After Years of Research as Wirecutter's Water-Quality Expert, I Decided I Don't Need to Filter My Water
Like Jan, reader Graeme got his water tested after I suggested doing that before buying a different, clog-resistant filter. He later sent a quick update: 'It came back completely clear. You've saved me tons of time and money. NYC water continues to astound …'
It does. New York's water is justifiably famous for its purity, and the city has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep it that way. But it isn't the only city that can boast such a thing.
Consult your utility's Consumer Confidence Report. Here's New York City's latest. Here's Los Angeles's report. Here are Chicago's, Houston's, and Philadelphia's. You can usually find your CCR on your utility's website; the EPA can help you find your utility if you're unsure. (CCRs for the prior year are released as late as July 1, so you may find that yours is from two calendar years ago.)
A few terms to know: MCLG is the Maximum Contaminant Level Goal. It isn't a requirement, but a level that the EPA or a state agency hopes to eventually achieve. MCL is the Maximum Contaminant Level that's allowed by federal or state law. (And that brings up an important side point: under the Safe Drinking Water Act, states can set water-quality standards that are stricter than the federal ones. Several states were ahead of the EPA on PFAS limits before the Biden administration tightened the federal standards in 2024, for example. That's worth remembering now that the Trump administration has rescinded or relaxed several of the standards and enforcement deadlines.)
THMs are trihalomethanes, and are mainly the by-product of disinfectants that are used to reduce bacteria and other pathogens in the water supply. Almost everybody's CCR shows their presence at some level. How much is allowed is defined by the MRDL, the Maximum Residual Disinfectant Level; how much is aimed for is the MRDLG, the Goal. Most other listings are fairly self-explanatory: lead, mercury, and so on.
To know even more, use a home water test kit. It will tell you exactly what's in your water, right where it comes out of your faucet. We recommend several Tap Score kits from SimpleLab, both for their ease of use — they come with prepaid and labeled packaging to help you ship your samples to the lab quickly — and for their clarity. The company explains the test results in plain language, flags anything of concern, and has support staff available to answer any questions you have. Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter
This send-away kit delivers lab-tested measurements of more than 100 contaminants, and it explains what they mean and what to do if there's a problem.
I spoke with SimpleLab founder and CEO Johnny H. Pujol to understand what he has learned from a decade of water testing. He also shared a detailed summary of the data the company has collected.
A lot of people ask about PFAS and microplastics, Pujol said, 'but the likelihood is that you're going to spend a ton of money [on a test kit], and you may not find something that useful or interesting to your home.' (Testing for PFAS and microplastics requires two Tap Score kits in addition to the Advanced City kit that's our top pick; they cost between $300 and $795.)
No PFAS chemicals are among the 10 most common contaminants that SimpleLab finds in either public ('city') or private well water, according to the data Pujol shared. Two trihalomethanes — specifically chloroform and bromodichloromethane, both by-products of disinfection at the treatment plant — are among the top 10 in public water. Substances that come from the earth itself — zinc, barium, strontium, and sulfates — are in the top 10 in both city and well water. So is copper, leached from pipes in the home. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and many other trademarked herbicides, shows up so rarely that when it does, Pujol said, 'our data science team sends a message out — hey, we found a detection.'
And no PFAS are among the top 10 exceedances — instances where the level detected exceeded the company's in-house health-guidance levels, which are based on EPA and other health-agency benchmarks. Chloroform, bromodichloromethane, and dibromochloromethane, all disinfection by-products, are the top three exceedances in public water supplies. Lead and arsenic are numbers four and five. For private wells, they are numbers one and two.
In terms of overall public health, Pujol worries that forever chemicals are drawing people's focus away from where it is needed more urgently. 'Here you've got a concentration that is almost comically low that gets widespread fear and interest — that's PFAS,' he said. "Whereas the classics — arsenic, radon, lead, nitrate — they don't seem to get the attention they deserve, and they're much more significant.'
I didn't know all of this before I got my water tested, but I knew enough about the US water system, and about my utility's Consumer Confidence Reports, that I was confident the results would be fine.
Still, I got that little fist of nerves.
Having been president of my co-op in Queens, I was well aware that lead was likely to be present in the plumbing solder. And in New Jersey, there's a chrome-plating shop — almost certainly a source of hexavalent chromium and other nasty stuff — a block and a half away from my house. Sure, it's downhill, and sure, my water comes from a reservoir several miles in the other direction, and sure, the CCR showed nothing of concern. But.
So it was reassuring to get the results I expected.
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