Signs Your Home Needs Better Water Filtration

Strange odors, cloudy appearance, or stains on your fixtures are often signs your home needs a water filtration upgrade. Left unresolved, these issues can affect your health, damage plumbing, and shorten the lifespan of your appliances. Recognizing the warning signs early and calling in a professional can save you money and stress down the road.

Signs of Poor Water Filtration

If you do not have adequate water filtration, it can affect your health, hygiene, food quality, and various repair costs. If you see these issues, it’s time to install or change to a better water filter for your home.

• Unpleasant tastes indicate that bacteria, excess treatment chemicals like chlorine, or heavy metals are present.
• Strange odors like heavy chlorine, sulfur, mustiness, or an old fish tank all indicate that the system is not filtering contaminants properly. There could even be bacteria or algae growing in the system.
• White film and buildup indicate heavy amounts of hard water minerals like lime and calcium are present.
• Decreased water pressure could indicate that the pipes or filters are clogged with sediment and debris.
• Dry, itchy skin and brittle hair could indicate you are bathing in high amounts of chlorine or hard water.
• Unsightly stains in your sinks, tubs, and toilets come from hard water and heavy metals in the water supply.

When you see these signs, it’s time to check your home water filtration system and test your water supply.

Ways to Test Your Home’s Water Supply

Spotting the symptoms is only the first step. To know exactly what’s in your water, testing is critical.

DIY Water Testing Kits

Many homeowners start with DIY water testing kits because they are inexpensive and easy to find. These kits can provide a quick snapshot of common issues like pH levels, hardness, or the presence of chlorine. However, they have a large range of drawbacks:

• Their accuracy is limited.
• Results can be difficult to interpret.
• At-home kits are typically designed to test one or two specific issues, so the test may indicate that everything is fine while missing something else it's not intended to detect.
• They can test what is wrong with your water, but they do not indicate why the contaminants are in your water or how to fix it.

In other words, you might get a partial picture, but not the whole story.

Professional Testing and Solutions

When you schedule a professional water testing, you have a trained and licensed expert conduct a comprehensive test of your water supply. They detect precisely what is in your water, measure the exact levels of each contaminant, and offer the best water filtration systems for your home. These could include:

Whole-house filtration systems filter water as it enters your home, so every tap and appliance benefits. The cost of a whole-home water filtration system varies depending on the home size and system type. Some systems are designed for a few precise contaminants, saving you money by avoiding unneeded extra filters. Others are more comprehensive in handling everything that comes their way.

Reverse osmosis systems remove contaminants down to the microscopic level, making them ideal for homes that suffer from bacterial and microscopic pollutants.

Water softeners solve hard water problems by removing hard minerals like calcium and magnesium. Many homeowners choose to combine a water softener with a whole-house system for complete protection.

The right water filtration system ensures that you have clean, great-tasting water with fewer contaminants that could affect your health.

Does Your Home Need Better Water Filtration?

If you’ve noticed any of the signs that your home needs better water filtration, don’t wait for the problem to get worse. Test your water and then hire the pros to install the right filtration systems for your home.

Bluestone Plumbing is proud to serve all of Treasure Valley, including Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell, Eagle, Kuna, and every community in between. Connect with us to schedule your home water filtration system upgrades or installations.