Water Facts
A Guide to home water problems, how they occur, and how they can be corrected.
Natural Water Problems
Water collects tastes and odours as it passes through decaying vegetation, gases, minerals and organic material beneath the earth's surface e.g. the taste and odour problems caused by absorbed hydrogen and sulphide
Water carrying calcium, magnesium and other dissolved minerals: “Hard Water” that causes scale build-up in pipes, faucets and appliances, diminishing the cleansing action of soaps, detergents and shampoos
Water carrying iron, creating rust stains and other iron-related problems
Water considered “acidic” can dissolve or “eat away” at pipes and chrome plumbing fixtures
Man-made Water Problems
Thousands of chemicals and compounds have been created in recent years. Petrochemical materials, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers are washed by rainwater into streams, rivers, lakes and wells.
Drinking-water contaminants are either naturally occurring or man-made and cannot be detected except by professional testing. Depending on the type and amount of contaminant, there are various methods of treating water, including sediment filters, taste and odour filters, chemical contaminant filters, lead reduction filters, reverse osmosis drinking water systems, and distillers.
In-Home Testing
With a brief home visit, EcoWater treatment professionals can easily detect many water problems. They are trained to spot symptoms of certain water problems and, with the help of a portable testing lab, to measure levels of contaminants.
The most common in-home tests are for:
→Hardness: measured in grains per US gallon
→Iron: measured in parts per million
→Chlorine and total dissolved solids (TDS).
→PH
Water suspected of containing bacteria must be tested by a certified laboratory.
