If you live in a developed economy like Australia, we’d wager that you never really consider the water source in your property. After all, an estimated 71% of the global population (around 5.3 billion people) accessed a safely managed water supply in 2017, with this source completely free from contamination.
However, many people continue to argue that bottled water is richer than any domestic supply despite the fact that there’s no scientific evidence to support this assertion. In fact, whilst bottled water is processed and commercially attractive, it doesn’t necessarily compare favourably with filtered supplies in the modern home.
In this post, we’ll explore this in further detail, whilst asking how you can understand and test the water quality in your home.
How Much Water do you Need to Drink and How can you Test your Supply?
From a global perspective, there’s conflicting advice on how much water we should drink on a daily basis.
On average, however, it’s estimated that we should consume between two and three litres of water every day, with this range increasing incrementally on the back of continued scientific studies.
If you do consume your water from a tap or a filtered source that has been built in to your refrigerator, you may want to consider testing the quality of what is being put into your system. The reason for this is simple; as chemical, physical and biological factors can impact directly on the quality of water that’s fed into your system.
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One of the best and most accessible testing methods revolves around pH and KH, with the former particularly effective.
Make no mistake; an increased pH level is dangerous to the ecosystem of the water body, as this makes for acidic water that also contains increased levels of toxic ammonia.
You can use over-the-counter pH testing kits to check the purity and quality of your water, and these use a colour-coded system that guarantees accuracy.
Conversely, you can also invest the type of pH meter sold by equipment suppliers like RS Components. These meters have been designed to measure the hydrogen-ion level in water and water-based solutions, whilst indicating the precise level of acidity or alkalinity.
As a general rule, a safe pH range for your water supply is between 6.0 to 8.0, and using a meter will provide a numerical result that makes it easy to gauge whether or not your source is safe.
Why is This Important?
There are other methods of testing the safety of the water in your home, of course, but pH testing is undoubtedly the most accessible and easy to understand.
The key is that you test your water quality regularly, however, as a largely acidic or contaminated water supply may contribute to a variety of health conditions including diarrhoea, cholera and, in the worst-case scenario, polio.
So, by adopting a proactive approach to checking your water supply, you optimise your health whilst also keeping your loved ones safe at all times.
