Annually at minimum. If you are on a private well, once a year is the floor rather than the target, and certain events should trigger a test regardless of when the last one happened.

Well Water: Annual Is Mandatory

On a private well, nothing is treated before it reaches your house. No utility is monitoring for bacteria, adjusting pH, or removing contaminants. That responsibility is entirely yours.

An annual test should cover coliform bacteria, nitrates, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, and iron. Bacteria and nitrates are the health-relevant items; the rest determine what treatment equipment you need.

Well supplies also vary enormously between properties, sometimes between adjacent homes drawing from different depths. Your neighbor’s water report tells you nothing reliable about yours.

Municipal Water: Still Worth Testing

If you are on a municipal supply, your utility tests continuously and publishes an annual water quality report. That report is genuinely useful and worth reading.

But it describes water leaving the treatment plant, not water arriving at your tap. Between those two points it travels through distribution mains of varying age and then through your own plumbing.

Lead and copper, in particular, are picked up in the home rather than at the plant — from older service lines, from solder in pre-1986 plumbing, or from brass fixtures. Aging galvanized pipe contributes iron and sediment the utility never sent you.

An annual test at your own tap is what closes that gap.

Events That Should Trigger a Test

Regardless of schedule, test when any of the following happens:

  • You buy the house. Test before or immediately after closing. You have no reliable history otherwise.
  • Water main work in the neighborhood. Repairs and replacements stir up sediment and can introduce contamination.
  • Flooding. Any flooding near a wellhead is a contamination event. Test before drinking.
  • A visible or sensory change. New taste, smell, color, or cloudiness.
  • Unexplained illness in the household. Particularly recurring gastrointestinal symptoms.
  • Pregnancy or a new infant. Nitrates specifically, which are dangerous to infants at levels adults tolerate.
  • New neighboring land use. Agricultural operations, septic installations, or drilling nearby.

What Testing Reveals Beyond Safety

Most of what a test tells you is not about safety at all — it is about what your water is doing to your house.

Hardness determines whether you need a water softener, and the specific number sizes the equipment. Iron explains orange staining. Low pH explains blue-green staining and pinhole leaks in copper, which is a plumbing problem before it is a water problem. Sediment explains fixture wear and clogged aerators.

Homeowners frequently discover the cause of a nagging problem — a water heater that keeps failing early, fixtures that scale constantly — in a test result.

Testing Before Buying Equipment

The most expensive mistake in water treatment is buying equipment for the wrong problem.

Softeners do not remove chlorine taste. Carbon filters do not reduce hardness. Neither addresses iron beyond a threshold. A water quality test tells you which system actually solves your complaint, and it is far cheaper than an unnecessary installation.

How We Test

We test on site so you get results and an explanation in the same visit, rather than waiting on a lab. For well water and for anything requiring certified results — real estate transactions, bacteria confirmation — we arrange laboratory analysis.

Where treatment is warranted, we present options at more than one price point, including a whole house water filter for aesthetic and sediment issues or a reverse osmosis system for drinking water specifically.

Annual testing can be folded into a plumbing inspection or covered under our Care Club maintenance plan.

We serve Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Boerne, Comfort, Mason, and the surrounding Hill Country. Contact 72 Degrees or call (830) 468-5316.