Water quality in private homes

Most homes on a mains supply need nothing from us. The ones that do usually have a private supply, old pipework, or a problem they can taste.

Legionella in a domestic property is usually low risk

This is worth saying plainly, because a good deal of marketing says the opposite. In a typical house with a combi boiler or a small cylinder, water is drawn off every day, the system turns over quickly, there is no large stored volume, and the risk from Legionella is low.

There is no such thing as a legionella test certificate for a domestic property, and routine sampling is not normally needed or recommended. If you are a landlord who has been offered one, it is worth understanding what the law actually asks of you before you buy anything.

Legionella and landlords

What does deserve attention

The real domestic water quality issues are mostly not about Legionella at all.

Private water supplies – Boreholes, wells and springs, where you are both the consumer and the supplier.

Lead pipework – Homes plumbed before the 1970s, and the shared supply pipes that still serve some of them.

Stored and tanked systems – Loft tanks, large cylinders and secondary circulation in bigger or older houses.

Hardness and limescale – What treatment will fix, what it will not, and whether it is worth it.

Filtration and treatment – Specified against what an analysis actually shows, rather than sold as a package.

Properties left empty – Second homes, probate properties and long voids between occupants.

If you have a private supply, you are the supplier

A borehole, well or spring makes you responsible for the quality of what comes out of the tap. Local authorities risk assess and sample private supplies in their area, and supplies serving a single private dwelling are treated differently from those shared between several properties or used commercially.

The problems we see most often are familiar ones: no treatment at all, a UV lamp well past its service life, coliforms appearing after heavy rain, and turbidity nobody has investigated. All of them are fixable, and all of them are cheaper to deal with before somebody becomes ill.

Lead is worth testing for once

If the house was plumbed before the 1970s there may still be lead in it, either inside the property or in the supply pipe running to it. The standard for drinking water in the UK is 10 micrograms per litre.

Where lead is found, the answer is replacement rather than treatment. The supply pipe may be shared with neighbouring properties, which affects who pays for what, and your water company may contribute to replacing their side of it. One test tells you whether any of that applies to you.

A straight answer about your water.

Talk to us about a private supply, a lead test, or an independent analysis of what is actually in your water.

For any enquiries or questions please call: 01707 527 069