Well Water Testing

Why would you have your Well Water Testing done once a year?

Common reasons for well water testing are listed below:

Private or Public Systems:

  • You have brass fixtures, lead pipes, or lead soldered joints in your household.
  • Your water has a strange taste or odor.
  • Your water is hard and is leaving soap scum on bathroom fixtures.
  • You are purchasing a home, and you want to test the efficiency of a current water treatment setup.
  • You want to purchase a water treatment setup for your house, but are not sure of what problems exist in your current water supply.
  • You want to test the efficiency of an existing water treatment setup.

Private Systems:

  • There is recurring gastrointestinal distress in your family or visiting guests.
  • You are pregnant, or have a child less than six months old living in your household.
  • Your well is next to a septic tank, and it is questionable if the septic tank is set back far enough from your well.
  • Your property has an underground storage tank that is in close proximity to your well.
  • Your property has a leaking gas tank that is next to your well.
  • You have a new well, and want to test for the purity of your water.
  • Your well is next to an area where livestock are kept.
  • You have mixed pesticides or other chemicals near your well, or accidentally dropped these into your well.
  • Your well does not meet current building codes.
  • Your water stains laundry, or fixtures.
  • You have noticed an increased amount of turbidity in your water.
  • Your property is near a chemical plant, a gas station (either abandoned or not), mining operation, a landfill/dump, dry-cleaners, junkyard, heavily salted roadway, or an oil/gas drilling company. Private water users should continue testing your water at least yearly for bacteria and other chemicals that may be of interest.

Even if your water is safe, yearly well water testing will enable you to have a record of your water's prior history, so that if a change occurs, you will know.

In addition, should anyone damage your water supply, you will have proof of your water quality prior to the damage.

Testing your water may be done by private testing labs like Stevens Ecology, county and state health laboratories, departments of health, and some local environmental consulting companies.

Stevens Ecology does the testing on my well. And I know that I will get a quick detailed report on my water source. Well Water Testing is a key part of this labs main focus.

Be sure that private testing labs are certified by your state department of health. Additional help may be found by contacting the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

A great place to start is the Safe Drinking Water publication from the EPA.

For well owners, the EPA has two publications that may be able to help you out: Citizen Monitoring: Recommendations to Household

Well Users,(EPA 816-F-05-013, May 2005) and Drinking Water from Household Wells (EPA 816-K-02-003, January 2202). They also provide the phone number in each state where you can call and request a list of certified laboratories.

Once you have the results of your testing back, you can then begin treating your water for the various compounds that were detected in your water supply. Iron and Water Hardness are normally the biggest enemies to fight with will well water.