Northwest Arkansas water problems, explained honestly
Start with the symptom. Each page below covers what causes it, whether you can confirm it yourself or need a test, and which treatment technologies are actually used for it — including the cases where the right answer is to do nothing.
Taste, smell and appearance
What you notice at the tap, in the shower, or in a glass of water.
Chlorine taste and smell
If your tap water tastes or smells like a swimming pool, you are noticing the disinfectant that makes it safe to drink. Public water systems are required to carry a disin…
Read moreSulfur / rotten-egg smell
A rotten-egg smell is hydrogen sulfide gas. It is one of the most unpleasant water problems there is, and also one of the most satisfying to solve, because the fix is usu…
Read moreSediment and cloudy water
Cloudy water has one of two explanations, and there is a five-second test that tells you which. Get that right and you have saved yourself both worry and money, because o…
Read moreWell-water odor
A private well has no utility monitoring it, no annual report, and no one to call when the water starts to smell. What it does have is you — and your nose is a bett…
Read moreMetallic-tasting water
A metallic taste is your palate detecting dissolved metal, and there are only a handful of realistic candidates. Two of them come from the ground, and two of them come fr…
Read moreTotal dissolved solids (TDS)
Total dissolved solids is the combined weight of everything dissolved in your water: calcium, magnesium, sodium, bicarbonate, chloride, sulfate and much else. A TDS meter…
Read moreAlternatives to bottled water
Most people who buy bottled water at home did not decide bottled water was better. They decided their tap water tasted bad, and bottled water was the path of least resist…
Read moreScale, staining and damage
What water does to fixtures, appliances, laundry and plumbing over time.
Hard water
Hard water is water carrying dissolved calcium and magnesium. It is not a health problem — these are dietary minerals — but it is a genuine nuisance and a gen…
Read moreWhite scale on fixtures
That chalky white crust on your shower head and around the base of your taps is calcium carbonate — limescale. It is the visible, above-ground evidence of what your…
Read moreSpots on glassware
Spotting is the most frequent low-grade annoyance hard water produces, and the one people most often assume is the dishwasher's fault. Before replacing an appliance, it i…
Read moreIron stains and orange water
Orange, rust-coloured or brown staining in sinks, tubs, toilets and laundry means iron. Ozark groundwater dissolves iron readily, so this is one of the most common compla…
Read moreDry skin and hair
This is one of the most frequently oversold complaints in the water industry, so we want to be careful and accurate about what is actually known.…
Read moreWater-heater scale
Your water heater is where hard water does its most expensive damage, and it does it invisibly. Every gallon heated leaves a little of its dissolved mineral content behin…
Read moreLow pH / acidic water
Acidic water is water with a pH below about 6.5. It is not dangerous to drink at the levels typically found in household wells, but it is corrosive, and it attacks your p…
Read moreContaminants and health concerns
The ones you cannot see, taste or smell — and which therefore need testing rather than observation.
Bacteria in well water
This is the water problem you cannot detect. Bacteria have no taste, no smell and no colour at the levels that matter. A well can look, smell and taste perfect and still …
Read moreLead in drinking water
Lead is almost never present in the water your utility sends out. It gets into drinking water from the plumbing between the main and your glass — service lines, sol…
Read morePFAS in drinking water
PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a large family of manufactured chemicals used since the 1940s in non-stick coatings, stain-resistant fabrics,…
Read moreArsenic in well water
Arsenic occurs naturally in rock and soil, and it dissolves into groundwater in some geological settings. It is colourless, tasteless and odourless, so like bacteria and …
Read moreNitrates in well water
Nitrate is invisible, tasteless and odourless in water. It matters particularly for one group of people, and that specificity is why we treat it as a priority test rather…
Read moreFluoride in drinking water
Fluoride reaches drinking water two ways: it occurs naturally in some groundwater, and many public water systems add it deliberately as a public health measure.…
Read moreMost water complaints have more than one possible cause
That is the honest reason we test before recommending anything. Orange water could be three different forms of iron. A rotten-egg smell could be your aquifer or your water heater. Cloudy water is often just air. Guessing produces equipment that does not fix the problem.