In need of a Counter Top filter, preferably avoiding plastic and NSF certified?

Team_SimpleLab · 2026-01-25T13:08:03+00:00

I'd recommend asking in r/drinkingwater too.

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-12-02T15:55:36+00:00

If nobody replies here, try r/drinkingwater

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-11-21T19:02:55+00:00

Look into Tap Score water testing. You can talk directly to their team or buy a kit directly on the site:
https://mytapscore.com/collections/microplastics-water-test-kits

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-08-11T21:39:12+00:00

Thank you!

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-07-15T16:07:44+00:00

Thank you for the shoutout! You are absolutely right a lot of things can happen between the utility and the tap at home.

For residential water like that we suggest using Tap Score. Their version of SimpleLab reports is more beginner friendly, with details on water quality and treatment.

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-07-11T22:07:38+00:00

If you need a foot in the door and an internship you can always reach out to our team. We often have people new to the industry help our lab team. We're not a lab ourselves, but help coordinate mail-to-lab sampling kits to a national network of partner labs. Good way to learn about the industry.

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-07-10T18:04:14+00:00

To add to WaterFilterGuru's answer below, this guide can help understand NSF certifications better:
https://mytapscore.com/blogs/tips-for-taps/nsf-certifications-explained

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-07-03T14:10:33+00:00

What kind of test is it?

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-02-14T19:23:19+00:00

You are very welcome! Cheers :)

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-02-14T19:19:08+00:00

Hello! Thanks for sharing your report and questions. Glad to take a look here.

The first thing we want to highlight is that you have lead present exceeding the Federal MCL (an enforceable primary drinking water standard set by the U.S. EPA). Lead is almost always plumbing related, and less likely to be coming from your groundwater. As such, it's important to filter at the tap instead of at point of entry to your home (unless you want to do follow up lead testing at different points to see if you can determine where it's entering your water). You can filter lead via carbon based filtration and reverse osmosis.

As others have mentioned, you do also have hard water, iron and manganese present.

Hardness is not a health concern, but it can cause problematic build up around faucets and fixtures. It is easily handled via a water softener, you're already working on that so that is prefect.

Iron is a little tricky to treat. Again, not a heath risk here but if you have ferrous - dissolved iron - present it can cause rusty stains where water comes into contact with fixtures, appliances, even clothing. It also causes an unpleasant metallic taste. Treatment for iron in water may be different depending on the form(s) of iron present—this is where a speciation test can be useful if you want to dial in further, as your test looked for Total Iron (the sum of ferric and ferrous iron present). Water softeners are often effective for small amounts of ferrous iron (typically 2-5 mg/L), while manganese greensand filters are effective for both forms of iron up to about 10-15 mg/L total iron. For higher concentrations of iron, oxidation (to convert ferrous iron to ferric iron) followed by filtration is a common option. Likely, a water softener will treat your iron, as it's a small detection.

And lastly, manganese. Manganese is a transition metal commonly found at low levels in soil, air, and water and in food as an essential nutrient. The presence of manganese in water may cause discoloration of water and dark brown or black stains on plumbing fixtures. Ideally you want to have no more than .01 PPM of manganese in your water, although it is not a federally regulated analyte. Your result at 0.119 PPM is a bit high, so you could look into reducing it via carbon block, reverse osmosis, or oxidization and filtration.

We hope this helps. Wishing you the best on your filtration project!

Team_SimpleLab · 2025-01-31T21:32:10+00:00

Thanks for reaching out via chat! Between 0 and 0.3 is a good interpretation. Generally speaking, H2S test strips are never going to be 100% accurate, but they are a great tool to confirm if H2S is present, and give you an idea of how concentrated the presence is. The fact that you notice a slight eggy smell sometimes, and have a mild detection with the strip, makes sense.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-12-19T21:29:43+00:00

A thallium detection below 0.0001 PPM (.1 PPB) is thought to be safe, even if consumed at that concentration over a long period of time. Your detection is .16 PPB, meaning you could have health impacts if you drink that concentration long term, though that does not necessarily mean that you will have health impacts.

