Vital Tips on Northern Virginia Water Health

If you’re worried about the quality of your water you should contact a professional plumber. Northern VA has some excellent companies to choose from and they’ll quickly give you much needed, expert advice.

The history

It’s really only from the early-mid 20th century onwards that many urban populations could start to rely on their water supplies being relatively healthy and safe for most of the time. Prior to that, drinking water always involved a degree of risk, and there’s no doubt that over time vast numbers of human beings all over the world have died as a result of infected or contaminated water sources.

Today, in the industrialized world - at least in urban environments on mains supplies - problems are rare. But they can still happen.

Symptoms

There might be any one of a number of things that should perhaps get you thinking – though not panicking:

• a sudden change in the clarity of your water or its color;• odors coming from drinking or washing supplies;• scum or an oily-looking film on the surface;• bubbles;• signs of "wrigglies" in the water; • odd tastes;• residues settling to the bottom of a glass;

Stay calm

In practice, in the vast majority of cases none of these things will necessarily be cause for serious concern – particularly if you’re on a mains water supply. Harmless and short-lived infestations of micro-shrimps are not unknown. There are many routine maintenance tasks performed on the mains that can also cause temporary cloudiness, bubbles and even sometimes odors in your supply. If you’re on a private supply it might be slightly more cause for concern, and you should act with a little more haste in terms of getting things checked out.

Some things might be marginally more worrying, including things such as discoloration of your supply or things floating about in it. That might indicate cross-contamination between waste and supply systems and that would be very bad news from a health perspective. Such an event should, in theory, be blindingly unusual in central supply systems, but it’s rather more likely on private well sources and such.

Get help

Unless they’re a qualified water engineer or plumber, Northern VA residents shouldn’t start guessing as to what the potential problem is and how serious it may or may not be for their health.

The solution’s easy. Stop drinking the water or using it in cooking and switch to bottled water for the interim. Don’t assume boiling the water is the answer to everything - it might help kill some bacteria and infestations but it might not deal with chemical pollutants. If you do start boiling water in an emergency, remember to do so for 10 minutes or so to ensure everything alive that really shouldn’t be there is now well and truly dead. A 30-second boil just might not be enough to do it. Lastly, contact a plumber asap. They may advise you to call the local environmental protection people or simply to hang on until they’re able to get round and have a look themselves.

Follow any other advice given to you by your plumber. Northern VA doesn’t have too many problems in these respects but they’re not completely unknown, so stay alert.

Sarah Saadoun works for HMS Plumbing, a family-owned business in Manassas, Northern Virginia. If you need a plumber, Northern VA is lucky to have Herve and his dedicated employees at HMS - proud to be serving the plumbing needs of Northern Virginia residents and businesses. For reliable Fairfax plumbers HMS Plumbing is your first choice.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.