Testing your drinking water for lead

The safety of drinking water is on everyone’s mind. It started nationally with the contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, then it hit close to home when high levels of lead were found in a drinking fountain at Ucon Elementary School.

But what about the water in your home? Could it be contaminated and how can you tell?

Hardware stores sell at home water analysis kits. You can test your water from a variety of things like lead, copper and iron to name a few.

“It’s actually very simple,” said Lowes Assistant Store Manager Billy Skinner. “Basically just putting the water into the beaker, and putting the proper tablets or the proper testing strips inside to tell them exactly what they are looking at inside the water.”