If your water comes from your own well, nobody is testing it for you. No utility, no annual report, no notice in the post. Whatever is in it has been in it for as long as you have been drinking it.
What you notice
Hardness. New England bedrock gives up calcium and magnesium. You see it as scale on the kettle, film on the shower door, spotting on glassware, and soap that will not rinse.
Iron and manganese. Orange or brown staining on fixtures and in the laundry, and a metallic taste. Very common in this region.
A rotten-egg smell. That is hydrogen sulfide, and it is worth saying twice: a water softener does nothing to it. It is a dissolved gas and it passes straight through a softening resin bed. It has to be oxidised out first. If somebody quotes you a softener for a smell problem, get a second opinion.
What you don't notice
The Rhode Island Department of Health recommends private well owners test annually, and specifically flags three things that occur naturally in the region's crystalline bedrock:
- Arsenic — known to exceed drinking water standards in some New England wells.
- Uranium — same geology, same reason.
- Radon — dissolved in groundwater as well as present in air.
None of these has a taste, a smell or a colour. Testing is the only way you find out, which is why the state asks for it rather than leaving it to whether the water looks fine.
The order matters
Well systems are built in sequence, and getting the order wrong is expensive. Oxidise and filter iron and sulfur first, then soften. A softening resin bed fouled with iron is a costly thing to replace, and it is the most common avoidable mistake we see.
This applies on town groundwater too
South County and the whole of Cape Cod are on groundwater rather than reservoir water. It is treated before it reaches you, but it started life in the same aquifer — which is why a test at your own tap tells you more than any regional figure.
Start with the test
We test at your own tap and you watch the result. Then we build what the numbers call for.