Well Water Treatment for New Homeowners: A Step-by-Step Guide
Number copied. Text it from your phone: 443-277-2204.
If you just moved into a house on a well and you've never had one, the first thing to do is get your water tested by a certified lab. The test the settlement company ran before closing checked bacteria, nitrates and turbidity (cloudiness) to make sure the water was drinkable. It says nothing about low pH, iron, hard water or a sulfur smell, and those are what decide what you need, if anything. Don't buy equipment until that test is back.
On a private well, nobody tests or treats the water for you. Below is the order I walk new owners through on the phone, from the first day in the house to the first year.
Quick Answer
On a well, the water is yours to test and treat. Test first, fix everything the test finds at the same time, and test again every year.
- The water is your responsibility now. No utility checks a private well. See what to do first on a well.
- Know how the system runs. A pump in the well fills a pressure tank in the house, and any treatment goes after that tank. See how your well water reaches the faucet.
- Test first. The test done for the sale can't tell you what equipment you need. See what the water test at closing misses.
- Fix only what the test finds. I tell people to budget about $2,500 to $3,500, depending on what the test finds, and I recommend a licensed plumber to put it in. See what your test results point to and how much to budget.
- Test again every year. Step 7 has the EPA's yearly list.
What's in This Guide
What to do first on a well
The EPA puts it plainly: private well owners are responsible for delivering safe drinking water to their households, and private wells are not regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act or by most states. Here is the order, the same one I go through in this video.
-
Look for signs of water trouble
Walk through the house the first day. Reddish-brown stains in the toilet mean iron. Blue-green stains in the tub or shower you use most mean acidic water is dissolving the copper pipes. White buildup on the faucets and shower heads that is hard to clean off is hard water. A rotten egg smell is sulfur. A metallic taste can be iron, or copper from those pipes. Write down what you see; the pictures are in what your test results point to.
-
Find the tank that holds your water pressure
Outside, find the well cap, the capped pipe coming up out of the ground. Inside, in the basement, crawl space or pump house, find the pressure tank, the one with a pressure gauge and a switch on the pipe beside it. Any tank or filter plumbed after that pressure tank is treatment equipment the last owner put in. How your well water reaches the faucet explains how the parts connect.
The blue tank on the left is a pressure tank. The tall black tanks treat the water. The short one holds salt for a softener. -
Get a full lab test
You want pH, hardness, iron, manganese, bacteria and nitrates, from a certified lab, not a pool-store strip. Your local health department may offer private well testing for free; ask what it covers. Our well water test is $199: you fill the bottles at your kitchen tap, ship them to an accredited lab with the pre-paid label, and get results for 53 contaminants, usually 2 to 4 weeks from order. The kit does not measure hydrogen sulfide, so if the water smells like rotten eggs, tell me.
-
Find out what the old equipment does
If there are tanks in the basement and nobody can tell you what they treat, test the water before the equipment and after it. The before-and-after numbers tell you what you have; the table in equipment the last owner left behind reads them.
-
Send me your test results
When the report comes back, text me a photo of it. I'll look at the numbers and tell you what you need, what size, and in what order, or that you don't need anything yet.
-
Treat every problem at the same time
People ask me what they should treat first. Treat them all at the same time: if you fix the low pH and leave the iron, you still have iron in the water. I recommend a licensed plumber to put it in, in the order in what order the treatment tanks go in.
-
Test again every year
The EPA says to test a private well every year for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids and pH, and right away after a flood, after any repair to the well, or when the water's taste, color or smell changes. Keep the ground sloped so rain runs away from the well cap. The filters and salt have their own schedule; the maintenance schedule for each tank covers it.
How your well water reaches the faucet
A pump, usually down in the well, pushes water up to a pressure tank in the house. A switch on the tank's pipe turns the pump on when the pressure drops to its low setting and off at its high one, for example 40 and 60 psi. The tank holds water under pressure, so the pump doesn't start every time you open a faucet. Everything that treats the water goes after the pressure tank and before the rest of the house.
If the pressure itself is the problem, the pressure tank guide covers sizes and settings.
What the water test at closing misses
The water test done for the sale only checks that the water is drinkable. It doesn't tell you what equipment you need. When you buy a house on a well, the settlement company asks for a use and occupancy test for bacteria, nitrates and turbidity. If it passed, you can drink the water.
