While we all would LOVE to believe swimming pool water contains no harmful bacteria, in reality many swimming pools — despite the apparent presence of chlorine odors — actually DO contain harmful bacteria.

Granted the levels of contaminants often pose no danger to swimmers, also called bathers (hence the term ‘bather load’ rather than ‘swimmer load’ when discussing a pool’s usage), but for people with compromised immune systems, the elderly and/or the extremely young these levels may pose a health risk.

In other swimming pools, however, the levels do sometimes become dangerous for the general population and waterborne bacterial and/or viral contaminants may spread from bather to bather without anyone knowing until later on when the contaminant has worked its way into bloodstreams, reproduced and starting causing stomach pains, cramping, diarrhea, etc.

Some cases of bacterial contamination by swimming pool have resulted in hospitalization and, in rare instances, even deaths.

So… Can the average person (or pool operator) perform some sort of test on their pool water that could help to determine if the pool water sanitizer has effectively killed off any potentially harmful water bacteria?

Of COURSE someone makes a test kit for bacteria in swimming pools!

The WaterSafe Rapid Bacteria Test Kit provides reliable positive/negative results for ‘popular’ pool water contaminants such as Pseudomonas, Aeromonas, E.coli, species of Salmonella, Shigella, Enterobacter, Klebsiella, and other Coliform and non-Coliform bacteria.

If you want more information on this product, you can find it on FilterWater.Com.

Often times finding replacement filter housings for existing water filtration systems can prove much more difficult than finding the cartridges that go in them… but not if you do the SMART thing and stick with industry standard sizes (i.e. Big Blue 20″ Filter Housing and Big Blue 10″ Filter Housing).

Today’s inquiry came from a lady(?) named ‘Anne4Guy’ who asked, “Jusat bought a house and it has a filter system that looks and smells nasty. House sat vacant for a long while and god knows what’s living in the filterhousing by now. Can I replace just the long blue thing that holds the filter or do I need to replace the whole lines and everything?”

Sounds to us like you need to have a water filter specialist pay you a visit to take a look at your filter setup and determine just how much it will take to get it back up and running properly.

Short of doing that, however, you can START by replacing the filter cartridge and filter housing BUT we ALSO wholeheartedly suggest using the certified water testing services of companies like National Testing Labs, Test Country or a local certified water testing lab.

Remember: Just because a lab advertises testing does NOT make it a CERTIFIED to perform water testing… and rarely should you ever trust a company that sends a water treatment system salesperson to collect the sample!

Get back to the filter housing issue, please!

OK, OK… Back to the ‘long blue filter housing’. We believe that sounds like a 20″ Big Blue Filter Housing, a reinforced polypropylene filter housing made by Pentek that hold a variety of different 20″ long filters with diameters ranging from 2 1/2″ and 2 7/8″. Pentek Part Number 150009.

Now, if by ‘long’ you mean roughly 10″ in length, then you could very possibly have one of Pentek’s 10″ Big Blue Filter Housings installed. See below for two possible options.

It saddens us to know that even now, many years after the unfortunate announcement that a virus called West Nile had found its way onto the Continental United States, people still insist on leaving areas of standing water in their yards for extended periods of time and/or allow the quality and condition of their swimming pool water to deteriorate to a point where it can become a wide open breeding ground for mosquitoes capable of carrying the West Nile virus.

Dr. Damon T. Arnold, state public health director, announced Tuesday a mosquito sample collected in Tazewell County has been confirmed as the first positive West Nile virus test results in Illinois this year.

The Tazewell County Health Department collected the positive mosquito batch in Delavan on June 10.

“During June and July mosquitoes that typically carry West Nile virus are breeding, particularly during hot weather,” said Dr. Arnold. “To help reduce the number of mosquitoes, make sure to get rid of any stagnant water around your home and protect yourself by wearing insect repellent.” ( source )

While not considered a ‘major’ threat to human life by most health officials because its ‘low mortality rate’, it can kill people and it most certainly can cause unwanted medical complications in others. No matter what, though, and regardless of West Nile, we really and truly don’t understand why people do not take action to limit the amount of pesky, blood-sucking mosquitoes in their environments.

Oh wait… Yes, we do understand why (most) people choose to do nothing: LAZINESS and APATHY.

What can I do to help eliminate mosquito breeding grounds?

Below you will find a brief list of places where mosquitoes have been known to shack up do the ‘dirty deed’ they call breeding so your job, should you choose to accept it, will become quite clear: Eliminate as many of those places as possible!

• ‘Old’ water in bird baths
• ‘Nasty’ water in decorative ponds
• Collected water in unused flowerpots
• Standing water in kiddie wading pools
• Water accumulated in old tires or other items capable of holding water

If you live an area where an organized mosquito control group has formed, let your local health officials know if you spot stagnant water in roadside ditches and flooded yards or fields as those locations make superb honeymoon suites for lustful mosquitoes.

Underwriters Laboratory, commonly known as ‘the UL’ announced recently that it has obtained the necessary certifications in all 50 States (in the United States) to market its water testing services as an approved water testing laboratory.

