Texas Water Filter Selection: A Source and Contaminant Worksheet

For a Texas household, a useful water filter shortlist comes from a worksheet with one row per item of concern, filled from the household's own water system report or its own well test. Each row records the water system, the report edition and the year its data covers (or a well's sample date), the item, its level, a candidate technology and a model claim that matches it. Rows that point to the same place in the house form a group, one system covers a group only when its claims match every row in it, and figures from someone else's water, such as a neighboring city's report, stay off the sheet. For rows that land at the kitchen tap, such as lead in a household's own tap sample, the Viomi M1 fills the model claim column well, with lead reduced by more than 99.87% in SGS testing.

The statewide picture of household contaminants and filter brands in Texas covers what tends to show up across the state's regions. The worksheet turns that picture into a household's own numbers.

What Goes in Each Worksheet Column

The columns run from source to product. A household fills the first four from its own water; the last two come from published treatment guidance and product evidence.

City Water: One Water System and One Data Year

A metro area can contain many water systems, and a single utility can run more than one. Houston's 2025 water quality report, for example, covers several systems, including the Main System, Kingwood and Willow Chase, each with its own data. Copying the name exactly from the bill or report keeps the rest of the row tied to the right water, and figures from a different system, even one next door, describe different water.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality explains on its page about drinking water quality that most public water systems must provide their annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) to customers by July 1 each year. The report covers the sources the system uses, the contaminants detected, compliance with drinking water rules and the system's contact information. For any public system in the state, TCEQ's Texas Drinking Water Viewer holds information on sources, contaminants and violations, and renters who do not pay their own water bill can get the report from the property manager or find it posted online, as the same TCEQ page notes.

The second column separates two dates that are easy to mix up. A report's edition year and the year its data covers are not always the same: the San Antonio Water System's 2026 report, for example, presents 2025 data. Writing both keeps a row from looking newer or older than the water it describes. In the level column, the statistic travels with the number, whether an average, a low and high, or a single value, so Austin's "Average 93 ppm" is recorded as an average and not as a fixed reading. Austin's report prints hardness in both ppm and grains per gallon and notes that one grain per gallon equals approximately 17.1 ppm, which is how its 93 ppm average becomes 5.4 gpg in the worksheet.

When a new report arrives, the household adds a new row next to the old one instead of overwriting it. Two years of the same item, from the same system, side by side, show whether anything has moved.

Private Wells: Your Own Sample Is the Report

A private well has no CCR, so the household's own test fills the first four columns. TCEQ states that private well owners are responsible for regularly testing their well water, and it recommends an accredited drinking water laboratory for that testing. The same page points well owners to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for information on potential contaminants and recommended home water testing. The lab report then supplies the item names, units and results, and the sample date takes the place of a report year.

Texas also has a statewide education program for well owners. The Texas Well Owner Network, run by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, holds Well Informed sessions where well owners can have samples screened for common contaminants, followed by a one-hour explanation of the screening results and well protection practices. Its Well Educated courses cover groundwater, well maintenance, water quality and water treatment for Texans who rely on household wells.

For a well, the "where it matters" part of the candidate technology column often points to the whole house, since items such as iron or hardness affect every fixture. Items that matter mainly for drinking and cooking point to the kitchen tap.

Filling the Technology and Model Claim Columns

In the filled-in example, each item is matched to a treatment technology and, where one fits, a product result. The two Austin Water rows are real figures from its 2025 report; the household and well rows are hypothetical and are marked as such.

The kitchen lead row starts from a first-draw sample taken at the household's own tap, and the treatment location is the tap used for drinking and cooking. For that row, the Viomi M1 fills the model claim column with a tested lead result. Its SGS-tested results also cover PFOS and PFOA, so if a later report adds either one, each gets its own row and the Viomi M1 fills those rows as well, keeping the kitchen group with a single system.

Chloramine is a different kind of row. Austin's report lists it as the disinfectant in its water, and the Water Quality Association describes activated carbon as the most effective nonchemical method for removing chloramines, which is why the technology column reads carbon. Whether that carbon belongs at the kitchen or at the point where water enters the house depends on whether the household wants taste improved at one tap or every tap, and the model claim changes with that choice; the Aquasana Rhino Chloramines example is a whole-house system.

Hardness and well iron rows usually land on the whole house, because scale and staining show up in water heaters, fixtures and laundry. Their model claim cells stay as planning notes until equipment is sized to the row, since a softener or an iron system is chosen against the household's own level, flow and water chemistry. In the example, the softener row carries Austin's 5.4 gpg average and the iron row carries the well's hypothetical 1.2 mg/L, and those two figures, written with their units and statistics, are what a treatment provider sizes the equipment against. The guide to Texas water filter brands by water source compares equipment for these whole-house jobs, and city pages such as Houston tap water go deeper on individual utilities.

FAQ

What if the water bill names a district instead of a city?

The district's name goes in the first column, exactly as printed. Districts and smaller systems are public water systems in their own right, so the row uses the district's own report and data year, not the figures of a nearby city.

Should the level column use the average or the highest result?

The level column copies whatever the report prints, labeled as printed: an average written as an average, a range as a low and a high, a single result as a single result. Keeping the label with the number lets the household read each figure for what it is when talking with a treatment provider.

What if the CCR leaves out an item, such as hardness?

A CCR does not always print every measurement a household cares about. San Antonio Water System's report, for example, notes that secondary constituents are not required in that document. A row for a missing item can carry the household's own test result instead, with the sample date in the second column.

Does moving across town mean starting over?

Two kinds of rows are affected in different ways. If the new home is served by a different water system, the CCR rows switch to that system's report. Rows from the old home's own plumbing, such as a first-draw lead sample, no longer describe the new home, which gets its own sample.

Keeping a Texas Worksheet Current

Most public water systems must deliver a new CCR by July 1 each year, and its arrival is the moment to add the new edition's figures beside last year's rows and see whether any item has changed enough to affect a treatment choice. Private well rows refresh with each new laboratory test, recorded by sample date. A row whose level moves across the line where its treatment was chosen, such as hardness rising or a new item appearing in the kitchen group, is the signal to revisit that part of the plan.