I was sent this Watersafe Drinking Water Test Kit for review. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I truly needed it but I figured it couldn’t hurt to test my water as I’ve never done this where we live and, of course, it’s better to KNOW my water is good rather than to ASSUME it is.
Why have a WaterSafe Drinking Water Test Kit?
Well, according to the Amazon description:
- Get professional lab results in your own home
- Find out if you have hard water and learn your water’s pH balance
- Detect dangerous amounts of chlorine and test for presence of bacteria
- Reveal the presence of deadly toxins (from pesticides or fertilizers)\
- Compare your results with EPA recommended levels
Though I was hoping for this to somehow be a great idea for SHTF or prepping in general, I can’t really see it as being useful for that. Just being healthier and ensuring your water is in good condition, however, it’s useful for that purpose.
Here’s what came inside the kit:
The first test to do is the bacteria test. Slowly fill the small vial with water to 1/2″ from the top (the 5 mil line) ensuring you don’t spill the bit of powder inside. When finished, replace the cap and shake vigorously for 20 seconds. It will turn purple immediately. Let sit for 48 hours and check. If it’s still purple everything is good; if it turned yellow things are BAD!
Next is the lead and pesticide test. Remove contents from package. Fill the small vial with two full droppers of water with the provided pipette. Place the two test strips with arrows pointing DOWN into the vial. Wait ten minutes:
Remove test strips, place the arrows pointing to the LEFT and ensure that the LEFT line #1 is darker than the RIGHT line #2, which ours is definitely that way. If it’s not then you may have a problem:
The final test is the nitrate / nitrite test and the pH / hardness / chlorine tests. Take a water sample into a clean glass and dip each test strip into the water per the recommended time. You dip the nitrate / nitrite test strip in for two seconds and wait one minute before comparing whereas the pH / hardness / chlorine strip you dip and remove immediately and hold horizontally for 15 seconds before comparing. Overall, our tests were good except that our water is hard:
I know it’s hard to compare from the above photo but, trust me, we’re in good shape except for the water hardness.
Overall, the WaterSafe Drinking Water Test Kit was easy to use and the instructions were easily followed and understood. That said, you might wonder how this test kit differs from a generic pool or spa kit…
Well, for starters, this kit is for one-time use only as opposed to pool/spa test kits which often have dozens upon dozens of test strips.
More importantly, however, is that the generic pool/spa kits only test for pH, chlorine, and hardness as well as other stuff that’s important to pool/spa health, such as alkalinity, bromine, and more.
Beyond that, this Watersafe Test Kit tests for bacteria, lead, pesticides, as well as nitrates and nitrites (whatever those are)… all stuff that would be bad to ingest.
Anyway, it REALLY would have been nice if the watersafe drinking water test kit had more than one test included so that I could redo it periodically in the future. That would have made this kit actually useful as a long-term prep item. Regardless, it’s still a good test to do at least once to ensure your water is what you expect.
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