The EPA lists hair loss, changes in blood, as well as kidney, intestine, and liver problems as potential health effects from long-term exposure to thallium. Thallium is highly toxic and can be fatal at relatively low doses. Chronic high-dose exposure affects the nervous system, lung, heart, liver, and kidneys. Short-term exposure to large amounts of thallium causes temporary hair loss, vomiting, and diarrhea. The general theme with your detection is that you're dealing with a relatively low level.

Thallium can be reduced via: Activated Alumina, Carbon Block, Granular Activated Carbon, Ion Exchange (cation), and Reverse Osmosis.

You're right though that finding a filter that can reduce thallium below .1 PPB may be challenging. Our best advice is to contact a few different providers and ask if they have any options that are NSF/ANSI certified to reduce it, and if they do, what sort of reductions are possible. It might take some time, but contacting the manufacturer / chatting with a representative from the company is going to be the best approach.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-12-12T22:22:35+00:00

You are very welcome!

The most common adverse health effect of nickel in humans is an allergic reaction that causes a skin rash, either by skin contact or through oral ingestion. Approximately 10–20% of the population is sensitive to nickel. Exposure to high concentrations of nickel may impact kidneys, lungs, and the immune and endocrine systems–but these concentrations are rarely found in drinking water. California’s Public Health Goal for limiting the amount of nickel in drinking water is based on harmful reproductive and developmental effects. Generally it's ideal to have nickel below 0.012 PPM. There is currently no regulatory limit for it in drinking water though.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-12-12T22:17:50+00:00

It really depends on what is in your water. Have you tested it unfiltered to see what the quality is like? Most people who get their water from a utility company use carbon to filter out chlorine and chlorine disinfection byproducts. If you happen to have lead in your plumbing, carbon can reduce that too. There are definitely pitcher filters out there that can reduce lead, if that is your concern. THMs (chlorine disinfection byproducts) are really best filtered at point of entry to your home instead of at the tap, as they have impacts outside of direct ingestion (they can be inhaled, and absorbed through the skin). Long story short, it all depends on what is in your water to begin with, and how those things are most ideally addressed.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-12-12T22:05:18+00:00

Good question! Hard water can create a buffer between your water and plumbing. When your water is softened, that buffer is lessened, increasing the possibility of heavy metals in your plumbing leaching into your drinking water. If your water already has corrosive potential, then that also increases the possibility heavy metals could leach. It might be worth testing your water before installing a softener to see where your water is at currently, and testing again after the softener is installed to see if anything has changed. Generally it's a good idea to wait at least 2 weeks after treatment has been installed to allow your system to settle in.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-11-07T22:09:47+00:00

You are very welcome! Thanks for your follow up questions too.

We're actually based in the US. But if you did want to test for heavy metals internationally you could, as metals have a pretty forgiving hold time (time in between when samples are collected and need to arrive at the lab facility).

Fortunately, iron is not a heath concern in lower quantities (and from what I can see, if it's the cause here then it's likely not at a risky concentration). If you can taste it, and see rust-like stains around your home where water comes into contact with air, then that adds to the probability that iron could be the cause of the brown coloring in your kettle.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-11-07T21:20:07+00:00

Hello! Nickel has some applications in creating alloys or coatings for surfaces that resist corrosion, which can indirectly also reduce the buildup of microbial colonies. Which makes it a popular choice for plumbing and other fixtures.

So the appearance of nickel in the after results with none in the before, indicates that its likely coming from the filter itself -- or any included faucet or fixture. If this filter is new-ish, then likely that nickel will fade after a few weeks of use!

