Tap Water Quality | US drinking water quality data by zip code.

If you want to determine the quality of your water, you should test it. Sure, the water data available on MyTapWater.org’s website will be very helpful, but it’s just part of the picture. A water testing kit will give you the rest of it. Why Testing Matters This website has public water data, available at…Read More

Ideally, water is supposed to be a tasteless, odorless liquid. But what if your water tastes sweet? Should you feel concerned? Yes and no. It depends on the cause of the sweet taste. Why Is My Tap Water Sweet? This is a popular question, so don’t worry because you are not alone in asking it!…Read More

There are a number of reasons why your drinking water might taste salty. Some of these reasons are concerning, some of are less so, but they are all worth investigating. What Minerals Cause Salty Tap Water? There are few reasons your drinking water might taste salty, but a common ones are: chloride (primarily sodium chloride,…Read More

Water is the elixir of life, but there are times when water just doesn’t taste right. A metallic flavor to water is an unpleasant, but fixable problem that is worth investigating if it’s happening to your drinking water. Metal Taste In Drinking Water There are a number of reasons why your water can taste metallic,…Read More

If you are diagnosing water problems in your home, then one of the first things you might consider is you water hardness. While hardness isn’t necessarily something that you’d find in your CCR water quality report or normal water quality data, it’s an important reference point. One of the best shortcuts for determining if you…Read More

We all know how important it is to drink sufficient amounts of water. However, it’s easy to forget that almost as important as the drinking of water is that the liquid is clean, and that its’ the right kind of water. That’s right, there are different kinds of water. Two type of water that people…Read More

There are many substances that show up in our tap water that are regulated by the government, but also many that are not. Laws cover substances that have mandatory regulations (lead, copper, etc.) but other material that we don’t want in our water is not deemed as unsafe and thus isn’t as tightly regulated (sometimes…Read More

In order to make sure that you are drinking pure water, you should strongly consider a suitable water filtration system. A good water filter will prevent contamination in your water to getting to you or your family but greatly 98%+) reducing a larger number of things that shouldn’t be in your water, like lead or mercury.…Read More

Reverse osmosis is a water filtration system that works using pressure. With the force of this pressure, water is conducted through a semi-permeable membrane, from an unfiltered side (in this case your tap water) to a filtered side. In this way, pure water (relatively speaking) is separated from any pollutant molecules that are too large…Read More

We require clean water for a host of activities — to bathe, to drink, to clean our homes and more. The quality of water we use can be determined in any number of ways, but the best is testing. Testing can be done at the public water facility level, but it can (and should) also…Read More

Distillation is a method of purifying water. To understand whether distilled water is safe or good to drink, we must know how it is produced and from where the water originated. Distilled water is any water that has been purified by distillation. For distillation, we can use different processes, but all of them consist of…Read More

Pure water is colorless, odorless and tasteless, but pure water is rarely found in nature. In fact pure water is difficult enough to find anyway (depending on your definition of purity that is). Contaminants — that is, impurities — are very common in water. Some of them are unhealthy while some of them, like minerals,…Read More

NSF International is an independent global organization that develops standards, analyzes and certifies products for the water, food, health, sciences, and consumer product industries, generally with the goal of to minimizing adverse health effects and protect the environment. Founded in 1944, its mission is to protect and improve human health the world over. As an independent…Read More

Wondering if your tap water is safe to drink? It’s an important question, no matter where you live, but it’s one that is not always easy to answer. Water collects contaminants in stages and it’s filtered in stages as well. So, logically, the first step to clean water is a clean source — the reservoir,…Read More

If you are looking to improve the taste of your tap water, there are a number of easy solutions available to you. Almost all of these involve filtering the water, in order to remove whatever is making it taste bad. The good news is that this sort of filtering is simple, affordable, has almost no…Read More

Choosing a water filter isn’t as simple as you might think. That’s because there is a surprising amount of chemistry and physics (plus hydrology and biology) that goes into these devices. Most of the tough stuff can be left up to the engineers and PhDs who are designing and defining water filters, but choosing a…Read More

A rotten egg smell coming from drinking water is a popular problem. The good news is that it’s often not a health issue, but it can still be off-putting, especially if you aren’t used to it. This article will walk through the cause of the smell, the water’s taste, and what can be done to…Read More

A common concern among people shopping for water filters is whether there is lead in the water they are drinking. Particularly after the scandal in Flint, Michigan, there is heightened scrutiny around drinking water, and rightfully so. Lead is a toxic metal that occurs naturally in the earth and has been used most notable in…Read More

Much has been made lately of the health benefits of alkaline water. But what is it, and is it really beneficial? Like other substances, water’s acidity or alkalinity is measured by its pH level. pH is a number that measures acidity or alkalinity on a scale of 1 to 14, with 1 being the most…Read More

“Tap water” is any water that comes out of a tap, a valve that controls the release of a liquid or gas. A water tap can be a faucet, spigot, or hydrant and expels water used not just for drinking, but also for washing, cooking, and toilet-flushing. It is distinct from other types of fresh…Read More

Are you getting cloudy, milky-looking water coming out of your tap? This is a common problem. Let’s troubleshoot it. There could be a number of things happening with your water, but with some patience it should be easy enough to figure out what’s happening, or at least rule out some things before calling in outside…Read More

This is a list of the regulated and unregulated contaminants in United States drinking water, as per the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The top table is a list of high priority pollutants, while the bottom is unregulated contaminants, as defined by the EPA’s Fourth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR4) list. If you are concerned about…Read More

If you are learning about your drinking water, you might have read about the term “TDS.” But what is TDS and what you do with this information? What Is TDS In Water Testing? TDS as it regards to water is an acronym for “total dissolved solids.” This refers to the salts, contaminants, small organic molecules (etc.) that are dissolved in…Read More