Certified well water labs in New Hampshire (2026)

WellTestList · Tuesday, September 29, 2026 · state page

NHDES and the Be Well Informed tool put nearly half of New Hampshire people on private wells — Be Well Informed says over 500,000 residents. USGS and older DHHS summaries put the share somewhere in the high-30s to mid-40s percent depending on the year and method, so treat “nearly half” as the state’s own framing, not a single census count. Those taps are not under the Safe Drinking Water Act the way public systems are. You pick a NHELAP-accredited laboratory that serves private wells — the state Public Health Lab in Concord, or a commercial lab on NHDES’s private-well list — and match the panel to bedrock arsenic, radon, manganese, and PFAS. Enter results in Be Well Informed when the report lands.

The short version

1. Order bottles from an accredited lab that takes private-well samples. NHDES’s April 2026 guidance lists NHELAP labs that serve private well users (lab list updated 9/20/2024). Start with the Home Owner Container Request for the DHHS Public Health Lab, or call a commercial lab on that list for a Standard / home-buyer / radon panel.
2. Hit the bacteria clock the kit names. Commercial CoC forms we checked require a quick return (Eastern Analytical: within 24 hours, residential drop-off Mon–Thu only). Follow your kit’s hold time and hours — wrong bottle or a late bacteria sample wastes the fee.
3. Match the panel to NH rock and to the purpose of the test. Annual: bacteria, nitrate, nitrite. Every 3–5 years: the rest of NHDES’s list (arsenic, radon, uranium, metals, PFAS, and more). Buying? RSA 477:4-d is a disclosure statute — lenders and buyers still often want a current panel.

How New Hampshire’s system actually works

NHDES Private Wells is the clearest state page: nearly half of residents use a private well; arsenic and radon occur naturally in rock and soil, along with manganese and coliform bacteria; PFAS and MTBE show up as groundwater pollutants. NHDES recommends regular testing and treatment when needed. Drinking Water and Groundwater Bureau: (603) 271-2513, dwgbinfo@des.nh.gov (hours Mon–Fri 8 a.m.–4 p.m. on DES pages).

The April 2026 Water Testing Guidance for Private Well Users (PDF) is the homeowner checklist: what to test for, when, and which accredited labs serve private wells. Results interpretation: Be Well Informed.

NHELAP accredits environmental labs. For live accreditation status by method, use NHDES’s Accredited Laboratory Search. Accreditation questions on the private-well PDF: (603) 271-2998 / (603) 271-5314, nhelap@des.nh.gov. NHDES does not endorse specific labs.

The NH Public Health Laboratories Water Analysis Laboratory (WAL) offers homeowner private-well testing on a fee-for-service basis — report plus interpretation, with staff available for an unbiased read of the results. Order bottles through the DES Home Owner Container Request form (Standard Analysis, home-buyer packages, radon, arsenic-only, and other options appear on that form). Lab address and phone: 29 Hazen Drive, Concord; (603) 271-3445; waterlab@dhhs.nh.gov. We could not find a published 2026 homeowner dollar fee table on DHHS pages tonight — the old RSA 131:3-a statutory schedule was repealed in 2025/2026 — so call the lab or use LabOnline guidance before you assume a price.

PFAS: NHDES has sampled private wells since 2016. Request sampling via the PFAS private wells page (request form linked there). Submitting a request does not guarantee sampling — NHDES prioritizes by records and eligibility. Check the Sampling Dashboard for prior results. At minimum, NHDES recommends testing for the four PFAS with state MCLs: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA.

Options we verified

Fees and rules live on the NHDES April 2026 PDF, lab residential pages / CoC forms, statute pages, and the mail-in product pages. What we could verify with a public URL tonight:

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We did not find published county health-department private-well fee sheets tonight the way Maryland or Colorado counties post them. New Hampshire’s public homeowner path is NHDES guidance + NHELAP labs (including the state PHL). Call your town or county environmental health if you have a local program — we are not inventing town fees. Nelson Analytical is on the official list and publishes kit forms online, but two of their price pages disagreed tonight — call Manchester (603) 622-0200 or Keene (603) 357-2577 rather than trusting a scraped dollar.

Labs that clearly serve private wells (from NHDES’s list)

Names, phones, addresses, and websites below are copied from NHDES’s Water Testing Guidance for Private Well Users PDF (guidance April 2026; lab list updated 9/20/2024). For live accreditation by method, use the Accredited Laboratory Search. NHDES does not endorse specific labs. We are not inventing commercial fees beyond the public pages noted above. Call for private-well acceptance, bottles, hold times, current fees, and whether your lender’s analyte list is covered.

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New England Radon’s name signals radon work — still confirm whether they run the full NHDES-recommended private-well panel before you treat them as a one-stop Standard Analysis shop. For PFAS methods and accredited shops beyond this general list, see our PFAS Method 533 / 537.1 guide and NHDES’s PFAS pages.

