The Importance of Testing Water before Buying Water Treatment Systems

Water is essential to life. While municipal water systems, rural wells, and commercial bottled water systems deliver a steady supply of drinking water, it's important to make an informed decision concerning the water that you put into your body. As you explore the numerous water treatment options available, make sure to have your water tested. Water tests can detect the presence of dissolved solids, iron, chlorine, microorganisms, and much more. Once you have identified any problems with your water source, you can then select the best water treatment system to resolve those problems.

Common Water Problems

From an off-putting taste to the rusty brown colour of iron water, your tap water could have other issues. While you certainly don't want to drink foul-tasting or brownish water, other contaminants can stain surfaces, corrode pipes, cloud glasses and crystal, and reduce the efficiency of home appliances. Common water problems include:

Iron water – Iron water is undesirable primarily due to the aesthetics and stain potential. Water softeners, and iron filters are commonly used to overcome iron water problems.

Hard water – Hard water is typically caused by too much calcium or magnesium in the water and can easily be countered with a water softener system.

Overly chlorinated water – too much chlorine causes taste and odour problems. Reverse osmosis and water coolers with u-fill water bottles are commonly used to provide better-tasting drinking water.

Gritty water – no one likes to drink water with sand, dirt, or sediments in it. The solution to gritty water is to use a filter system equipped with a sediment filter.

Contaminated water – Water can be contaminated by any number of benign or potentially harmful contaminants including sulfates, nitrates, lead, biological pathogens, viruses, heavy metals, radon, arsenic, asbestos, volatile organic compounds, trihalomethanes, and more. Water testing can confirm or rule out the presence of these contaminants. If harmful levels of contaminants are found, you'll need to respond appropriately – and the appropriate response often depends on what's found.

Responding to Water Problems

Because many factors affect the taste, odour, safety, and overall quality of your water, it's important to have your water tested so you know exactly what water problems exist. Once you have the test results, you can select a water treatment system to address the issue and deliver safe, clean Drinking Water as a result.

How to Test Water

Water Depot offers free water tests that test for common water problems in Ontario such as iron water, dissolved solids, and chlorine. More extensive lab-testing is also available through Water Depot. Learn more about your water and the water systems that can help by having your water tested today.