Anyone following this blog probably knows we are in the process of selling our house in NH and moving back to PA. There are lots of reasons why we are doing this, almost none of which are about NH. Anyway, whenever you buy or sell a house, inspections are in order. Because we have well water, a water test was performed. This was not a major concern for us. We had the water tested before we moved in an annual water test just a few months ago. Unfortunately there was one one positive marker that came up and that was for arsenic.
Arsenic is not uncommon in New England wells, there's a reason why the test is always included in the water profile. When we moved in, we were aware of the arsenic in the water and installed a reverse osmosis system that we used for all drinking and cooking water. What we discovered the other day was the the arsenic levels in our water had increased and that a mitigation system in addition to the single R.O. drinking line was recommended. We are still below the levels where arsenic can be absorbed through the skin but since the level has risen it makes sense to take care of things before we hit the red zone. My question was why the arsenic wasn't detected during the annual water test? Apparently since we didn't have a mitigation system in place it wasn't included in the panel and neither of us remembered to add it in.
The easy answer is that we though we had taken care of it. We had installed a pretty comprehensive water treatment system with a reverse osmosis line for drinking water and although we made a point of only drinking the RO water, it was easy to forget why we had it installed in the first place. It was easy to become complacent.
Complacency is an insidious thing. You think you've got things under control so you don't question. You don't shake the foundations to make sure they are secure. Sure things change slowly, but they do change and that's why it's important to ask questions, to re-visit standards, and to update your approach to things. We're doing that now. Thinking about what we do and how we approach things to see if we need to shake things up a bit. Change is good. Ruts slowly develop around where you're standing if you're not paying attention. So ask yourself, what haven't I changed in a while? Give yourself a little inspection to see where things may have gone off track and then figure out how to make things even better than they were in the first place.
Years Past
January 29, 2015
January 29, 2014
January 29, 2013
January 29, 2012
January 29, 2011
January 29, 2010
January 29, 2009
January 29, 2008
January 29, 2007
January 29, 2006
January 29, 2005
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