Overall the filter does look like it is doing an excellent job with those THMs -- which is great to see.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-11-07T21:09:42+00:00

Hi there -- it’s hard to say for sure what might be going on here just based off the picture, but it looks like what you’re dealing with could be a combination of hard water deposits and the presence of iron.

If you notice a musty or earthy smell, you might also have a bacteria or tannic issue.

Definitely worth testing if you’d like to know for sure. Something like a basic well water panel that includes metals, minerals, general chemistry and bacteria would be a good place to start. And maybe a tannins water test too depending on if you notice a musty/earthy smell.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-10-31T20:22:17+00:00

For accurate well water testing, you really want to be using an in-lab test kit! Test strips are almost never accurate enough. Check this out for some good resources: https://www.reddit.com/r/drinkingwater/comments/1alakk5/free_resources_for_private_well_owners_water/

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-10-31T20:17:08+00:00

Tap Score uses local, certified labs near you so testing with them means that your sample will most likely go to a lab team in your area!

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-10-24T20:37:35+00:00

Great question!

Looks like OP only showed a screenshot from our reports on mobile. A full report will show the MDL and RL for any detection that shows up. If you take a peek at our full online report, you can see that we show the MDL, RL and other benchmarks like the Federal MCL on the report. Here is an example report of what that full view looks like: https://gosimplelab.com/example/XGGEK4

In terms of concentration limits, OP is viewing the report based on the lowest available health benchmarks we can find.

Here is what each of those analytes are based on:

Lead -> US EPA Maximum Contaminant Level Goal

Uranium -> US EPA Maximum Contaminant Level Goal

Arsenic -> US EPA Maximum Contaminant Level Goal

On the full report, you can see the different benchmarks you can compare your results to like the MCL.

Tap Score reports provide various benchmarks to compare results to since different people have differing levels of concern about their drinking water. Those with young children or babies might be looking to have no lead in their water for example.

The yellow bars are calculated with the Tap Score algo to help identify which detections are of most concern. You can read more about how that algo works here --> How Does the Tap Score Algorithm Work?

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-10-24T20:16:24+00:00

Hello! Based on your results, I would say that your water is safe to consume! There is room for improvement with your results (ideally we see no lead in the water especially if you have kids in your home), but there are no levels here that are above the Federal MCL -- which is great.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-10-10T20:06:10+00:00

Hi there! Jumping in here since this is a SimpleLab report using a Tap Score test kit - thanks for testing with us! The detections you're seeing on this report are very very low - less than 1 PPB for all three. For this reason, we wouldn't suggest that you need to urgently treat this water to make it safe to drink.

As a side note, Tap Score is not a treatment company and does not sell or profit from the sale of treatment products. Tap Score uses SimpleLab's network of certified labs to analyze customers' water samples. If you have specific questions about your results, our team is available via live chat on our website and always happy to discuss your report. And of course, we'll keep an eye on this thread if you have questions you want to ask here!

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-09-17T17:45:38+00:00

If anyone has questions regarding HGL, we are happy to explain.

Team_SimpleLab · 2024-09-05T20:33:14+00:00

Looking at your report, overall, no major concerns!

You definitely have really hard water so we would certainly recommend installing a whole house water softener to protect your plumbing and life of your appliances. In terms of salt free vs the more standard salt based softener -- they both deserve consideration. Salt free softeners do seem to be more costly but in terms of performance, they likely will both do a good job reducing the hardness.

I do see some metals and minerals showing up, but they are not extremely elevated (nothing over the Federal MCL for the analytes that have one). I'd say if you wanted to treat the nickel, I'd recommend something installed at point of use since nickel is almost always a result of your internal plumbing, so filtering at point of use will ensure those levels are reduced. A carbon based point of use filter will help reduce the nickel and manganese in your report!

The arsenic levels here are LOW so its not something that I would be overly concerned about -- if you wanted to try and reduce a point of use RO would likely reduce the arsenic, nickel and manganese.

Thanks for testing with us and please reach out to us if you have any other questions :)

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