Your drinking water may be contaminated by pollutants that enter the water through various means. Some of the materials may simply make the water unpalatable, while others can cause lifelong health complications.

It 's therefore important to have your drinking water tested to ensure it's quality and safety. Once testing is performed, plumbing contractors must be engaged to ameliorate any condition that may be present. 

Here are a few examples of possible contaminants, the sources, and methods of eradicating them from your water supply.

Lead

Exposure to lead can lead to serious physical, neurological, and psychological effects for which there is no cure. Lead can enter your water supply through older lead service pipes that bring water into your home.

Lead can also leach into your drinking water from lead-based solder used in older copper pipe connections. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1986 mandated the use of lead-free solder in all plumbing work performed after the date of the law's inception.

However, older homes will copper piping may still have lead-based solder, which must be removed and replaced with new copper or an alternate material.

Minerals

Calcium and magnesium are the primary offenders in creating mineral deposits in your plumbing system. These deposits can lead to scaling, which is a hardened accumulation of minerals that won't dissolve in water.

Scaling can reduce water pressure by reducing the diameter of supply pipes and cause malfunctions in plumbing fixtures as it accumulates. 

Installation of a water softening system can remove calcium and magnesium from your water supply by collecting the water in a storage tank as it enters your home. The tank is then infused with heavily salted water from a second tank. 

The sodium ions in the salt overwhelm the calcium and magnesium ions, which are flushed away as the water is drained from the tank. 

Corrosion

Corrosion is formed through the gradual oxidation of steel pipes and fittings over years of exposure to water. While corrosion is not considered a health hazard, it can cause drinking water to have an unpleasant taste and smell.

It can also stain plumbing fixtures and components such as sinks, toilets, and bathtubs, as well as clog appliances and fixtures such as coffee makers, humidifiers, and toilet fill valves.

The only solutions to this problem are to install water filters at faucets, shower heads, and other fixtures, or to replace the aging steel pipe with an alternative type of supply pipe.

Biological Agents

These are bacterial contaminants that may exist in the water supplies of specific areas of the country. Homeowners can combat this issue by having an ultraviolet filtering system installed. The water is exposed to a specific bandwidth of ultraviolet light as it enters the home. Bacterial agents that are vulnerable to that bandwidth are destroyed.

The safety and purity of drinking and cleaning water is often assumed in modern industrialized countries such as the United States, However, that assumption is not always valid, so you should get your water tested to ensure that the water entering your home is safe for daily use.

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