While it might not seem that important, the pH of your drinking water is critical to your health and how useful it is for all of the things that you use it for. Acidic water, or water with a low pH, is very corrosive and can do serious damage to your plumbing and cost you a great deal in repairs and replacements. Basic water can also lead to issues, which is why a neutral pH of 7.0 is optimal. When you have water that isn’t quite perfect, how can you correct it to the perfect neutral number? What should you know about acid neutralizers and pH correction?
What Is pH?
The pH of your drinking water represents how acidic or alkaline it is. The pH scale goes from 0 to 14 with 0 being the most acidic and 14 being the most basic. Halfway through the scale, or 7.0, is the perfect pH of neutral water. This rating is logarithmic, which means that water with a pH of 5.0 is actually 10 times more acidic than water that has a pH of 6.0. In general, the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that your drinking water fall between 6.5-8.5 on the pH scale. However, most homeowners take action like acid neutralizers and pH correction to ensure that their water is as close to perfect as possible.
Why is pH Important?
Both high and low pH values can lead to serious corrosion problems in the plumbing in your home. If you have highly acidic water, there’s a good chance that you might experience a metallic taste that is unpleasant and notice corrosion on your plumbing fixtures. This can be visible as orange brown staining or a blue green tint. Water that is very basic can also have a strange, bitter taste and lead to scale accumulation. Scale buildup often leads to issues with your water heater and washing machines that have a dramatically shortened lifespan.
Another one of the issues that acidic water can lead to is known as leaching. When water with a low pH flows through the plumbing in your home, it will leach metal ions from the pipes that you are using and carry them into your water supply. What does this mean to you? Every time you are using the water in your home, you might be inadvertently consuming elevated levels of copper, zinc, iron, manganese and even lead depending on what your pipes are made from. Heavy metals are not good for human health, so consuming elevated levels of them in your drinking water can be very dangerous.
Why Is My Water’s pH Not Correct?
If you get your water from a municipal water treatment facility, the facility is required to treat it so that it is as neutral as possible. However, the 6.5-8.5 range is very broad, and some homeowners are not comfortable with that broad of a range. If you have a private well, there is no treatment for your water other than what you elect to do. This is one of the primary reasons why acid neutralizers and pH correction are so critical. If you don’t work with the professionals at Atlantic Blue Water Services, you could be using poor quality water that actually does damage to the appliances in your home that use water.
How Can I Correct the pH of My Water?
First, you need to work with a skilled water testing company like Atlantic Blue Water Services. We will start by testing your water to determine the exact issues it has. Particularly if you have a private well, there might be other hazardous substances present that you want to treat beyond pH. This can influence what acid neutralizers and pH correction solutions are the best for your home and your situation.
Next, we will help you to find the right method for raising or lowering the pH of your water. If you have very high alkalinity, it will require more treatment and filtration to change the pH. If you have a very low pH, you also might need to invest in more than one solution to correct your water. Two of the most common methods used including using a neutralizing media, like magnesium oxide or calcite, and using a liquid chemical solution into the water to neutralize the pH. Depending on the basic or acidic nature of your water, one might be much more appropriate than another.
One of the other reasons why proper water testing early in the process is so critical is that pH can be influenced by other contaminants in your water. When you take the time to correct the pH, you might be altering the levels of other things in your water like manganese, iron and carbon dioxide. When you treat a lower pH, for example, dissolved substances like iron are more likely to remain in the water.
Some of the solutions that we often recommend for water treatment include:
- Calcite: This is a whole-house acid neutralizer that can take care of the pH of your water before it ever enters your plumbing or devices that use water. It also doesn’t run the risk of overcorrection, which is appealing to some homeowners.
- Magnesium Oxide: This can help to increase pH if your water is close to perfect in the 5.5-6.5 range. It can raise the pH about 1.5 points at most.
- Soda Ash or Caustic Soda: These are more useful for water that is very acidic and that has a pH level between 4.6-5.5. This water is much more challenging to effectively raise the pH of, so an acid neutralizer tank system can be the best method.
We will work with you to find the right solution to your problems.
Call Atlantic Blue Water Services for Acid Neutralizers and pH Correction
Atlantic Blue Water Services is here to help homeowners, home sellers, home buyers and business owners in need of a quality water test in Westminster, MD. Call us today to schedule your water testing at 410-840-2583.