Maine Tap Water Test Kit: Independent Certified Lab Analysis (47 Contaminants)
City water test kit for Maine households on municipal water, covering 47 EPA-relevant contaminants including soft corrosive New England water, lead solder in old housing, and small-system variability, plus copper, arsenic, pH, and the full hardness chemistry, processed by an NELAP-accredited lab with results in 5 to 10 business days. An independent certified-lab mail-in tap water test kit for Maine homes on city (municipal) water, covering 47 EPA-relevant contaminants: 19 heavy and trace metals at parts-per-billion ICP-MS detection (lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, chromium, copper, uranium, and more), 10 minerals and metals (iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, sodium), 6 water properties (pH, hardness, alkalinity, TDS, turbidity, conductivity), 8 inorganics (nitrate, nitrite, chloride, fluoride, sulfate, boron, phosphorus, silica), and 4 calculated corrosion and sizing values, processed by an NELAP-accredited lab partner network, delivered with a free expert phone consultation to interpret your results. No bacteria panel: your municipality already disinfects and continuously monitors for bacteria, so this panel spends its analytes on what city water can actually have wrong at the tap. The kit ships to your Maine address with color-coded sample bottles pre-loaded with the correct preservatives, an instruction sheet, a chain-of-custody form, and a pre-paid 2-day return shipping label. You collect 250 to 500 mL of cold water from your kitchen tap (the whole process takes 5 to 10 minutes), seal the bottles in the included sample bag, and drop the package at your carrier. SimpleLab routes the specimen to the nearest NELAP-accredited partner laboratory, which runs the full 47-analyte panel using EPA-method ICP-MS and ion chromatography. Total turnaround from order to results is approximately 10 business days. Free expert consultation is included with every kit. After your lab results are delivered, call Aidan at 800-460-5810 (7 days a week, 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern) and he will interpret the report line by line, flag anything above EPA limits, recommend treatment if it is warranted, or simply tell you the water is fine and no equipment is needed. There is no upsell and no commission on the consultation. Mid Atlantic Water is an online-only national ecommerce business shipping to all 50 states; the consultation is delivered remotely by phone, regardless of where in Maine you live. Maine's municipal water is classic northern New England: soft, low-mineral surface water (Sebago Lake serves Portland with water so clean it holds a filtration waiver) that is naturally corrosive to plumbing. Maine also has some of the oldest housing in the country, and the combination of aggressive water plus pre-1986 lead solder and brass is exactly how lead reaches a kitchen tap in Portland, Lewiston, or Bangor. Outside the larger systems, hundreds of small community systems serve Maine towns, where treatment sophistication and monitoring frequency vary far more than most residents assume. What the federal record shows for city water in Maine: the EPA SDWIS reporting record covers 204 Maine public water systems across 485 ZIP codes, and 18.1% of those systems have at least one health-based violation on record (49.5% have at least one violation of any kind). The most common named findings statewide are haloacetic acids (HAA5), disinfection byproducts (Stage 1 DBP findings) and barium. 2 Maine systems reported a most-recent lead 90th-percentile result above the 15 ppb EPA action level. You can look up your own utility's record, grade, and named findings free with the ZIP lookup on this page (data via ZipCheckup, CC BY 4.0, built from EPA federal reporting). The largest Maine systems on the record: PORTLAND WATER DISTRICT-GREATER (serving roughly 135,068 people) grades D on its federal record, no violations on record. Maine Water Company Biddeford Saco Div (serving roughly 42,508 people) grades D on its federal record, 3 violations on record (1 health-based), a most-recent lead 90th percentile of 7.0 ppb against the 15 ppb action level. KENNEBUNK, KENNEBUNKPORT & WELLS WD (serving roughly 35,663 people) grades D on its federal record, no violations on record. These are system-wide reporting numbers, not a measurement at any individual tap; two houses on the same street can have different lead results because the pipes and solder differ house to house. Your utility's annual Consumer Confidence Report and the federal record above describe water leaving the treatment plant and moving