Top Pick
Tap Score
Advanced Home Water Test Kit
- Highlights
- Money-back guarantee, Lab analysis, For Tap water, Comprehensive testing
8.4
Performance score
010
Where to buy
- AmazonSee price
Pros
- Tests a wide range of analytes, providing significantly more detail than free county or state water tests.
- Results come with an easy-to-read report that scores your water and includes specific treatment recommendations.
- Customer support is staffed by knowledgeable engineers and scientists who walk you through results and filtration options at no extra charge.
- The report lets you compare your results against state and national benchmarks, and you can download it to share with water treatment companies.
Cons
- Instructions are spread across multiple small cards and pamphlets, and important details are easy to miss if you don't read every sheet before starting.
- Results take a couple of weeks to come back.
- Online registration can be clunky; at least one person had to contact the company to get their kit registered properly.
- Mail-to-lab kit, not a DIY test strip. You collect a water sample at home, ship it back with the prepaid label, and an accredited lab analyzes it for 111+ analytes including metals, VOCs, disinfection byproducts, and petroleum compounds.
- Designed specifically for homes on municipal water. City water treatment creates disinfection byproducts (from chlorine and chloramine) that only show up when you sample at the tap, not in your utility's annual report.
- Particularly relevant for older homes (pre-1986 construction), households with young children, or anyone noticing chlorine taste, plastic-like odors, or discolored water.
- Unlike at-home test strips that check 15-20 parameters with color-matching, this is a non-toxic water test kit that routes your sample through the same certified lab infrastructure used for regulatory testing, covering a much broader range of contaminants.
- Results come back in about five business days as an interactive online report (or downloadable PDF) that benchmarks your water against health and safety standards and includes filtration recommendations. Tap Score has no affiliation with any treatment or filtration companies, so the advice isn't tied to product sales.
- Tap Score coordinates testing across a network of 250+ independent labs rather than operating its own. Each lab holds ISO/IEC 17025 certification and is audited by third-party accrediting bodies.
