- Hi, I'm Parris, and the past year,
the news has been filled with
the Flint drinking water disaster.
So many people drinking water
with a lot of lead in it and they had no idea.
Makes people nervous,
and so I've wondered here in Austin,
we supposedly have fairly good water,
exactly what's in the water that comes to the house,
because there's a difference here,
I think this happened in Flint as well.
There's the water that comes into the system
from the lake or from the well,
and there's measurements done on that,
but when it gets to your house,
there are things that can happen
between the processing plant and your house,
and only by testing the water in your house
can you really know how safe that water is.
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♫ Epic review guys ♫
After researching water testing kits
for how much information you get,
versus how much you have to pay for that,
this First Alert Water Testing Kit
seemed like a good compromise.
If your water passes these tests,
it seems like you can be reasonably comfortable
that you have good quality water in your home,
and it goes for about $15.
If you can't find this one locally,
I'll put a link to it down below this video.
I ordered this First Alert kit online
because I couldn't find it in our local stores.
I found free water testing kits there
that I'll talk about in a little bit
and tell you the reason why I didn't do those.
This tests for a number of things you should
be concerned about, and it does include lead.
Now in the news, where they've been talking about
the water in Flint,
they talk about parts per billion of lead,
what might be safe,
what the EPA says,
what damage occurs at which levels,
and this is not going to give you a number.
It simply gives you an indicator as to
whether your water exceeds a safe limit or not.
Included in this test kit,
you can find out about bacteria in your water,
lead, pesticides, nitrates, chlorine,
the hardness of the water, and the pH.
Now let me talk about the hardness of the water
and those free kits that I saw
being handed out at Home Depot and Lowe's.
A whole water examination with numbers and everything,
or basically a laboratory analysis of your water for free.
Well that's nice of them.
Well it's not the stores that are conducting those tests.
Researching that online,
I found out that it is water softener companies
primarily who do that.
They get all your information because of course
for you to receive the results of the water analysis
you need to give them your name, your address,
phone number, e-mail, the whole thing,
so they now have your information
and you will get the results like they say,
however you'll likely get a sales person
calling you up to tell you about that water hardness
and how bad that can be for you and for your pipes
and things in your house,
and how a whole house water softening system
might be just what you need.
So the sales pitch was too high a price for me,
even for a laboratory analysis
where they give me the parts per billion numbers.
I went with the $15 do it yourself kit.
Instructions are included,
that I have read through.
They are pretty easy to follow.
Not all the results are immediate.
The bacteria test takes 48 hours
because you have to give time for the bacteria to grow.
You have strips for
pH, hardness and chlorine, as well as nitrates.
A sealed packet kit for pesticides and lead.
And then the little vial,
I believe this is the one that you use
for the bacteria test.
Now I have read elsewhere,
while investigating the water testing kits,
that the best time to get the sample of water to test
is first thing in the morning
before the pipes have been flushed out.
It's basically the water that's been
sitting in the pipes overnight,
so if it's going to absorb something from the pipes,
something growing in there, whatever the situation is,
you're most likely to find it if you use water
that comes through the pipes first thing in the morning.
They don't mention that in the instructions for this kit.
That's how I'm going to do it,
so I'll be up early tomorrow morning
to get my sample of water.
I suppose I may as well drink this glass of water.
At least our tap water is clear,
and I have yet to see any flames come out
when opening up the faucet.
Okay, I'm ready to do this water testing.
I have my first water of the morning,
cup of water to do the tests from.
I don't want to cross contaminate
so I'll pour them in the different containers.
I'm going to do them in order
that they are in the instruction book.
Very first one is the bacteria test,
which is this vial that has a powder.
Fill it water to the five mililiter line,
shake vigorously for 20 seconds,
and then leave it somewhere for 48 hours
and depending if it turns purple or yellow,
you may have dangerous bacteria growing in your water.
That result I will post
on our Instagram and Twitter account.
We're on both of those @EpicReviewGuys.
Had a little problem with spilling the water.
Yes, I do know how to pour water.
Managed to get my five mililiters in there.
This is the vigorous shaking portion.
I'm guessing the powder is
something that a particular,
some shift or strains of bacteria will eat,
and, or maybe all bacteria eat it,
but they excrete different color based on their metabolism,
I'm not sure.
Purple or yellow in 48 hours.
Next up is the lead pesticide test kit.
