“Based on our experience, even the most popular mineral water brands in the market such as Evian, Spritzer and Fiji, will get the same testing results due to the minerals content. “
Have you ever seen a water testing demonstration using some electronic devices? Imagine, the crystal-clear water turning brown colour and looking awfully dirty within few seconds right in front of your eyes. It sounds like a horrible nightmare since you drink from that water source every day.
Beware of these water test scams given by biased or inexperienced sales people because these testing kits are designed for other purposes.
Unfortunately it is quite common that these fraudulent sellers in the market are trying to sell water filter with dirty and unethical tricks. These sellers usually prey on older adults who tend to believe whatever happens to water test results.
We have summarized the most common tricks in the market for your knowledge:
TDS Meter
TDS meter are used to test water purity by indicating the total dissolved solids of a solution, such as salts and minerals. Any minerals in the drinking water can be converted to any value based on the measurement total charged mineral content.
Reverse Osmosis (RO) seller generally like to make use of this device to emphasize the impurities of other filtered water, claiming that RO water is less contaminated. In fact, for most of the cases, the water is not contaminated but just enriched with healthy minerals such as calcium, magnesium or potassium.
The Jam Jar Test
Known as an “electrochemical circuit”, this electrolysis test is a device which submerges two electrodes into two water sample (usually their company sample and your household sample). The result of your household sample apparently will convert into a yellow, brown-ish sludge.
This is a portable electrolysis kit with multiple electrodes made to perform simultaneous electrolysis on multiple sample. One of the electrodes are made of aluminium whilst the other is made of iron. The aluminium electrodes are always submerged into their water sample whilst the iron electrodes go into the sample you provide. Seconds later, the sludge appears, and the water sample you provided becomes yellowish. This happens because your water sample has dissolved minerals and their water is just pure distilled water with zero dissolved solids or minerals. This means their sample does not conduct any electricity.
So in essence, the beneficial minerals that provide a natural taste / flavour to your drinking water were purposely utilised by fraudulent sellers in a misleading and wrong way. The intention is clearly to create fear and trick customers into believing that the water they are consuming on daily basis is contaminated.
However, based on our experience, we can justify that even the most popular mineral water brands in the market such as Evian, Spritzer and Fiji, will get the same testing results due to the minerals content. Actually, the more minerals, the healthy water contains, the worse it looks after the test !
Does that mean these waters are not drinkable? The answer is a clear NO !
On the other hand, to find out what are the unwanted elements in your drinking water, there are some handy kits you can use to test the water at home:
Water pH
1.pH paper – contains a series of indicator bars that will all change colour after exposure to a solution. The strength of the acids and bases on each bar differs. After they change, the colour pattern of the bars can be matched to the examples that come with the kits.
2. Litmus paper – strips of paper that contain an acid or a base (alkaline). The most common of these are red and blue. The red strips turn blue if the substance is alkaline, and the blue strips turn red if they contact an acid. It can be used to provide a quick and easy test, but the cheapest of them do not always provide accurate readings on the strength of the solution.
Remember that pure, unpolluted water normally has a pH level of 7, which is neutral.
Chlorine
Test strips are advantageous because they are cheap, widely available in the market, and could give you instant results. It is similar in principle and manner of use to almost all other test strips, like those used for urine or drug testing. It is as simple as getting a sample of your tap water, dipping the strip as indicated in the instruction, waiting several seconds for the indicator-color to appear, and comparing such color to the chart provided for the level reading.
The testing solution is sold in tiny dropper bottles similar to eye drops. Collect some tap water which will serve as the sample, add the number of drops indicated in the instruction, and finally compare the resulting color to the table or chart located on the label.
Chlorine levels up to 4 milligrams per liter (mg/L or 4 parts per million (ppm) are considered safe in drinking water.
Micro-Organism (cyst, bacteria, virus), Heavy Metals or other Chemicals (other than Chlorine)
Laboratory water analysis is recommended as it provides a range of testing and analysis services for water quality. The services could include identifying treatment levels in the critical water processes, metals content of drinking water etc.
Regarding the notorious E. coli, do note that drinking water should have no E. coli after treatment. E. coli levels at designated swimming pool should not exceed 88 per 100 milliliter (mL) in any one sample, or exceed a three-sample average over a 60-day period of 47/100mL.
In conclusion, be cautious about these water testing scams if it happens around your neighborhood. There could be elderly people who is less informed about fraudulent sellers tend to be the next victims.
Share this information with your family, friends and relatives