Until now no lab has had the ability to offer water testing services in all 50 States… and we doubt any other will make that claim anytime soon.

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — UL (Underwriters Laboratories Inc.), a global leader in water quality and safety, announced today that the company has become the first laboratory approved to conduct water testing services in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. UL’s Alaska state certification will take effect July 1, allowing UL to offer approved water testing services across the entire United States.

In accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Drinking Water Laboratory Certification Program, states assume primacy for enforcing the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and are responsible for certifying laboratories that conduct analyses against the requirements of this Act. Each state maintains a certification program that requires laboratories to successfully analyze designated testing samples, demonstrate approved methods, and pass periodic inspections.

“UL is proud to be the first and only laboratory certified to provide water testing services in all 50 states and Puerto Rico,” said Hank Lambert, general manager of UL Global Food and Water Businesses. “The breadth of our state certifications speaks to the unmatched quality of our analytical services. We are now able to provide Public Water Systems (PWS) across the U.S. with what we feel is an unmatched experience in analytical expertise and customer service.” ( source )

Not a whole lot more we can really say except, “Congratulations, UL! On occasion we dealt w/ regulatory bodies on topics dealing with water quality issues and gotten very frustrated so your recent accomplishment speaks volumes about your organization’s commitment to the quality of its water testing program!”

Testing drinking water at home?

While NOTHING takes the place of water testing performed by a qualified (and certified!) water testing laboratory, performing periodic testing of your water at home using drinking water test kits made by companies like WaterSafe and SenSafe allows you to keep tabs on critical water quality parameters for literally just pennies per test.

Too many people fall into a false sense of security between tests performed by a laboratory because they forget that any number of events — including periods of heavy rain, equipment malfunctions, accidental line damage, etc. — can allow potentially dangerous contaminants access to their water supply.

Taking just a few quick minutes every month to perform basic testing on your water supply could potentially keep you from drinking contaminated water for a period of months, or however long until your next scheduled water test.

As we always say, It’s your water, your health… your LIFE!

With articles about the debate over adding (or not adding) fluoride to the public water supply popping up in the news on a semi-regular basis it never surprises us when a reader asks us a question about fluoride in drinking water. Today’s question comes from ‘Andee03′ who asked,

“I like the idea of the low maintenance filter you wrote about today, but does it remove fluoride? For the low price I doubt it so does anyone make one that does? Thx andee03″

Well, Andee, it just so happens that Crystal Quest, the manufacturer of the disposable countertop water filter we wrote about recently, does, in fact, make a disposable filter that reduces fluoride levels in drinking water.

They call it the Fluoride Multi PLUS and from what we can tell, it does all the things that the other filter did plus it reduces fluoride levels… without jumping up too much in cost.

Why the concern over fluoride?

Rather than repeat the content from earlier postings about fluoride we will opt to say, “Please refer to Testing for Fluoride in Water since it gives a very good (and short!) explanation of why people have concerns over the presence of fluoride in drinking water.”

Reducing/Removing fluoride from drinking water?

The disposable, zero-maintenance Crystal Quest Countertop Fluoride Filter mentioned above will most certainly help reduce fluoride levels in drinking water, but what if a person wants a filter that offers more robust filtering features?

In a perfect world no one would need a water filter. Ever. They could just open up the faucet at any time of the day, night or year and have pure, contaminant-free tap water pour freely into a glass.

But, since we CLEARLY don’t live in a perfect world, many of us have tap water that tastes nasty and could also possibly contain some unwanted nasty contaminants. Therefore, until we can make this world perfect it may make sense to install some sort of water filter in your home and/or office if you want better tasting and possibly safer drinking water.

How much maintenance do water filters require?

About a year or two ago we would have said that all water filters require at least SOME maintenance in the form of filter cleaning, filter replacement that required tools, a semi-complicated backwashing procedure, etc. but not anymore.

Recently we have seen a lot more drinking water filters enter the marketplace with claims of ‘zero or low maintenance’. As an example, a company by the name of Crystal Quest has come out with a sealed countertop water filter that uses a 6-stage filter to remove unwanted drinking water contaminants from up to 10,000 gallons of drinking water.

After the filter stops working in 1 to 3 years, depending upon the amount of contaminants in the source water, simply disconnect its hose, dispose of the unit properly, and install a new one. No plumbing experience required!

Do disposable water filters really work?

We cannot say that all disposable water filters perform as they should, but we can say that the manufacturers of this unit have proof of its effectiveness. Take a look at the unit’s water test results on the FilterWater.Com web site.

Need a test kit for your drinking water? You may want to consider a kit such as the Water Quality Test Kit offered by the makers of SenSafe Test Kits.

One of the the most useful projects we have ever come across dealing with wells appears on the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Web Site. It gives detailed definitions of commonly used terms in the world of well drilling, well maintenance and well ownership.

If you have a well currently or plan on having a well installed at some point we highly suggest spending some time reading the content on their site.

