Philly, It’s Time to Test Your Drinking Water

Tern Water’s “Know Your Water” testing kit. Photo via Twitter.

Even if you don’t live near a Sunoco drilling site, you might be interested in learning what’s in your drinking water.

Philadelphia startup Tern Water has officially made their Know Your Water test kits available to the public. They’re currently on sale for just $15 and offer a uniquely inexpensive way to test the chemical content of your home’s drinking water.

Tern Water’s CEO and founder Mohamed Zerban hopes that testing kit results will help the company collect data to develop a deep understanding of the state of Philadelphia’s drinking water neighborhood by neighborhood.

The mail-order kit arrives in a box that includes a small vial and a pre-stamped return envelope. Customers must simply fill the vial with water from their home faucet and ship it back to the startup’s offices, where Zerban and his team test the sample. Within 10 days, the group sends a full report to the customer, with information that includes the water’s pH level and the concentrations of various chemicals like chlorine, fluoride, lead, and chloride.

“[Know Your Water] helps transition the cloudiness of information that’s being thrown at them into something that’s organized and data-driven,” Zerban told Philadelphia Magazine.

Tern’s mission of improving sustainability within the home has long been important to Zerban, who worked with Philadelphia’s Water Department during his time at Drexel. Along with co-founder Connor White, the two are well on their way toward boosting the accessibility of clean drinking water for all Philadelphia residents.

Tern Water’s next project is the Tern Faucet, a smart faucet scheduled for release this fall.

Follow @HaleySWeiss on Twitter.