Testing Household Water for Purity

[kato3388]

Recently a company came over and did a free water testing to our house water, to ultimately sell us a water softner system. We weren't interested but found the test to be quite interesting. The results of the test were, our bottled water was worse off than the water from the rest of the house. The tester used a chemical he claimed to be potassium flouride, he claims tested the amount of gunk, or crap as he put it, in the water. Is this an effective method in testing water for purity? If so, I'll be doing some testing of my own, as he claims AquaFina is the best water out there. Please shed some light on this for me.

[paulgallwey]

A water softener is only useful if you have hard water. Hard water deposits chalky deposits of calcium cabonate in your kettle and heating systems. If there is no furring in your kettle, then you can consider your water as being soft. In England you tend to get hard water in the south and east.

For drinking purposes, the hardness of the water is largely irrelevant, apart from the effect on the taste. Personally I prefer soft water myself. Bottled waters vary enormously in hardness: Volvic is very soft, while Buxton is hard.

The tests required for an accurate water analysis are a bit more complicated than just adding a shot of potassium chloride. Contact your water authority, if you want an analysis of your local supply.