Does Your Home's Water Supply Contain Dangerous Amounts Of Lead? Here's How You Can Check

Does your home's drinking water contain unsafe amounts of lead? Lead contamination is an unfortunately common problem in homes, and it applies to homes with well water and homes on a municipal water system. Lead can cause numerous negative health effects such as brain and nervous system damage, and children are particularly vulnerable to the health hazards of lead poisoning. Checking your drinking water for lead contamination is important to keep both you and your family safe. Read on for information about how to measure the amount of lead in your home's drinking water and what you can do to keep your family safe from dangerous lead contamination levels.

How Do You Check Your Home's Drinking Water for Lead?

You can't see, taste or smell lead in your home's drinking water. While lead is slightly sweet, the amount dissolved in contaminated drinking water is too small to affect the taste.

The only way to be sure that your home's drinking water is free of lead contamination is to check the lead levels with a water testing kit. Try calling your local water company – many of them will provide free test kits that you can use to check the amount of lead in your home's drinking water. If your water company doesn't provide this service, you can purchase a test kit at a home improvement store.

You'll typically need to collect two samples to be sent for testing. The first sample is a first draw sample – fill the testing kit with water as soon as you wake up in the morning. This gives water a chance to sit in your home's pipes unused overnight. Lead contamination levels due to the plumbing in your home or due to a lead service line are typically higher when water has been sitting in the pipes for a long period of time, as this allows corrosive water to leach more lead out of the pipes.

The second sample you need to take is a post-flush sample. You run the water in your home for fifteen minutes to flush the lines of any lead-containing sediment and then fill the test kit at your tap. This allows you to see if your home's water supply has persistent levels of lead contamination apart from contamination caused by your home's plumbing.

You'll need to send both samples to a certified water testing laboratory and have them checked for lead contamination. Your local water company may pay for this testing, so make sure that you call and ask them about this service. The water testing laboratory will give you a report about the level of lead in your water samples and tell you whether or not the water in your home is safe to drink.

How Do You Eliminate Lead Contamination in Your Home's Drinking Water?

One way to stop lead contamination is to filter it out at the tap. You can either install filters on every faucet in your home or you can contact a plumbing service in your local area and have a whole-home water filter installed. Unfortunately, not every water filter will remove lead from the water – you need to purchase filters that specifically state they're designed to eliminate lead contamination.

If your home's pipes are the source of your lead contamination, then you can call a plumbing service to repipe your home with lead-free pipes. PVC pipes are often used for this purpose, since PVC pipes don't require solder in order to join them together. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about lead service lines except to ask your city to replace them – if your water company's service lines are the source of contamination, then water filtration is the best route to keep you and your family safe from the health hazards posed by lead.

As you can see, checking your home's drinking water for lead contamination is a quick process that may even be paid for by your local water company. If you've never tested the lead level in your home's drinking water before, it's important to do so – you want to avoid as many sources of lead as possible in order to prevent lead poisoning. Purchase a testing kit and have your lead levels measured. If your drinking water contains unsafe amounts of lead, call a business like Arctic Heating, Cooling & Plumbing, Inc. to have the problem corrected and make your water safe to drink.