The Inside Outside Guys: What’s in Your Water?
By Ken Calverley and Chuck Breidenstein
DETROIT, October 7, 2022 ~ So, there I am watching some banal programming on the tube the other night. The show is constantly interrupted by advertisements talking about contaminated water at a military base that may have led to millions of personnel contracting potentially deadly disease.
All of this while I’m sipping a bottle of water and anticipating The Guys talking with our water expert, Jarrad Beauchamp, owner of Beauchamp Water Treatment Solutions in Brighton and other locations, the next day.
Water seems like such a benign substance.
All our lives we have consumed it, bathed in it, recreated in it, cooked with it, and used it for a myriad of applications without concern or thought.
It is the world’s consummate transport mechanism able to carry everything from large ships to micro-organisms to heavy metals and more. Most contaminants carried by water are colorless, odorless and tasteless. We don’t even know they are present.
Water can be corrosive. At a slightly acidic level, it can slowly dissolve copper and iron pipes that distribute it throughout our homes. That bluish or reddish tint in your water? Dissolved minerals from acidic water.
Those water pipes may become the depository for calcium that settled out of the water, blocking the pipes and reducing flow. The same is true of your water heater which comes equipped with an anode rod devoted to preserving and protecting the tank from mineral contaminants.
We use water to generate electricity, grow crops and for recreation. It has many unique properties that include its ability to absorb heat, convert to vapor and transport that heat to cold areas.
Water can easily be frozen solid. When frozen, it increases in volume which not only allows those ice cubes in your glass to float, but can cause metal pipes to burst, concrete slabs to raise and houses to lift from their supports.
We are told that 1 in 6 gallons of water transported by our nation’s distribution network leaks into the surrounding soils. If water can leak out of the pipes, contaminants can leak into the pipes.
Potentially toxic metals and chemicals can be transported to unwitting consumers, including young children who require up to seven times the daily volume of water that an adult needs.
For those on well water systems, the concerns are similar. An aquifer below ground carries your water.
This underground flow is ever changing in volume and quality as surface conditions miles away from the point of consumption may contribute contaminants.
There is also data to support the belief that three-quarters of the US population lives within 10 miles of polluted water.
The solution to all this, at least for us, is to know what’s in our water and take appropriate action to correct negative issues.
Beauchamp offers free consultation and water testing, within specified parameters, to everyone in the Metro area. A simple phone call can get you started toward having clean water to cook with, pure water to bathe in, and of course, healthy water to drink.
There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Keep in mind that while a water softener or iron filter might remove minerals from the water, these systems do not assure pure water.
As a colleague stated decades ago, “The best way to know is to find out from an expert”, something The Guys take to heart with housing.
So, whether you are taking advantage of free advice from Beauchamp Water Treatment Solutions or milking the brains of any of our experts at InsideOutsideGuys.com, you can ask and you can know.
For housing advice and more, listen to “The Inside Outside Guys” every Saturday and Sunday on 760 WJR, from 10 a.m. to noon, or contact us at InsideOutsideGuys.com.