What NHDES guidance actually warrants

Match the panel to the land. The April 2026 private-well PDF, the Private Wells page, and Be Well Informed line up on the core schedule:

• Every year: total coliform, E. coli, nitrate and nitrite. Especially before water goes to an infant under six months. If total coliform is present, treat it as a well-structure / contamination warning — boiling is a short-term fix only for microbes, not for nitrate or arsenic.
• Every 3–5 years / baseline: arsenic, chloride, copper (stagnant and flushed), fluoride, hardness, iron, lead (stagnant and flushed), manganese, pH, radon, sodium, uranium, and PFAS (PFHxS, PFNA, PFOA, PFOS). NHDES’s “Standard Analysis” language on Be Well Informed maps onto the common-pollutant set.
• Arsenic (bedrock): NHDES names arsenic as a natural rock-and-soil concern. Older DHHS tracking material has cited roughly one in five wells above the public-system arsenic standard — useful as a hedge, not as your well’s result. Test; do not guess from a neighbor.
• Radon and uranium in water: on the 3–5 year list. USGS maps put elevated radon probability across much of the state. Home-buyer packages at Granite State and Eastern Analytical bundle radon (and often uranium). Follow bottle instructions — radon leaves water if the sample is mishandled.
• Manganese and iron: named on NHDES private-well pages as common groundwater issues that can affect health and the home.
• Nitrate near septic or agriculture: take the annual nitrate/nitrite seriously. Public-supply MCL guidance is 10 mg/L as nitrogen. Do not boil high-nitrate water — boiling concentrates it.
• PFAS concern: NHDES recommends private-well PFAS testing; southern NH has been especially affected. Use the state request form or a PFAS-accredited lab. Details: PFAS Method 533 / 537.1.
• After a flood, well work, or a change in taste / color / odor: bacteria first. See our after-a-flood guide.

When the Certificate of Analysis arrives, more: how to read a well water report. Paste numbers into Be Well Informed for treatment pointers.

Hardware-store strips are screening-only. Softener sales “tests” are screening-only. Neither is what a lender means by “tested.”

Hold times, collection, and shipping

Plan around the lab you chose. Eastern Analytical’s residential CoC says return samples within 24 hours and accepts residential samples Monday through Thursday only. Granite State’s site notes a 24/7 Derry lobby for kit pickup and an after-hours fridge (including Saturday receipt except holidays) — still follow the hold time printed in your kit. For the state Public Health Lab, ask when you order bottles at (603) 271-3445; we did not find a published hold-time number on the pages we fetched tonight. Use the lab’s bottles and forms — wrong container, fill line, or missing date/time can invalidate the sample. More after weather events: what to test after a flood.

Mail-in kits that work from New Hampshire

Independent mail-in labs ship to and from New Hampshire as ordinary domestic US kits. They email a PDF. They are not selling you a softener in the same breath. For a lender or a named-lab letter, confirm the analyzing lab is NHELAP-accredited for the analytes named — mail-in self-collect often does not satisfy that path. Listed prices we checked on September 29, 2026:

• Tap Score / SimpleLab Essential Well: $209 listed (54 analytes; standard shipping and prepaid return on the product page).
• National Testing Laboratories WaterCheck Basic: $220 listed plus free delivery on watercheck.com. Next-day return shipping is not included. Budget for overnight return on the bacteria bottle.

Those are listed prices, not coupons. Kits change. Read the current product page before you buy. If a NHELAP lab’s annual bacteria + nitrate/nitrite package covers your yearly question and you can hit the hold window — check that path before you spend $200 on a national kit for the same core question.

Side by side for a New Hampshire well

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Real estate and lenders

New Hampshire does not appear to require a private-well water test as a condition of residential sale the way Maryland’s § 10-713 does. What New Hampshire does require is disclosure. Under RSA 477:4-d, before or during preparation of an offer on a one-to-four-family dwelling, the seller must disclose in writing, for a private water supply: system type and location, malfunctions, date of installation, date of the most recent water test, and whether the seller has experienced an unsatisfactory test or a test with notations. The buyer acknowledges receipt. If the information is unavailable, the seller must say so in writing. That is a disclosure duty — not a mandate that a new test be run before closing. Buyers and lenders still often insist on a current panel (Granite State’s Comprehensive Plus Uranium and Eastern Analytical’s Home Buyers SKU are the DES-named home-buyer-style bundles we could price tonight).

Lenders and title companies may still name a lab, form, or “mortgage test” panel — use what they named. More: home purchase / lender chain of custody.

Related: Maine · New York · Maryland · Pennsylvania · PFAS 533 / 537.1 · how to read a report · after a flood · lender / CoC · cost table · Home Depot free kit vs a certified lab · How it works · back to the directory.