8 Best Home Water Test Kits in 2024

People have lots of different reasons for testing the water in their homes. Perhaps you’ve just moved into a new house. Or, if your water comes from a private well, you could be concerned about water hardness or possible contamination.

Maybe you’ve always been curious and want to finally confirm the quality of your water.

So now that you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time for a test, how do you choose? Whether you want to check the water in your pool or need an extensive report on the state of your drinking water — we’re here to present the best water testing home kits in every category.

Our Top Picks: Best Home Water Test Kits

Here are our favorite home water test kits of this year:

• Best Mail-in Test: Safe Home Premium Water Test Kit. This comprehensive test is painless, accurate, and features quick results — all at a reasonable price point.
• Best At-Home Test: Culligan Essential Water Lab Test Kit. This test is a good mid-point between mail-away professional testing and budget DIY kits.
• Best Budget: First Alert Home Drinking Water Test Kit. Widely available, cheap, easy, and reasonably accurate — First Alert is our budget pick.
• Best for Well Water: SimpleLab Tap Score Water Tests for Wells and Springs. It’s especially important to periodically test water from a well. Choose from SimpleLab’s three levels of assessment.
• Best for Municipal (City) Water: SimpleLab Tap Score Water Tests for Utility Customers. When you want a full report of exactly what’s in your water, choose from three levels of testing — Essential, Advanced or Extended.
• Best Lead Test: Health Metric Heavy Metals Test. If you suspect lead or other heavy metals in your water, you need answers now. This quick and affordable test is a good place to start.
• Best Test for Water Hardness: JNW Direct Water Total Hardness Test Strips. A great test kit to have on hand to measure water hardness, as well as water softener performance.
• Best Pool Water Test: Poolmaster Water Chemistry Case. Here for the pool testing recommendation? This affordable and accurate water testing kit has you covered.

The Safe Home brand offers several different testing tiers — from a basic kit that tests for 15 contaminants, all the way up to an “Ultimate” that tests for over 200, with prices ranging from $100-$350.

For the best overall home water test kit, we chose their mid-range Premium Water Test Kit. It tests for 50 water-based contaminants, which should be sufficient for most people’s needs.

In addition to general home testing, our overall pick is also one of the best water test kits for drinking water. Identifying any potential contaminants that might be hazardous to your health is critical. This thorough test helps you identify what’s in the water you drink every day.

If you’re looking for a fairly comprehensive, inexpensive, at-home test with quick results, the Culligan Essential Water Test Kit is a good bet. This mid-range price option tests for hardness, pH level, nitrites, nitrates, chlorine, copper, iron, and bacteria, as well as total dissolved solids (TDS).

Culligan has a website where you can learn more about water quality and testing and access to their Water Quality Report Guide and informational videos.

Because this kit tests for bacteria in addition to other contaminants, we also recommend this at-home water test kit as an option for testing well water.

While you can find slightly cheaper water test kits, the First Alert kit is more reputable and more accurate than some of the ultra-cheap options out there. It’s also more thorough, offering eight different tests for hardness, lead, chlorine, nitrate/nitrite, pesticides, and pH levels. The First Alert test also stands out in that it includes an E.Coli test as well.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy general assessment of your water, this budget kit is a great choice.

It is particularly important to test well water regularly. Unlike city water, you’re on the hook for monitoring the quality on your own. And since well water is more prone to bacteria and other contaminants, you don’t want to skimp on testing.

The Tap Score Water Test for Wells and Springs is available in three forms: Essential, Advanced, and Extensive. The Essential kit includes basic lab testing of general chemistry, heavy metals, minerals, silica, coliform, and E.coli. The advanced and extensive testing packages include even more tests such as:

• tannins
• radon
• radioactive particles
• heterotrophic bacteria
• pesticides
• plasticizers
• other common industrial and agricultural contaminants

We like that you can get accurate testing at whatever level is appropriate for your situation.

