What Do You Make Of My Water Quality Measurement?

dogstarheaven

http://www.stwater.co.uk/upload/pdf/ZNT08%20-%20Oxton%20area.pdf can't understand this, as I dunno what to make of it. All I know it 'seems' my water is safe enough. Also states its 'moderately hard' - does that mean i have to clean my kettle out with vinegar then? (can't remember last time i did that, so must of been at least a few yrs back!). are there any advantages to having hard water. does that mean my ericaceous-loving plants can take my water then?

hope someone can come by and give me a basic level of understanding as to what the above table measurement is about.. thanks!

moonrakerz

dogstarheaven wrote: »

hope someone can come by and give me a basic level of understanding as to what the above table measurement is about.. thanks!

Basically it means that the stuff that comes out of your taps is of extremely high quality.
You water company has to, by Law, measure the amount of certain things in your water so that it maintains this very high quality.

It may interest you to know that many of the strict requirements that apply to your tap water DO NOT apply to bottled water !!! and people pay huge sums of money to buy it as well.
The "Fools and Horses" skit on Peckham Spring Water had a lot of truth in it.

Volcano

Basically the table is showing the stuff that has been analysed (left hand side) how much of it there is (in the middle), what it should be less than (the values under 'PCV') and whether they exceed the PCV (last 2 columns on the right) but it looks all ok to me. 'Moderately hard' doesn't really mean much except it's likely you'll see some build up in your kettle or toilet.

You have a pH there of around 7.8. Not too bad for ericaceous plants however still a bit alkaline so it might be an idea to stick with rainwater if you can.

Little known fact: If farmers didn't put so much fertilizer on their land, your water bill would be dramatically cheaper as a large percentage goes to cleaning out this fertilizer before the water gets to your tap.

Ben84

dogstarheaven wrote: »

http://www.stwater.co.uk/upload/pdf/ZNT08%20-%20Oxton%20area.pdf can't understand this, as I dunno what to make of it. All I know it 'seems' my water is safe enough. Also states its 'moderately hard' - does that mean i have to clean my kettle out with vinegar then? (can't remember last time i did that, so must of been at least a few yrs back!). are there any advantages to having hard water. does that mean my ericaceous-loving plants can take my water then?

hope someone can come by and give me a basic level of understanding as to what the above table measurement is about.. thanks!

If your water company say that your tap water is suitable for drinking and cooking, then it has to comply with strict standards regarding various contaminants, so I personally would drink it without any concerns.

The table is listing everything they have tested for, the number of times (I assume the figure is an average where multiple measurements have been taken). Greater numbers of measurements make the figure more accurate too. The < means less than, but with all measurements you have to consider the precision of equipment used. For example if I was measuring something less than 1 cm with a ruler that has cm as the smallest division, then anything between 0.99 cm and tiny lengths such as a micron would have to be described as < 1 cm. The actual quantities may be much smaller than those listed. This issue with is more likely as the figures here are very small. µg/l is microgram per litre, one-millionth of a gram per litre. mg/l is milligram per litre, one thousandth of a gram per litre.

Hard water is water that contains minerals like calcium and magnesium, which make the water alkaline. The minerals found in hard water are biologically useful, so have some health benefits to consuming them, and drinking hard water is not bad for you. I find it's not so good for plants, most of all house plants however, even though plants do also use these minerals. In house plants the water is consume or evaporated from the plant/soil and the minerals remain as they cannot evaporate, which over time with repeated watering causes them to accumulate and make the soil very alkaline. If you can, collecting rainwater for the house plants and garden is better for them, and it's good for the environment to use less tap water. Your ericaceous plants like slightly acidic soil, so alkaline tap water shouldn't be used to water them too often.

Hard water also causes limescale in appliances, and does require you to use more detergent when you clean things as the minerals bind to the detergent resulting in less available in the solution to bind dirt. In extreme cases, such as where I live with some of the hardest water in the UK, we need to use around double the amount of detergent as someone with soft water. I still prefer slightly hard water however, because it's alkaline it doesn't corrode things and I personally find it picks up little or no metallic taste from the pipes.

Ben84

Volcano wrote: »

Little known fact: If farmers didn't put so much fertilizer on their land, your water bill would be dramatically cheaper as a large percentage goes to cleaning out this fertilizer before the water gets to your tap.

Interesting point, I'd never thought about this before, although I know a lot of plant food from farming gets in to the water table, rivers and eventually the sea.

I've always wondered why farms put the plant food on the soil rather than foliar feed, which I've been doing for years in my garden. The amount of plant food I use has been dramatically reduced as much less is being lost, the plants respond well if not better, and I don't get any problematic build up in the soil, or problems with the soil chemistry blocking nutrients. My very chalky soil stops iron being absorbed so well, but foliar feeding gets around this easily without requiring lots of iron to be added to the soil. I also get to feed the plants I want and not the weeds that may grow in the soil.

Volcano

I'm not sure, I'd imagine it'd be to do with the economics. Some plants (such as wheat crops) have negligible foliage so would have to retain traditional fertilizer application. The farmer would probably think "If I have to use the old method for some crops, I might as well save the hassle and use it for all crops, thus avoiding extra expense".

I know a new method of fertilizer application is being promoted that somehow 'folds' it into the soil a bit like ploughing. It's meant to use half the fertilizer of normal applications.

dogstarheaven

Ben84 wrote: »

I find it's not so good for plants, most of all house plants however, even though plants do also use these minerals. In house plants the water is consume or evaporated from the plant/soil and the minerals remain as they cannot evaporate, which over time with repeated watering causes them to accumulate and make the soil very alkaline. If you can, collecting rainwater for the house plants and garden is better for them, and it's good for the environment to use less tap water. Your ericaceous plants like slightly acidic soil, so alkaline tap water shouldn't be used to water them too often.

thanks for all your replies ppl (sorry for the delay). i only wanted to find out about it's suitability for my ericaceous plants as my water butt's not been full for more than 3mths now. I've had to resort to using the hose a couple of times this yr (despite my mulching a lot of my plants) and I really wouldn't want to rely on that all the time. Interesting to say that houseplants would have a natural build up of alkaline in their pots... would it make any difference to using cold boiled water on them (or veg water out of curiosity?!), as I do normally for my ericaceous outdoor plants? it's a lot of palaver using boiled water, as I don't normally have a lot to spare (if i do, it's normally saved).
I hear that using spent tea leaves/or coffee grounds is a cheap alt. to using ericaceous plant food FYI:beer:

Volcano

Boiling the water will have negligible effect on pH. You're much better off having a slightly acidic soil to help counteract tap water alkalinity. I believe you can get specific ericaceous peat/compost? That's probably your best bet if rain water is unavailable.