How it works
If you typed a ZIP on the homepage: we did not look it up. There is no national search yet. Call county environmental health and ask for private-well bacteria and nitrate. That is still the fastest local answer. The rest of this page is the rest of the job.
A private well is not on the Safe Drinking Water Act. Nobody is sampling yours unless you arrange it. CDC’s current guidance is to test at least once a year for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids, and pH, and to ask the health department what else is a problem where you live. Test again if someone is pregnant, a child moves in, the well is repaired, there is a flood, or the water changes.
Start with county environmental health. Bacteria and nitrate are the annual minimum, and they are often cheap or free. A hardware-store strip kit is screening-only. It will not stand in for a lab on bacteria, and it is not what a lender means by “tested.”
Hold times are real. The bacteria bottle is not a souvenir. Keep it cold. Most labs need it within about 24 to 30 hours. Do not collect on Friday. Do not leave it in a hot car. If the lab marks the sample invalid, that is the clock, not a conspiracy. Metals and nitrate are more patient. Bacteria is not.
A result that exists only in a salesperson’s mouth is not a result. Ask for a PDF from a named laboratory, using named methods. If they will not email that, you learned the useful fact: this was a visit. The Home Depot free-kit page is about that pattern.
Mail-in kits from independent labs — Tap Score / SimpleLab, National Testing Laboratories (Watercheck) — exist for people who want a broader panel and a file they can keep. They are not a substitute for a lender’s chain-of-custody instructions. They are also not an appointment to sell you a softener.
Certified drop-off labs are reached through each state’s certification program. EPA still publishes that as a PDF of contacts. Many of those labs only serve utilities. Call before you drive with a bottle.
This site will add one state or lab page each night: who takes a homeowner sample, what they charge in a band, whether they email a PDF, and when the bacteria window closes. Until a given state is up, the three moves are the same. County first. Mail-in if you want a file this month. A local certified lab if a bank named one.