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What Is a Water Quality Check?

Written on: May 1, 2023

Plumbing 101

water test Sterling, ma As a family-owned business, Brideau cares about your family and your business. We work hard to contribute to the comfort and safety of your living and work environment.

Whether you’re in Central Massachusetts or Southern New Hampshire home, you can rest assured you’ll get quality and dependability when you call on Brideau. And we offer a variety of services, from domestic heating oil and propane delivery to commercial fueling to water heaters, air conditioners, boilers, furnaces, heating oil tanks and plumbing. And whatever service we provide, we’ll complete all our work to the highest safety standards in the industry. And we’ll guarantee our work will be done correctly and in a timely fashion.

At Brideau, We’re Plumbing Experts

Brideau offers a wide variety of plumbing services for your home. And each project or installation qualifies for a free in-home estimate.

Here are just some of the plumbing service offerings our master plumbers are on hand to take care of for you:

Let’s take a closer look at water quality and what a water quality check entails.

Water Quality Checks

According to the EPA , whether or not you should test your water depends on a number of factors such as whether you receive your water from a public water system versus a household well, if there is a pregnant woman or new baby in the home, whether you suspect there could be lead or other problematic materials in any of your home’s plumbing materials or water source lines, the proximity of your water well to a septic system, or if you’re considering installing a home water treatment unit. Additionally, contaminants in your water can cause illness and less serious but still undesirable issues such as poor taste, odors, and stains on your clothing or water fixtures.

What does a water quality check entail? It is very much what it sounds like. After collecting samples, we test the quality of the water being supplied to your home and determine if it’s perfectly safe, or what, if any dangerous or undesirable contaminants are contained in it and how to proceed in the case of the latter scenario to address the problem.

Which water quality test is right for you will depend on the conditions or nearby activities that affect your home. Here are some of the scenarios and appropriate tests the EPA recommends:

Conditions or Nearby Activities Recommended Test(s)
Recurrent gastrointestinal illness Coliform bacteria
Household plumbing contains lead pH, lead, copper
Radon in indoor air or region is radon rich Radon
Scaly residues, soaps don’t lather Hardness
Water softener needed to treat hardness Manganese, iron
Stained plumbing fixtures, laundry Iron, copper, manganese
Objectionable taste or smell Hydrogen sulfide, corrosion, metals
Water appears cloudy, frothy, or colored Color, detergents
Corrosion of pipes, plumbing Corrosion, pH, lead
Rapid wear of water treatment equipment pH, corrosion
Nearby areas of intensive agriculture Nitrate, pesticides, coliform bacteria
Coal or other mining operation nearby Metals, pH, corrosion
Gas drilling operation nearby Chloride, sodium, barium, strontium
Odor of gasoline or fuel oil, and near gas station or buried fuel tanks Volatile organic compounds (VOC)
Dump, junkyard, landfill, factory, or dry-cleaning operation nearby VOC, Total dissolved ssolids (TDS), pH, sulfate, chloride, metals
Salty taste and seawater, or a heavily salted roadway nearby Chloride, TDS, sodium

If any of the above conditions or concerns apply to you, contact Brideau and ask us to perform a water quality test. It will give you peace of mind and potentially protect the health of everyone in your household. Contact Brideau’s plumbing team today to learn more about the plumbing services we offer or to request a free in-home estimate.