What is TDS?

What is TDS? TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids. Essentially, it's a measure of anything dissolved in water that is not an H₂O molecule. This includes dissolved minerals, salts, metals, and other organic substances. Why does it matter? It's natural to wonder what's in our water and, ultimately, what we're putting into our bodies. For this reason, we highly recommend having your water tested.

Our TDS testing is quantitative. We use the total number of dissolved solids in the water to help determine water's behavior and diagnose potential aesthetic issues. For a comprehensive breakdown of each dissolved solid present in your water, we recommend having your water tested by a certified lab, such as National Testing Laboratories, Ltd. (watercheck.com).

The EPA recommended limit is <500 PPM (Parts Per Million) of TDS in household drinking water. Some customers notice aesthetic issues above 100 PPM and effectively addressing these issues can be difficult and quite costly. The simple solution for point-of-use is a reverse osmosis system. For an RO system to effectively treat an entire home, you're looking at a commercial sized system and other requirements, costing tens of thousands of dollars. For most homeowners, this is hard to justify. On the other hand, some customers have extremely low TDS. Water is more corrosive when this is the case and the good news is, there are treatment options!

Mountain Water Systems offers complimentary TDS testing included with our standard free water testing. Bring a water sample (see collection instructions here) to our Asheville location, Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm, or Friday 9am-1pm and we'd be happy to help! If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us and/or hover around the website - we're here for you!