A buyer in Texas told me the only result he got from his inspection was a note that said "high iron": "It doesn't give me a pH or any of that kind of thing." You can't size an iron filter, or know whether you need one, from that.
| Test at closing | Full lab test | |
|---|---|---|
| Who orders it | The settlement or real estate company | You |
| What it checks | Bacteria, nitrates and cloudiness (turbidity) | pH, hardness, iron, manganese, bacteria and nitrates, plus metals like lead on ours |
| What it answers | Is the water drinkable today? | What do I need to fix, and what size? |
What your test results point to
Of the wells my customers have had lab-tested, about 2 in 3 came back with at least one thing over the line, and hard water was the most common. These are my customers' wells, not a sample of every well. Not every report tested everything, so the totals differ. When your report comes back, find your numbers in this table.
| What you see | Problem | The number on the report | How many of my customers' tests showed it | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Hard water: white buildup on faucets and shower heads | Hardness over 7 grains per gallon (120 ppm) | 179 of 400 tests | A water softener |
| Bacteria: nothing you can see or taste | Total coliform bacteria: present | 147 of 362 tests | A UV light, installed after the other tanks | |
 |
Acidic water: blue-green stains in the tub or shower | pH below 7.0 | 72 of 411 tests | An acid neutralizer, which raises the pH |
 |
Iron: reddish-brown stains in the toilet | Iron over 0.3 ppm | 64 of 411 tests | An iron filter |
| Sulfur: a rotten egg smell | Our lab test doesn't measure it. The smell tells you. | Not measured | A sulfur filter |
For every line on the report, not just these five, see how to read well water test results. If the question is whether the water is safe to drink today, is well water safe to drink goes through that.
Send me your water test results
Text me a photo of the report.
8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, seven days a week. A real person, not a call center.Equipment the last owner left behind
Before you keep or replace old equipment, test the water going into it and coming out of it. The two results tell you what the equipment treats and whether it still works.
| What the two tests show | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Before: acidic and hard. After: neutral and soft. | Likely a working acid neutralizer and water softener | Keep them, and ask me how to service them |
| Before and after look about the same | The equipment isn't treating the water | Ask the previous owner how old it is and when it was last serviced; if it's 20 years old and hasn't been serviced, you may want to replace it |
Working equipment still needs its upkeep. A caller who had just moved in found an acid neutralizer in the basement and didn't know how to refill it: "I have everything here from the previous owner, but I just need, you know, how to do it." How to add calcite to an acid neutralizer walks through it.
What order the treatment tanks go in
Every treatment tank goes after the pressure tank, in this order.
- Pressure tank. Already in the house.
- Sediment filter. A cartridge filter that catches sand and grit before the other tanks.
- Acid neutralizer, iron filter, or both, if your test calls for them. When you have low pH and iron together, which one goes first depends on how low the pH is, and I set that order from your test.
- Water softener, after both, if the water is hard.
- UV light, last. The iron has to be out of the water before it reaches the UV light. A carbon filter, if you want one, goes after the softener and before the UV.
The order does get mixed up. One verified buyer wrote in 2020 that his plumber "actually mixed up the order and put the acid neutralizer where the softener was supposed to go and vice verse." Your plumber can call me at 800-460-5810 with any question about where a tank goes. The long version, with the reasons for each position, is in the correct order for well water equipment.
How much to budget for treatment
I tell people to budget about $2,500 to $3,500, depending on what the test finds; it may only cost $1,000 to treat one thing. One of the biggest mistakes I see is calling one company, going with that company, and spending $10,000 or more on a system that's worth maybe $2,000. Get the test, find out what's wrong, and compare prices before you sign anything. What each tank costs has the numbers for each piece.
Who installs the equipment
We sell online and ship anywhere in the country; we don't install. I recommend a licensed plumber, and I support your plumber by phone at 800-460-5810. A buyer in Minnesota put it this way: "So if I buy this product, I have to find my own installer, so to speak." Yes, and any plumber can install it; for a standard install, figure 2 to 3 hours of the plumber's time at the most.
Two verified buyers of our acid neutralizers wrote about their installs. In 2024: "Our plumber installed it in ~3 hours." In 2025: "My plumber had only two questions for Mid Atlantic Water. Installation went smoothly."
What ships: each tank ships empty, with its media in separate bags that the plumber loads at install. Drain tubing is not included. A softener or any backwashing tank needs a 1/2 inch line to a floor drain, utility sink or standpipe, from any hardware store.
Frequently asked questions
Is buying a house with well water a bad idea?
No. The problems wells have are all easy to fix once you know the numbers. Get the full test, and budget for what it finds. If you haven't closed yet, buying a house with well water covers what to check before you do.
Can you drink water straight from a well?
Only a test tells you. If the house passed its test at closing, the water was drinkable on the day it was sampled; what the water test at closing misses explains what that test leaves out. Any time I've lived on a well, bacteria or not, I've put in a UV light.
How can I test my well water at home?
Hardware-store test strips give you a rough pH, but they aren't accurate enough to size equipment. For that you collect the sample at home and send it to a certified lab; our well water test comes with the bottles and a pre-paid return label.
Aidan Walsh
Co-owner & Residential Water Treatment Specialist, Mid Atlantic WaterAidan Walsh has spent 32 years in residential water treatment, the first stretch of it installing and servicing well systems before Mid Atlantic Water became an online supplier. Mid Atlantic Water is a family company; every recommendation on this site is based on what actually failed in the field and what fixed it. If you have a question this page did not answer, call 800-460-5810 or text him at 443-277-2204.
Aidan answers calls and texts 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, every day.Number copied. Text it from your phone: 443-277-2204.