Today’s question comes from a woman in Illinois named ‘Gretchen246′ who asked a very interesting question… about her lawn.

“Why is my lawn green? A healthy lawn is the sign of a healthy home and my lawn is yellow. Allthe lawns here are yellow and we all fertilize and feed and do all we’resupposed to but the lawns are still yellow. Could it be the water?”

Sad to say, but the little kid in us wants to say, ” Gretchen, your neighborhood needs a leash law to keep wandering dogs from peeing all over your lawns!” Ha ha. Yep. The kid in us has not, yet, grown up all the way… and we hope it never does!

On a more serious note, if every lawn in your neighborhood has the same issue (bad grass), then it stands to reason that all of your lawns have at least SOMEthing in common. Typically all yards in a development will share a similar soil type (i.e. composition, pH, etc.), environmental conditions (rainfall, amount of sunlight, etc.) and quality of water used to keep them hydrated.

Since we know very little about soil we will pass on the opportunity to discuss that topic and move in for the kill on a topic we DO know something about: Water. Since you say your lawns stay yellow, a sure sign of a dead or dying lawn, perhaps your lawns don’t particularly care for something in the water?

As our first guess, we cast our vote for chlorine. Most municipal water systems use a form of chlorine to keep biological contaminants from growing in the water and water lines. Once out of the water line, however, chlorine will continue to wage war on biological organism… like the grass in your lawn.

Chlorine in my water?

How do you know if your tap water contains chlorine? Perform a simple test for chlorine using a product such as the WaterWorks 2 Free & Total Chlorine Test Strip. We like this product because it provides reliable test results for both free and total chlorine concentrations in water at the same time and in just a few minutes.

There’s chlorine in my water… Now what?

Well if the chlorine poses a problem (i.e. it kills your grass!) then we heartily suggest removing it from the water you use on your lawn. The products below from Gar’n'Gro should have the ability to help with that task.

For those interesting removing chlorine from their drinking water, you may want to consider installing a simple, yet effective, faucet filter such as the Crystal Quest W2 in your kitchen.

Although not often (these days) that we get many questions pertaining to pool water, this one question does tend to get asked at least five or six times a year: “What does cyanuric acid do for pool water?”

Honestly, cyanuric acid does more for the chlorine in your pool water than it does the pool water itself. As an element in water chlorine LOVES to more or less run wild and leave the water first chance it gets if not controlled (stabilized) by a compound like cyanuric acid.

In the absence of a chlorine stabilizing compound things like sunlight, wind and just plain chlorine’s tendency to ‘off gas’ would make it extremely difficult to maintain a free chlorine residual in pool water. Without a free chlorine residual pool water can easily turn green with algae, become cloudy and most CERTAINLY become a breeding ground for water dwelling bacteria and other pathogens.

Two forms of cyanuric acid?

Back in the day you could only get cyanuric acid as granules that you had to mix in a pail to form a slurry and pour down the skimmer (slowly!) with the pool pump running.

Now, however, you can purchase cyanuric acid as a concentrated liquid… which we can ASSURE you saves a lot of time!

Anyone who has ever had to mix, swirl, pour, mix, swirl, pour, mix, swirl, pour, etc., etc., etc., over and over again for a large pool will know EXACTLY what we mean by that last statement. Pouring too much of the cyanuric acid granules into the skimmer too quickly could result in dangerously high levels of pressure in the filter.

Today we will broach a topic which we hope one of our readers can assist with because we have little to no expertise in matters of real estate. We will do so because another of our readers asked us a question that involves buying land and testing the water before signing on the dotted line of a real estate contract.

‘Patricia’ asked, “Im going to buy a land in Mexico and I will like to know what it will be good for water quality tester?

Thanks”

Many people don’t think about testing the water coming up from the springs on, or passing across a parcel of land before buying it — but obviously WE think they ought to!

Here in the United States most states have laws requiring well water to pass basic bacteria testing before a property with a dwelling can change hands… but what about undeveloped property? Does it also need to pass some sort of testing?

If anyone has an answer to that question, please leave a comment in the appropriate place below so others can share in your wisdom!

Water test kit for basic water testing?

In a case like this, where traveling light and having the ability to do the most testing possible while on the property will matter quite a bit, we suggest taking a look at a kit such as the Well Driller Mater Test Kit made by SenSafe. This particular test kit makes use of dip’n'read test strips to test for 12 important water quality parameters, an easy-to-use presence/absence test for coliform bacteria and a very simple, yet accurate, method for testing dissolved arsenic concentrations in water.

With regard to portability, the Well Driller Mater Test Kit comes packaged in a plastic carrying case, has all the necessary color charts attached to each test’s bottle and requires no glassware or power.

For more specific on what tests come with the Well Driller Test Kit (Master), take a look at its product description on the FilterWater.Com Web Site.

Well Driller Master Test Kit

Please keep in mind that the test kit we mentioned in this blog posting will not test for VOC’s (volatile organic contaminants), artificially synthesized drinking contaminants, etc. You will need to contract the services of a qualified, certified water testing laboratory if you wish to test for things of that nature.