The Original Water Testing Kit for Drinking Water, Well and Tap Water, Sensitive Lead in Water Test, Bacteria, Hardness, pH, Nitrates, Easy Instructions, Lab-Accurate Results, 1 Kit

Very reliable and efficient kit, allows you to test different sort of components of your water, from Lead, bacteria to tds levels. Each test in a separate packaging with clear instructions for related test. I would recommend anyone to get those for their peace of mind on the qulity of the water in their home

For 20-some-odd bucks, you can know if your well water is safe. We've wondered for a long time, and now have that peace of mind. We knew ahead of testing that we had good-tasting well water. We knew from the driller's report that we have lots of it. We knew that our pump sits in good water, down 240 feet through bedrock.We also knew that our water is hard. We have the calcium deposits to prove it, and as a result, we run a salt water softener with a microprocessor that is sophisticated enough to know how often it needs to soften the water. And we run an RO (reverse osmosis) filter under the kitchen sink that purifies our drinking (and cooking) water. But just how hard is our water? We didn't know that.We also didn't know that in terms of metal, chemical and bacterial contaminants, if our water was safe. We've been drinking it and our health is good. But still, that nagging question. What's really in the water? Now we know.This little test kit is a brilliant idea. You don't need to take a sample and send it off to a lab, paying whatever fees, and waiting weeks for results. You can do these series of tests at home, in less than an hour (except the bacterial one, which needs two days in a vial at room temp to see if the nasties are going to have a breeding party).It's pretty simple, really. You get a sample of water directly from your well (we have a tap near the wellhead, before the water is softened and filtered). I took a squeaky-clean glass jar and filled it. Most of the tests are in the form of chemically sensitive patches on strips of paper -- like litmus paper -- which are dipped in your well water, and react in the presence of heavy metals and other contaminants. (You could, of course, test your municipal tap-water as well -- it does tell you if there are unsafe levels of chlorine, which are not present in well water). And in fact, the litmus test is included -- one of the oldest ways to discover the Ph level of your water or if it is acidic, alkaline, or neutral.With this kit you can quickly reveal the presence of nitrates and nitrites (usually caused by animal waste). You will test for possibly dangerous heavy metals, including copper, lead, and iron. Iron, by the way, is present in a lot of wells -- observably as ugly orange stains in sinks and toilets. Our water did not display even a trace, which surprised us. The test for dangerous bacteria, as I mentioned, takes two days to "ripen." If the water remains purplish, you're in good shape (ours did).In fact, the good news is, our water was fine on all counts -- except "hardness." We have about 400 ppm (parts per million), which is relatively high. Of course, we already knew it was hard, and compensate for that with the salt softener.Having done all this, the question arises: what would we have done if we had found our well water was high in a contaminants? Move? But knowing is better than ignorance.The test is easy to to, at home, without the need to send away samples and wait for results. The price for peace of mind is cheap, and $10 less than one of our well equipment companies wanted for the exact same kit, same brand.Recommended.

ok product

One of the best and most accurate test kits, easy reading results.

I live in an area where I have city water within my house on both sides just two houses down each way. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to convince the powers that be to hook me up to the city water system. As a result, I am currently using a private well for my house with two large backwashing filters to correct the water to required standards. I had recently noticed that the concentration of iron in my water (after the treatment filters) was higher than normal because we could see some discoloration in the toilets, so I decided to test the water (before it is treated with the filters) using this kit. The kit is pretty simple and the instructions are straightforward. I performed the tests as instructed but found both the indicators on the test strip for iron and pH to be difficult to judge by the indicated color. The strip for iron was not a color shade that was on the indicator chart initially and only after letting it sit a while was the color a match to anything on the chart. I believe though that letting it sit that long invalidated the test results. The second issue I was having was that the pH indicator on the test strip was a dead on match for the orange color representing 7.5. While that did not initially appear to be a problem, I had an issue with my holding tank a few weeks later and the company that repaired the issue also performed a thorough water test while they were at my home. All of the other test strips appeared to be pretty close (hardness in this kit measured at 120, it was 90 by professional measurement, so close enough) and accurate but my actual iron reading from the company that tested the water was considerably higher than what the test strip indicated. Also, my actual measured pH was closer to ~6.4 than the indicated 7.5 in this test kit. The problem for me is that there are only 2 conditions that my water here normally needs corrections for and that is iron and pH so, this kit unfortunately did not provide the results that I most needed for my particular water conditions. The good news is that the remaining professional tests were all either close to or exactly the same values as this kit. My water also tested negative for harmful bacteria with this kit also so it did give me some peace of mind that my well water was a good reliable source of water, especially after running through my iron and pH filtration tanks.