This is sort of the big one
I've been wanting to find out
how we're doing on lead.
This will test for lead and two of the more common,
and I guess dangerous pesticides.
Here's a close up of the test strips.
The yellow one is for lead, the blue one is for pesticides.
You drop them in the vial.
Water fills up inside of these strips that I'm holding.
There are two lines across
and depending on whether one or both of them darken,
you're going to have a baby!
And or you have lead and pesticides in your water.
First step is to take two dropper fulls of water
and put into this vial.
Next is swirl the water in the vial.
Doesn't seem like very much water in there.
Maybe it gets wicked up into the test strips.
Place on a flat surface.
Take the test strips with the arrows pointing down,
and drop them in.
Wait 10 minutes.
Do not disturb the strips or the vial during this testing.
Blue lines will appear on the strips.
After 10 minutes, take them out and read them.
Okay,
better check my timer on this.
Here we go.
Arrows pointing down, right, yep.
Try not to disturb it.
10 minutes.
Okay, it's been 10 minutes.
I've got my pregnancy test result reading glasses on.
Haven't needed these in a while.
And what am I looking for here?
Whether the blue line is closer to the one or the two.
If it's closer to the one it's negative.
Closer to the two it's positive.
I've got two dark lines showing.
I guess the other line can be there faintly,
which is what I'm seeing.
And both of them are closer to the one.
So that means they both show up negative.
Our water doesn't exceed the federal limit
for the safe amount of lead in the water
nor do we seem to have those pesticides.
I'll show you this.
Hoping you can see the blue lines on both strips.
To the left is good, to the right by my fingers is bad.
And the darker line is the one to the left,
so it looks like we're okay.
I was just thinking that the last time
I needed to read a pregnancy result stick,
I didn't need glasses to read it.
Next up is nitrates.
This one you get to match the colors, kind of cool.
Now, since this is our original sample of water
and you have to dip this pad in,
I'm going to pour water into a different container.
Two little pads on the end of this little swabby thing.
Put it in the water for two seconds and remove.
After one minute, match the color to the chart below.
Thousand one, thousand two.
We'll know in a minute.
Okay, here's the test strip after a minute.
And here's the gauge to go by.
The one closest to my finger is the nitrite.
It shows possibly 0.15, 0.3.
Doesn't surprise me.
There's been a great deal of flooding here.
We had rain for weeks on end
and our water source is a lake
that's currently still above flood stage.
So, that there's a little something of that nature
in there doesn't surprise me too much.
The nitrates, which is the top one,
actually, and that's the little pad that's here
on the very end of the stick,
that looks like zero to me.
Next up is hardness, pH and chlorine.
It's another strip, all three are in one.
The three little pads, just dip them in the water,
take them out right away and then compare them to the chart.
So I'm going to use my original source of water
since this is the last test.
Just dip them in, pull them out.
Oh, they're getting so colorful.
Now the one closest to the end is the pH.
That's looking,
well I better hold it level for 15 seconds,
maybe it'll change color.
I'm thinking my hardness is medium,
medium to high.
My chlorine is low,
2.0.
But my pH is really,
I was expecting it more to be in the middle.
I'm pretty sure it's a little bit on the high end.
Let me show you.
Here's the test strip,
here's what you measure it with.
The first one is pH, you can see that.
It actually ended up kind of high.
Next is the hardness,
I think we're in the middle with that.
And then chlorine at the bottom.
So those are my test results on the drinking water
right out of the faucet in my kitchen.
The bacteria, still have to wait 48 hours.
They're busy growing over there, possibly.
I'll update again that on Twitter and Instagram.
When you think about the multiple points of contact
you have with the water from your local water system
or your local well,
it's not only the water that you drink.
You also brush your teeth with it,
you wash your face, you get in the shower,
and you cover your body or take a bath and soak in it.
And there are things in the water
that can absorb in through your skin.
So it's kind of interesting to find this information out.
It's not very hard, it's not very expensive.
$15 for this kit, I have a link to it down below this video.
Once a year, in your bill from your water utility
you'll likely receive a report
that lists in great detail all the things
they tested the water for at the water treatment plant.
Between the water treatment plant and your house,
stuff can happen,
as we learned from what happened in Flint, Michigan.
So this is an easy way to find out if something did.
I'll be back soon with another review.
You can keep checking back for that,
or you can click that subscribe button down below.
You'll get notified when our videos go up.
See you on the next review.
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