How to Test Your Water's pH (At Home and With a Lab Test)

I tell callers there are three ways to test your water's pH, and here is how I rank them. A certified lab test is the most accurate. A digital pH meter from Amazon comes next. The strip kit from the plumbing section at Lowe's or Home Depot is the quick check, and it is pretty accurate. The number matters more than the method: 7 to 8 is where you want it, and below 7 the water is acidic.

What is a good pH for well water?

You want your water between 7 and 8. Seven is neutral, and 7 is the number I want to see at the tap. The EPA's guideline range for drinking water is 6.5 to 8.5. A reading in the upper 6s is inside that range and still acidic enough to corrode copper, most of all on the hot water side.

Of the acidic wells my customers have had lab-tested, four in five came back at 6.0 or above (50 of 64), where plain calcite works in any size tank. Most of the rest were 5.5 to 5.9, and one was below 5.5. The lowest well we have treated was 3.67, with calcite and FloMag (a faster-dissolving magnesium mineral) mixed to that pH. The sizing guide covers what size fits your house, and how to mix FloMag covers the pounds per bag.

How to test pH with a strip

The quick, cheap pH test is an all-in-one home test kit from the plumbing section at Lowe's or Home Depot, about $25, and it checks iron and hardness too. I tell callers the strips are pretty accurate, because we tested them against the professional test kits we used to use. If the store is out of them, Amazon has the same kind of kit.

1. Run the cold water 1 to 2 minutes

   Water that sat in the pipes is not the water coming out of the well.

2. Take the water before any treatment

   With no filter or softener in the house, the kitchen faucet is fine. With treatment, take it from the tap at the pressure tank.

3. Dip the strip for a few seconds

   Fill a clean glass and dip the strip in it, the way the kit's instructions say.

   

4. Match the strip to the color chart

   Once the colors change, hold the strip next to the chart that came with the kit. The closest color is your pH.

5. Text me a photo of the strip

   Take the picture with the strip next to the chart, and I can tell you what you need.

The limit of a strip kit is its range. The Lowe's and Home Depot kits only read down to about 5, so if your strip matches the lowest color on the chart, the real number could be lower. Between two colors, a strip can also leave you guessing; a caller with low pH told me, "I can't quite tell from the pH strips." When the reading lands near 5.5 or 6.0, where the tank size changes, check it with a meter or a lab.

This is my one-minute version on video: strips, the EPA range, meters and a lab.

Strip in hand?

Text me a photo of your strip

Send the strip next to the color chart, or your lab report, and I will tell you what the number means for your house.

Text Aidan443-277-2204 Call800-460-5810Aidan

8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, seven days a week. A real person, not a call center.

How to test pH with a digital meter

A digital pH meter from Amazon gives you a number instead of a color, and if your water is in the 4s or 5s it is the most accurate test you can get short of a lab. Meters are pretty accurate. You just have to make sure the meter is calibrated correctly.

1. Calibrate the meter the way its instructions say before you trust a reading.
2. Take the sample the same way as for a strip: cold water, run 1 to 2 minutes, before any treatment.
3. Rinse the probe, put it in the glass and read the number once it stops changing.

A meter is also the test to keep in a drawer. You can use it again and again, so it is a good way to recheck the water after a neutralizer goes in.

When you need a lab test

A certified lab test is the most accurate pH test, and unlike a strip or a meter it also measures copper and lead. To choose a system I need the pH, the hardness and the iron together; a home kit can give me those, and the lab adds the metals a strip cannot see.

Our certified well water test is $199 for one sample and 53 results, including pH, alkalinity, hardness, iron, copper and lead. Return shipping is prepaid, results take about 10 business days, and I go over the report with you line by line. A local lab runs about $200 to $300. On city water, the city water test is also $199.

About one acidic well in six that my customers have tested has more copper than the EPA allows. Whether acidic water is safe to drink covers what that means. One more thing for new well owners: the test done when you bought the house usually covers bacteria, nitrates and turbidity, not pH.

Testing a neutralizer you already have

If you already have a neutralizer, test the water coming out of the well, not only the water after the tank. That well number is one of the first things I ask for when someone calls about a tank that is not keeping up, because it tells me whether the calcite and FloMag mix is right for the water going in.

After the tank goes in, a strip or a meter at the kitchen faucet tells you whether it is working today. You want 7 to 8 there. If the number drops over the months, check the calcite level. Here is how to add calcite.

How buyers tested their pH

These are verified buyers of our neutralizers, in their own words, with how they tested where they said it.

Frequently asked questions