through the mains. This kit measures the other half of the journey: what your own service line, solder joints, brass fittings, and fixtures add between the main and your glass, and the hardness, pH, sodium, and corrosion chemistry that determine whether your home needs a softener, a carbon system, a point-of-use reverse osmosis unit, or nothing at all. Disinfection byproducts flagged in a utility's record are monitored and reported at the system level by the utility itself; this panel focuses on the tap-level analytes a homeowner can act on directly. This kit catches what test strips cannot. Colorimetric test strips are a useful field-screening tool for a handful of parameters (free chlorine, total hardness, pH at coarse resolution), but their detection thresholds are typically two to three orders of magnitude higher than what an EPA-method ICP-MS lab measurement returns. Strips cannot detect lead at the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion, cannot quantify arsenic at the 10 ppb MCL, cannot identify uranium at all, and cannot measure the sodium number that matters for anyone in the house on a low-sodium diet. The lab-grade panel is the right tool when the answer needs to be defensible, when treatment design depends on the result, or when a home is being purchased. Common contaminants tested include: lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, chromium (total), copper, uranium, aluminum, antimony, barium, beryllium, nickel, selenium, thallium, zinc, silver, iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, strontium, chloride, fluoride, nitrate as N, nitrite as N, sulfate, boron, phosphorus, silica, pH, total hardness, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, turbidity, conductivity, and the Langelier saturation index corrosion metric. Detects lead at the same parts-per-billion threshold the EPA uses to set its action level (15 ppb), revealing lead from your service line, solder joints, and brass fixtures that the utility's system-wide compliance sampling and annual report cannot see at your specific tap. Measures copper against the 1.3 ppm EPA action level, the companion plumbing-corrosion metal, so a single report tells you whether your home's pipes are actually shedding metal into your drinking water. Quantifies arsenic and uranium at parts-per-billion using EPA Method 200.8 ICP-MS, trace metals that municipal treatment reduces but does not always eliminate, especially in groundwater-supplied ME systems. Profiles 19 heavy metals in a single ICP-MS run, so the same sample tells you about lead, copper, arsenic, chromium, manganese, and iron simultaneously rather than forcing you to buy a separate single-analyte test for each metal of concern. Reports exact hardness in grains per gallon plus the Langelier Saturation Index, the two numbers that determine whether you need a water softener, what size, and whether your water is corroding your plumbing or scaling it shut. Reports results on an interactive Tap Score dashboard with EPA MCL benchmarks and color-coded health and aesthetic scores, so you do not need to memorize regulatory limits to interpret your own report. Includes a free post-results phone consultation with a non-commissioned water-treatment expert who will tell you the water is fine if it is fine, recommend the smallest adequate treatment if it is not, and never charge for the call. Specifications Test Type: mail-in independent certified laboratory water analysis (SimpleLab Tap Score panel) Water Source: city / municipal water (household tap) Contaminants Tested: 47 analytes covering EPA primary and secondary drinking water standards Bacteria Panel: not included (municipal supplies are disinfected and continuously monitored for bacteria by the utility; on a private well, use the Maine well water test instead) Heavy Metals Panel: 19 metals including lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, chromium, copper, uranium, aluminum, antimony, barium, beryllium, nickel, selenium, thallium, zinc, silver Minerals and Treatment Indicators: iron, manganese, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, strontium Water Properties Panel: pH, total hardness, alkalinity, total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, conductivity, Langelier saturation index Inorganics Panel: chloride, fluoride, nitrate as N, nitrite as N, sulfate, boron, phosphorus, silica Detection Method: EPA 200.8 ICP-MS for metals, EPA 300.0 ion chromatography for anions, electrometric for pH and conductivity Detection Limit: parts-per-billion (ppb) for heavy metals, parts-per-million (ppm) for minerals Lab Accreditation: NELAP-accredited and EPA-certified