every year buying bottled water.
Drinking water test kit
We did look around for a test kit or device to test our tap water and we came across a test kit that seemed quite complete.
The water-safe test kit measures the levels of Bacteria, Lead, Pesticides, Copper, Iron, Nitrates, Nitrites, pH, Hardness, and Chlorine.
This test kit comes with quite clear instructions and so were able to perform most of the tests within one hour. Still, the only exception was the bacteria levels test which takes up to 48 hours to show a result.
And… all the tests showed that our tap water is absolutely perfect to drink. Furthermore, the tests show the results in particles per million (PPM), and all our test results were within the lowest levels of particles.
On one side, those were very positive news, which means that we can drink our tap water without any problem.
On the other side, that means that over the years we had spent many hundreds of euros buying bottled water for nothing.
And, have you ever wondered how clean is the water coming out from your taps and if it contains harmful contaminants or substances?
Ways to conserve water
Water conservation can be defined as the decision and the act of using less water
Water conservation both benefit you and the environment
The act of saving and conserving water does benefit you because you will be paying less for your water bills.
And it also does benefit the environment because conserving water prevents any unnecessary waste of natural resources.
Now, at the individual level, it may not look worth trying to save a few liters or gallons here or there.
Still, every little count and if hundreds or thousands of us do save a little every time, it will make an important contribution towards conserving our natural resources.
For example, if 9000 households would manage to save as little as 5 liters of water per day:
> Collectively, we would be saving over 16,000,000 liters of water per year!
> Collectively, assuming a cost of 2 euros per cubic meter of water, we would be saving nearly 33,000 euros per year!
Proven ways to save water at home
