Drinking Water

Have you ever wondered if your water softener is working properly, and just don’t want to call a plumber out to check and see if its working, or if your RO filters need to be changed because of how hard your water is. Are you thinking about getting a whole house filter and want to know if the investment is worth it. This one’s for you then water wonderers.

I found an inexpensive tester on amazon that will test the parts per million. This test tells you simply put how much dissolved crap is in your water. Now the only true zero result that you will ever get is from a Reverse osmosis system without a carbon filter. Do you really want a true zero in your drinking water? There is a lot of research on what is acceptable and not. Some say zero PPM is bad for you because it cleans out all minerals in your system and you need them. While others say it’s just fine. If you want to know more do some research on Reverse osmosis systems there is a lot out there. Back to the test, this test is simple I believe it cost me around $15. You fill a glass up with water and place the tester in it. It will give you a number. Yes I know the number means nothing to you, I felt like this for a while. It’s simple though. Soft water will give you a test result around 200. That’s not saying there is salt in your water. That’s just saying there is minerals that are still in your water. Reverse osmosis water with a carbon filter will give you a test of around 50. That’s the carbon re-filter doing its job. It will give water a taste to it. Most non treated water will come anywhere from 300-500 PPM, anything higher than a 500 should be tested again. If you’re still getting more than 500 clean the tester off and try one more time. Above 500 is where the FWA says is unsafe to drink.

This test is okay to see where your water ranks but I am still not sold on how accurate it truly is for testing your softener, however it is great to tell you how clean your water. We use a different test that tells us if its soft or not, but its more expensive and you should have a plumber come out and check to see if your softener is working properly if you are concerned about it. The tester is a HM Digital TDS-EZ Water Quality TDS Tester, 0-9990 ppm Measurement Range , 1 ppm Resolution, +/- 3% Readout Accuracy. If you use it for nothing else then to tell if your filters are working then it was worth the 15 dollars.