We have a water purification system in our home that uses iodine instead of chlorine. I would like to change over from using tablets to test for the strength of the iodine needed for purification to a strip. Do you have a product that can do
this? Thank you.

Thank you, Georgeanne, for your inquiry, and yes, we do carry (as a result of your question) test strips that you can use to test iodine levels in drinking water.

We contacted the makers of the SenSafe and WaterWorks to see if they made anything that would meet the needs of a person looking to test iodine levels in treated drinking water and learned that they manufacture a product called SenSafe Iodine which detects iodine levels in drinking water between 0.02 and 5.0ppm (parts per million).

Iodine as a water disinfectant?

Many people know that iodine gets used in medical applications to treat cuts, scrapes, etc. but not nearly as many know that iodine also gets used as a chemical treatment for water suspected of possibly containing organic contaminants.

Hikers, campers and military personnel on patrol in the wilderness sometimes carry iodine tablets with them as a means of treating ground water and surface water for biological contaminants. Adding the iodine tablets to water collected for drinking and/or cooking can efficiently reduce the risk of accidentally ingesting potentially hazardous water contaminants such as bacteria and parasites.

Iodine of iodine versus chlorine?

In our experience people tend to not like the taste of iodine or chlorine in their water supply… but overall most we have ever asked find the taste of chlorine slightly more palatable (possibly due to familiarity w/ it in tap water?).

Disinfecting capabilities of iodine versus chlorine?

Both work very well at killing off unwanted biological contaminants in drinking water but use of either one does not necessarily guarantee that treated water contains absolutely no unwanted parasites or bacteria… but you will more than likely fair MUCH better with treated water than untreated water!

We couldn’t have made this kind of thing up even if we tried. Scientists have hypothesized that the lack of any industrial applications using that specific isotope leaves few options other than human waste from patients receiving radiation treatment for cancer as the source of contamination.

For more information on this topic, you can read the whole article here.

While no at-home test kits exist to test for the type of iodine mentioned in the above article, some do exist for testing levels of ‘regular’ iodine which occasionally shows up in drinking and industrial water.

As an example, the SenSafe Iodine Test Strips can detect concentrations as low as .02 ppm without the need for messy reagents, advanced testing techniques or expensive meters.

SenSafe’s Iodine Test Strips

Now we come to our favorite part:The Moral of the Story

Whether the result of irresponsible actions on the part of industry, poor enforcement of environmental codes on the part of government bodies, or the unintentional discharge of questionable contaminants such as pharmaceuticals into the water supply by any person who takes medications, the fact remains that our drinking water MAY contain any number of potentially dangerous contaminants at any given time.

Simply put, the folks who designed and built the bulk of our water treatment facilities could not have planned for many of the potential drinking water contaminants we could find in our water supply today because we, as a culture, didn’t even know they existed until recently.

Therefore, Water Testing Blog continues to believe that a thorough testing of one’s water by a certified water testing company such as National Testing Labs, or one suggested by your local health department, followed by the proper installation of the correct home water treatment device(s) will always make sense.