Today’s inquiry came to us from ‘Thomkat’ who asked,
Looking for advice on testing kits for spring water we drink. We fill up 5 gallon carboys every few weeks and wanted to find out most economical kits to test and what you recommend we test for. Are their all-in-one kits for chloroforms (sp) like e coli as well as metals and pesticides. Basically, just need some advice. Thanks you.
Good afternoon, ‘Thomkat’, and thank you for your inquiry.
Since you say the water comes from a spring we believe your list of things you have considered testing, for the most part, makes perfect sense and we would just add one or two things… as you will see below:
* Heavy Metals
* Coliform Bacteria
* Arsenic
* Pesticides
* Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
* Nitrates / Nitrites
As far as all-in-one test kits go, we carry the SenSafe Drinking Water Test Kit which contains the following tests:
+ 2 Alkalinity, Total
+ 1 Bacteria (Coliform in Water)
+ 2 Chloride
+ 2 Chlorine, Free
+ 2 Chlorine, Total
+ 2 Copper
+ 2 Hardness, Total
+ 2 Hydrogen Sulfide
+ 2 Iron
+ 1 Lead
+ 2 Nitrate/Nitrite Nitrogen
+ 1 Pesticide
+ 2 pH
+ 2 Sulfate
We also carry a test kit called the COMPLETE Water Test Kit that tests for a few less parameters and costs about $10 less.
If you plan on testing more frequently then we suggest taking a look at the Well Driller Master Test Kit which includes as many as 50 tests for a larger number of water quality parameters.
No matter which testing route you choose, we think it a very good thing that you have decided to keep tabs on the quality of the water you and your family drink.
Let us know if you have any other questions and we will gladly answer all that we can for you. Also, the following web site provides all sorts of useful information about environmental and water quality issues worth monitoring: http://www.ewg.org (Environmental Working Group)
We hope we have helped at least a little and please feel free to contact us again with any other questions you may have.