partner laboratory network (state-routed by SimpleLab) Kit Contents: color-coded sample collection bottles with required preservatives, instruction sheet, chain-of-custody form, pre-paid 2-day return shipping label, sample collection bag Sample Volume Required: approximately 250 to 500 mL collected from the kitchen cold-water tap Sample Collection Time: 5 to 10 minutes at the kitchen sink Return Shipping: pre-paid 2-day carrier label included; customer drops package at carrier or schedules pickup Lab Turnaround: approximately 5 to 7 business days from lab receipt; total order-to-results timeline approximately 10 business days Results Format: PDF report plus interactive online Tap Score dashboard with EPA MCL benchmarks, color-coded health and aesthetic scores, and per-contaminant explanations Results Delivery: email notification with link to online dashboard; PDF downloadable; results retained in customer account Expert Interpretation Included: yes; free phone consultation with Aidan at 800-460-5810 to interpret results and recommend treatment after lab report is delivered Equipment Recommendation Bias: lab analysis is fully independent of any equipment sale; expert recommendation is non-commissioned Geographic Coverage: all 50 United States; SimpleLab routes specimens to nearest accredited lab partner Customer Privacy: results are confidential; customer owns the report Recommended Testing Frequency: every 2 to 3 years as a baseline; immediately after moving into a new home, a nearby main break or boil-water advisory, plumbing work, or a noticed change in taste, odor, or color Best Used For: baseline ME city tap water characterization, lead-at-the-tap screening for pre-1986 housing, home-buyer due diligence, softener and RO sizing, post-treatment verification Not For: legal/regulatory compliance testing requiring chain-of-custody by a state-certified sampler, real-time field testing, bacteria testing (not relevant on a disinfected municipal supply) Replacement For Test Strips: yes; ICP-MS lab analysis is two to three orders of magnitude more accurate than colorimetric strips and detects contaminants strips cannot (lead, arsenic, uranium at ppb levels, individual metals) Brand: Mid Atlantic Water Test Kit, powered by SimpleLab Tap Score Warranty: kit replacement if collection materials arrive damaged; lab analysis quality controlled per NELAP accreditation Support Phone: 800-460-5810, 7 days a week, 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern Support Email: support@midatlanticwater.net Recommended testing frequency and best uses. Run the full 47-contaminant panel every 2 to 3 years as your routine baseline. Test immediately after any of the following: moving into a new home (especially pre-1986 construction), a main break or boil-water advisory in your area, plumbing or water heater work, a utility notice about lead service lines on your street, a noticeable change in taste, odor, or color at the tap, the birth of an infant who will be drinking the water, or before investing in any whole-house treatment equipment. The kit is the right tool for baseline characterization of ME city tap water, confirming or ruling out lead from home plumbing, sizing a softener or reverse-osmosis system correctly, and verifying that installed treatment is doing its job. Honest limitations. Not for: legal or regulatory compliance testing that requires a state-certified sampler with a documented chain of custody, real-time field testing where you need an answer in minutes, or bacteria testing (a disinfected municipal supply makes that panel redundant; that is also why this kit costs the same as the well kit but spends its analytes differently). Disinfection byproducts (TTHM, HAA5) are monitored and publicly reported by your utility at the system level and are not part of this tap panel; your utility's record for them appears in the free ZIP lookup on this page. On a private well? Use the Maine well water test kit instead; it adds the E. coli and total coliform bacteria panel that matters on an undisinfected supply. Warranty and kit support. If your collection materials arrive damaged, call or email and we replace the kit at no charge. Lab analysis is quality controlled to the standards required by NELAP accreditation, including method blanks, duplicates, matrix spikes, and certified reference materials. Reach support 7 days a week at 800-460-5810 from 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, or email support@midatlanticwater.net any time. Sample-bottle preservatives have a printed expiration; if a kit sits in your home longer than the printed window, request a replacement before collecting your sample.