A good detailed water analysis is vitally important, especially if you are on well water. A thorough water analysis is like a blood test or x-ray for your water and is the ONLY way that you can really know what is in your water so that you can properly treat it. The problem is: many water tests are expensive and if they aren’t, they are not very accurate.

Before I tell you the best way to test your water, let me tell you a couple of ways that aren't generally going to deliver accurate and relevant results.

1. Don't buy a Do-It-Yourself Test Kit on Amazon or at a big box store like Lowes or Home Depot. The USEPA has never granted certification for the D.I.Y. test kits you see everywhere. The results from using color-changing test strips are highly unreliable in many cases. Sure, it can serve as a good "indicator" on some contaminant, but don't rely upon it.
2. Don't call a water treatment dealer to give you a Free Water Analysis. A Free Water Test simply means that a dealer is likely going to send a salesperson making 20 to 30% commission out to your house with a test kit that looks like the one to the right. It uses colored water as an indicator and usually only checks for seven or eight contaminants at most. (photo below)

I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that the USEPA has never granted certification for the D.I.Y. test kits you see everywhere and of course, those water tests which are done with a few vials and beakers of colored water are not always accurate, besides the fact that they only test for just a few contaminants.

Beware of free water tests. Most of these companies test for less seven or eight water parameters such as pH, hardness, iron, hardness, chlorine and maybe a few others, but they really don't provide any contaminant information at all - they just want to sell you their water treatment equipment. Don't be fooled and don't settle for anything less than a professional drinking water laboratory. To properly test your water, a laboratory needs testing equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, equipment like the following:

• Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
• Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry
• Chemically Suppressed Ion Chromatography
• Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry
• Multi-channel Continuous Flow Analyzer
• Discrete Segmented Flow and Flow Injection Analyzer

Some companies are charging $99 for just 12 contaminants. Our US Water Professional Lab Water Test provides 34 contaminants at $49.95 ... and we will give you $100 back when you buy a whole house water treatment system from US Water Systems that we recommend. Testing your water is serious business. Go with the Best Water Test in America - only from US Water Systems. One final thing to think about: Who is better to trust to test your water - a water dealer with a vested interest in selling you something or an Professional Water Testing Lab who just will report the facts to you? We also want to sell you water treatment equipment, but we want to base it on solid science so that we can recommend the right system and guarantee that it will work!