KHQ reports that a West Plains, Washington homeowner said PFAS in her private well became an issue during the sale of her 10-acre property. Homeowner Liz Powell said a neighbor urged her to test the water two years ago and that the results were “off the charts.” She said the contamination also affected food grown on the farm, eggs from her chickens and the ability to keep goats. When she listed the property, Powell said her realtor estimated the contamination reduced its value by roughly $80,000 and advised installing a whole-house filter. An invoice reviewed by KHQ showed she paid more than $9,000 for the system in May, then learned from the Washington Department of Ecology that she was near the top of the list for a complimentary filter. Ecology told KHQ that it cannot require responsible parties to reimburse a filtration purchase.

Waterloop reports that indoor residential water use in single-family homes has fallen 44 percent since 1999, from 69.3 to 38.5 gallons per person per day. In a discussion of the Water Research Foundation’s 2026 Residential End Uses of Water update, Peter Mayer of WaterDM says the shift is mostly a technology and standards story, not a wholesale change in household behavior. The study draws on billing records from 52 utilities in the United States and Canada, plus data from more than 69,000 single-family and 1,000 multifamily homes. Laundry posted the largest per-person savings, nearly 68 percent, as federal energy standards moved the market toward more efficient washers. Average toilet flush volume also fell from about 3.5 gallons to 1.84. The research also places small, individually metered multifamily buildings at 39.8 gallons per person per day. With indoor water savings becoming harder to find, outdoor landscapes and irrigation are the next frontier.

AquaLock™ push-to-connect fittings, formerly known as SeaTech, help make CTS-sized pipe connections quickly without special tools. Specialty Sales carries fitting options for marine, RV, residential, and commercial plumbing applications.

A few practical reasons to look at AquaLock:

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Water Quality Association President Greg Reyneke recently used the Traverse Mountain, Utah thallium case to set out a standard for water professionals facing a contaminant report. In 2007, thallium measured 1.9 ppb: just under the EPA’s legal limit of 2 ppb and well above its 0.5 ppb health goal. By 2010, it had risen to 2.6 ppb, above the legal limit. After the system was remediated, later tests did not detect thallium. Reyneke’s concern is what can happen in the gap between a real contaminant concern and a household’s understanding of it: salespeople can manipulate, or omit, water-quality data to make a sale. His suggested sequence is to test first to confirm the contaminant, select properly sized certified equipment, then test again after installation to verify that it is working. He adds that certified people and certified products are a reasonable expectation before a homeowner spends money.

Water Filter Guru’s laboratory review gives the Kind Water Pro-RO, a conventional six-stage under-sink reverse-osmosis system, a score of 8.72/10 and clear qualifications for buyers comparing compact units. Its first four stages sit in one cartridge and the tank clips to the back, a design intended to shrink the system’s footprint. In Tap Score testing of Colorado city water, the team reports total trihalomethanes fell from 22.7 ppb to zero and uranium was completely removed. The system is WQA-certified to reduce 13 contaminants under NSF/ANSI 58 and CSA B483.1, but the review found no measurable remineralization from its marketed calcite stage: calcium dropped from 73.3 ppm to 0.823 ppm and pH fell from 8.0 to 6.9. It also tested at 23.44 gallons per day, the slowest under-sink RO reviewed, with estimated annual replacement costs of $321.27.