Our pick for city water testing is from the same company as our well water pick: SimpleLab. What sets this company apart is that it doesn’t partner with water treatment companies, nor do they sell any water treatment products. Meaning their business model focuses on providing accurate water testing and extensive reporting.

The Tap Score water tests have superior reviews, but most impressive to people are the individualized reports and helpful recommendations. And while this is a mail-away test, most find their results return within a short time frame.

If you’re at all worried that you might have lead in your water, testing is a matter of great urgency. Of all the contaminants, lead is one of the most hazardous possibilities. Unfortunately, these days it’s increasingly common.

The Health Metric test is more sensitive than some others on the market, offering low-level detection, which is crucial when dealing with the possibility of heavy metals. Health Metric also provides more peace of mind than other home water testing kits for drinking water — because it tests for iron, copper and mercury, too.

Hard water has a higher concentration of minerals, especially calcium and magnesium. These minerals are naturally occurring, but hard water can create problems for plumbing and appliances. If you want to determine your water’s hardness, this affordable and well-reviewed test kit can give you a quick answer.

These test strips are also great to have on hand if you want to periodically check the performance of your water softener. The test even comes with an app that you can use to track your testing results, with recommendations and additional information about water hardness.

There are a lot of pool water testing kits on the market; price and quality vary accordingly. We chose a test kit that checks all the boxes: affordable, accurate, easy to use, and simple to read.

What to Look for in the Best Home Water Test Kits

Identify Your Testing Urgency

There are a million good reasons to test your water, especially your drinking water. But there are a few urgent reasons to do so. Ask yourself:

• Am I worried that there might be lead or other heavy metals in my water?
• Does my drinking water come from an untested well?

If the answer to either of these questions is “yes,” then it’s essential you test your water right away. Our recommendations for lead testing and well water testing will steer you in the right direction. (If you’re looking for a less expensive test for well water, our pick for best at-home water test kit is also a good choice.)

If the answer to both is “no,” then you have some time to learn a little more about which specific test might be the best for your situation.

Types of Home Water Test Kits

There are two main categories of home water testing kits: a do-it-yourself, at-home version, or a kit where you send your water sample to a certified lab for professional testing. There’s a significant cost differential between these two types of kits. It can be pretty tempting to buy the cheapest kit and get your results instantly automatically.

If you’re mildly concerned (or even just curious) about your water quality, a simple, inexpensive testing kit may be all that you need. At-home kits give you a quick snapshot of what’s going on with your water and will call attention to any red flags that might require additional testing. Just know that these tests are not comprehensive, and even more importantly: they’re not highly accurate. There’s plenty of room for user error, and the cheaper test strips are prone to failure or rapid expiration.

If you worry that there could be more harmful contaminants lurking in your drinking water, or if it’s important to you to get accurate results, we recommend one of the higher quality mail-in lab tests. These professional labs are dedicated to testing individual water samples within EPA guidelines. They test to a much higher scientific standard, within much stricter parameters than anything you can hope to accomplish at home. A report from a lab-tested water sample is an investment in water quality. (It can also be handy to have on hand if you plan to sell your home.)

Which Test Is Right for You?

The old adage “you get what you pay for” is remarkably accurate when it comes to home water test kits. If you want to test for a specific contaminant, like chlorine or certain minerals, then an essential (and cheaper) DIY kit will be adequate for your needs. An at-home testing kit is also a great first step to narrow in on specific issues.

However, if you want to get a truly accurate and detailed picture of what, exactly, is in your water, we recommend purchasing a professionally-tested water sample kit.

Our Process

For this guide on home water test kits, our team spent 5 hours researching the most popular options from over 30 brands and manufacturers big and small. We then read about one hundred user reviews (both positive and negative) to discover what shoppers thought about each test kit. After comparing this data, we narrowed our list down to the top 8 home water test kits on the market. You can count on this research to guide you to a mindful purchasing decision.

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