Well Water in New Hampshire: What to Test For

If you are on a private well, nobody tests your water but you. There is no utility doing it, no annual report arriving in the mail. A great many people in this state have never had a test done, or had one at purchase years ago and never again.

We do a fair amount of water treatment work, and the first thing we ask for is a current test. Selling somebody equipment without knowing what is in the water is guesswork, and treatment aimed at the wrong problem is money spent for nothing.

Start with the test

Use a certified laboratory. The state environmental services department maintains information on private wells and on accredited labs, and they publish recommended testing packages for New Hampshire specifically. Start there rather than with a general purpose kit.

The DIY strips are fine for a rough sense of hardness. They are not adequate for anything involving health.

Test at purchase, then on a regular cycle. Common guidance is bacteria annually and a broader panel every few years, plus a retest any time the water changes in taste, smell, or appearance, or after work is done on the well.

What actually turns up here

Arsenic. This is the important one in New Hampshire and the reason to take testing seriously. It occurs naturally in our bedrock, it is more common in parts of this state than in most of the country, and it has no taste, smell, or color. The only way to know is to test. Long term exposure is a genuine health concern.

If it comes back elevated, treatment is well established and effective. Which treatment depends on the form and concentration, which is why you test first.

Radon in water. Also from our bedrock. Distinct from radon in air, though water can contribute to the air level when it is agitated in showers and laundry. Test for both.

Uranium. Same geology story. Shows up in some areas.

Hardness. Calcium and magnesium. Not a health issue at all, purely a nuisance and an equipment issue. Very common here. Causes scale in the water heater, spots on glassware, soap that will not lather, and shortened life on anything that heats water.

Iron and manganese. Rust colored or black staining on fixtures and laundry, metallic taste. Extremely common in this area. Manganese has drinking water guidance worth paying attention to, particularly for infants.

Sediment. Sand and silt, especially in shallow wells or after work on the well. Abrasive, and it clogs fixtures and valves.

Bacteria. Coliform and E. coli. This is a yes or no answer and a positive needs immediate attention: disinfection, then finding out how it got in. Often a well cap, a casing problem, or surface water intrusion.

pH. Our groundwater trends acidic. Low pH does not hurt you directly but it eats copper plumbing, which shows up as blue green staining and eventually as pinhole leaks. If you have blue staining in a sink, get the pH checked.

Sulfur. The rotten egg smell. Sometimes the water, sometimes a reaction in the water heater. Worth distinguishing before you treat, because those are different fixes.

Matching treatment to the result

This is the whole point of testing first.

• Hardness is a softener.
• Sediment is filtration, sized to the particle.
• Iron and manganese depend on form and concentration. Sometimes a softener handles low levels, often it needs a dedicated oxidizing filter.
• Low pH is a neutralizer, typically a calcite tank.
• Arsenic depends on which form is present, and the right media differs. This is one where a specialist matters.
• Bacteria is disinfection plus finding the entry point. Sometimes UV as ongoing protection.
• Radon is aeration or activated carbon depending on the level.

Order of operations matters. Treatment components go in a specific sequence, and getting it wrong makes the whole train underperform. A neutralizer ahead of a softener, sediment removal ahead of anything with media in it, and so on. This is where a lot of piecemeal installations go wrong: somebody added a softener, then later added an iron filter, and now they are in the wrong order and neither works properly.

Sizing matters. A softener sized on a guess either regenerates constantly, wasting salt and water, or lets hard water through during peak demand.

What we do

Ask for your test. If you do not have one, we will tell you how to get one before we quote anything. Then we size and sequence a system for what is actually in your water, and we explain what each piece does and what maintenance it needs.

If your test comes back clean except for moderate hardness, we will tell you that a softener is all you need and leave it there. We are not interested in selling you a five stage system for a one stage problem.