Drinking Water Test Kit Results Guide

What this kit checks

The Drinking Water Test Kit reads eight measures in one dip: the balance of your water and the things you most want to rule out. Each one has its own detailed guide:

• pH — how acidic or alkaline your water is
• Total alkalinity — the buffer that keeps pH steady
• Hardness — the limescale measure
• Free chlorine — active disinfectant residual
• Total chlorine — overall chlorine, used and unused
• Nitrate — mainly from farming run-off
• Nitrite — a contamination indicator
• Lead — the old-pipework check

Reading your strip

Dip a strip for two seconds, hold it level and wait 30 seconds, then match each pad against the colour chart on your instructions card, top to bottom. Read promptly — colours keep developing if you leave the strip sitting.

What to do next

• Most readings, most of the time, will sit comfortably in range — that’s a result worth having.
• Anything outside its range: open that measure’s guide above, re-test to confirm, and follow the steps there.
• Keep a note of your results — the pattern over months tells you more than any single test.