Your health depends on water.

Why it matters

After air, water is the most important thing your body needs. You can go about three days without it. Poor water does slower damage, especially if it carries chemicals, inorganic minerals or bacteria.

Water dissolves or corrodes most things it touches. It can look clean and still not be, and a test will often say so. Dirt, rust, bacteria, giardia, cryptosporidium and algae all turn up in it.

Where the contamination comes from

Town water has alum, chlorine, ammonia and fluoride added. After that it can pick up more on the way to your tap, from corroding mains or lead solder in copper pipe.

Rural supplies (rivers, bores, dams and tanks) pick up human waste and animal droppings, plus exhaust fumes, dust, herbicides and pesticides from the air.

Tank water and acidity

Rainwater usually has a pH around 5.0 to 5.6, and it stays that low in a plastic tank, often under 6.0. The acid comes from sulfuric, nitric and carbonic acids. Some is pollution and plenty is just nature.

Acidic water reacts with copper pipe. Concrete tanks mostly avoid it because they leach lime into the water and lift the pH. A calcite unit brings the pH back to neutral, and carbon block filtration or reverse osmosis deals with plastics.

Four steps to better water

1. Test your supply

Your water authority can give you a typical analysis of town water, and some councils test rural supplies too. We can point you to commercial testing and help you read the results. Rural supplies need testing regularly, or the result is out of date.

2. Look up the likely contaminants

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines set the levels authorities work to. CHOICE has good reference material too.

3. Pick a fix

Once you know what is in the water, there is a tested technology for it at most budgets. Try the system finder or ring Steve.

4. Keep the filters fresh

A filter holds contaminants in the cartridge until it blocks or stops working. Makers publish a service life, but water quality, usage, temperature and pressure all change it. Most people replace filters every six to twelve months. We keep a record of every install and ring you when yours are due.

Drink enough

Toddlers need about a litre a day. Adults may need 2.1 litres (women) or 2.6 litres (men). A three hour flight can cost you up to 1.5 litres. Work in the heat without enough water and you get tired, sick and confused. Water goes into your bloodstream faster than other drinks, so make it good water.

Who is responsible?

You are. Governments set guidelines and water authorities try to meet them, but nobody is responsible for the water at the point where you drink it. The four steps above are how you take that on.