THE SKILLINGS BLOG

If you receive your water from a private well, you’re responsible for the quality and safety of your home’s water supply. The EPA recommends annual testing to ensure the health of your well. One important well water test to include annually is a lead test. This is necessary for every occupant in the home, but if you have infants or small children, testing should be a priority.

When it comes to selling a home with well water, it’s important to ask is if the well is up to the task of providing enough quality water to meet the homeowner’s needs. Real estate agents should talk to the sellers and find out how old the well is, if there have been water supply issues in the past or if they’ve experienced a well or water pump failure recently. If the answer to any of these is yes, the home could have a low flow problem.

We often talk to homeowners who want to know how often they should test the quality of their well water. Because there is little to no regulation of well water quality depending on where you live, making sure well water is safe to drink is the responsibility of the homeowner. How often you should test depends on where you live, if there are known sources of contamination nearby or if there have been problems with the well water at your home before.

The Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with keeping us safe from contaminants in our drinking water. They have established National Primary Drinking Water Standards (NPDWRs) that set mandatory quality standards for a variety of drinking water contaminants. The regulations are legally enforceable and set Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) to protect the public from consuming water that may be a health.

If you live in New Hampshire, radon testing is necessary, and radon mitigation is possible.