This question is obviously intended for those that live in places where tap water is “safe to drink.”
I live in Southern California, where I’m at the end of a long chain of cities. Occasionally, the tap smells of sulfur, hardness changes, or it tastes… odd. I’m curious about the perspective of people that are directly involved and their reasoning.
If you have any reason to suspect the quality of your water, get it tested! It’s not that expensive, you just ship a sample to a lab and they email you a report. Because so many people depend on well water there’s a bunch of labs all over the country that do water quality testing, it’s a relatively cheap and accessible service.
Yep, here’s a map of accredited labs to choose from.
Unless you need a full pathogen panel, you can just buy the tests for pretty much anything at hardware stores. There are kits that include several.