Lead service lines, PFAS 'forever chemicals,' and private well water are three very different problems with three different fixes. Here's how to tell which one you might have, and what's actually worth doing about it.
Three different problems people lump together
When folks ask us whether their water is safe, they're usually worried about one of three things: old lead pipes, PFAS chemicals in the news, or what's coming out of a private well. They're all real concerns, but they're not the same problem and they don't have the same solution. Buying a whole-house system you don't need is just as much a mistake as ignoring a problem you do have. Here's how to tell them apart.
1. Lead pipes and fittings
Lead mostly shows up in homes and service lines installed before the mid-1980s. The water leaving the treatment plant is fine; the risk is the lead pipe, solder, or fixture between the main and your tap. Federal rules are pushing utilities to inventory and replace lead service lines, which is why you may have gotten a notice from your water provider.
How to check: look at the pipe where it enters your home. Lead is dull gray and soft enough to scratch with a coin, and a magnet won't stick to it. If you're on a private well, lead can still come from older fittings and solder inside the house. The fix depends on the source, replacing a lead service line, swapping out old fixtures, or adding a point-of-use filter certified specifically for lead reduction.
2. PFAS ('forever chemicals')
PFAS are a family of man-made chemicals that don't break down easily, which is where the 'forever' nickname comes from. The EPA has set national limits for several of them in public drinking water, and utilities are working to meet those limits over the next few years.
If you're on city water, your provider is responsible for treating to the standard, and their annual water quality report will tell you where things stand. If you want an extra layer at the tap, the filtration that actually removes PFAS is reverse osmosis or a carbon filter certified for it, not a basic pitcher or refrigerator filter. The certification on the box matters more than the marketing.
3. Private well water
A lot of homes on Sand Mountain and across rural Northeast Alabama and Northwest Georgia are on private wells. Here's the part people miss: no government agency tests or treats your well. That's the homeowner's responsibility, and it's worth taking seriously.
Common well issues in our area are hardness (scale on fixtures and in water heaters), iron and sulfur (staining and a rotten-egg smell), and bacteria after heavy rain or flooding. The right answer is to test first, then treat for what you actually find, whether that's a softener, an iron filter, or disinfection. We don't recommend buying a system blind.
How to find out what's actually in your water
You don't have to guess. A few honest first steps:
- On city water: read your utility's annual Consumer Confidence Report, which lists exactly what was detected.
- On a well: get a certified lab test, at least once a year and any time the taste, smell, or color changes.
- Shopping for a filter: look for NSF/ANSI certification for the specific contaminant you're trying to remove, not just 'filters 99% of impurities.'
Matching the fix to the problem
The honest truth is that most homes need targeted treatment, not the biggest system on the shelf. If your only issue is lead at one tap, a certified point-of-use filter solves it for a fraction of the cost of a whole-house unit. If you're on a well with hard water and iron, a whole-house approach makes sense. The point is to test, match the fix to the result, and not pay for filtration you don't need.
If you'd like a straight answer for your home, we serve Chattanooga and the wider Tennessee Valley, Northwest Georgia, and Northeast Alabama, and we go over the price before any work begins. Talk to a real plumber, not a call center, at 423-280-4171.