The importance of water quality as a factor in picking a home for a move is more often than not overlooked. This can prove to be rather inconvenient when it will begin affecting everyday life.

Luckily, increased interest in water quality problems in recent decades has come to the limelight. This is something that deserves attention when moving to a new home, as we use water every day and it’s something hard to change. You can paint walls, and change furniture, but the water source is not so easily updated, if at all.

Why is water quality important when moving?

Either tenants or buyers, both will make use of water from a home, and not just washing but consumption as well. Trust over tap water safety has gone down drastically and this is mainly due to a number of contaminants that consistently infiltrate water sources.

These contaminants usually range from chlorine, iron, lead, and nitrates. More dangerous contaminants could even encompass bacteria and viruses. Some pollutants are more dangerous, while others will most notably affect water taste and smell.

Lead is probably one of the most dangerous contaminants that can infiltrate drinking water. Lead can be responsible for a long list of adverse side effects if ingested, such as poisoning or long-life effects on the brain functionalities.

Hard water is another issue that homes deal with, and while it’s far less dangerous than viruses or lead, it will still be highly inconvenient. Limescale build-up will affect water appliances and make hot tubs and shower windows hard to clean, requiring quite a lot of elbow grease.

What to do about water quality when moving?

Before even moving to a new home you might want to perform a water test. If you are in the process of buying a home, then now is the perfect time to ask for a water test since it’s already in this mitigating phase.

For renters, gauging water quality will probably be a little more difficult than asking for a water test. It will mostly depend on what the landlord is willing to do as well. Luckily there are many field studies that offer some basic information on water quality based on location. Water hardness is the easiest to find information about online and make the best possible informed decisions when moving.

Inspecting the pipes inside the home is another easy way of understanding how water quality will be affected. Older homes have older pipes and this is reflected not only in the condition you find them in but in the material used. Lead pipes tend to pose more issues with lead poisoning if they become damaged. Usually, houses built before 1970 are more likely to have lead pipes, so make sure to get this information from your estate agency.

Well water sources will most definitely need up-to-date testing and suitable filtrations in place before you can even move in. It’s important to know that the city will not take responsibility for well water safety so this is something that will fall under the resident or owner’s responsibilities.

Treating Existing Water Quality Issues

If the location and design of the home are what attracted you more and you leave water quality on the sidelines to deal with later, there are many options that can help. Simple quality issues like taste and smell have a simple solution. Water filter pitchers are well equipped to treat these problems and are the simplest water filter you can get even, on a budget. Easy to use, install and maintain, a water filter pitcher can solve chlorine problems fairly easily.

If you are committed to taking on a whole slew of water problems, even ones from private well water sources then you will need more powerful tools to do so. One of the best water filters that can deal with almost every contaminant thrown at it is a reverse osmosis filter. BOS offers multiple sources and product comparison articles to help potential customers select the best option for the home and its water quality problems.

Well water sources will need a combination of a reverse osmosis filtration system with a whole house filtering device. This is possibly the hardest source to deal with, and most homes have a lot of maintenance with wells.

Taking Care of Water Quality Issues

Moving homes is always a difficult time, so having to take care of water quality issues only piles on to that list of responsibilities. Make sure to get all the necessary information from real estate agencies and online wherever possible so that there will be no surprises.

City water sources will undoubtedly be easier to deal with as there is quite a plethora of water filtering devices to choose from. But even so, many other harder problems can still occur with city water sources and it can be beneficial to be prepared.