Plumbers in New Hampshire

What the granite puts in the water

New Hampshire’s nickname is a geological description, and the geology has direct consequences at the kitchen tap.

The state’s bedrock is largely granite and metamorphic rock, and rock of that kind has a high potential to contain uranium. Uranium decays, and one of the products of that decay is radon, a radioactive gas. Groundwater sitting in fractures within the rock picks up both.

The numbers are substantial. About half of New Hampshire’s bedrock wells have radon at levels of concern, and more than half of the state is underlain by groundwater with a fifty per cent or higher probability of elevated radon. USGS mapping shows much of central and eastern New Hampshire with elevated probability of both radon and uranium. Arsenic is on the list too, with an estimated thirty per cent of bedrock wells exceeding the five parts per billion limit enforceable for public water systems, and private wells carrying roughly a one-in-four to one-in-five chance of arsenic above the health standard.

What turns all that from a geological curiosity into a household matter is how many people here are on their own well. About forty-four per cent of New Hampshire households draw their drinking water from a private well, which means no utility is testing or treating anything on their behalf.

Radon in water is not radon in air

This distinction matters and it catches people out, including people who have already dealt with radon once.

Radon in air seeps up from the ground into a building, and it is measured and mitigated with systems that vent it from beneath the foundation. That is the version most homeowners have heard of, and a house that has had that work done is often assumed to be sorted.

Radon in water is a different exposure route. The gas is dissolved in the groundwater itself and is released into the house when water is agitated, which happens every time you run a shower, fill a sink or run a washing machine. A sub-slab mitigation system does nothing about it, because the radon is not coming through the slab. The treatment for water-borne radon is separate equipment, installed on the water supply.

Having dealt with one does not address the other, and in a state where half the bedrock wells carry radon at levels of concern, that is worth knowing before you assume you are covered.

One test rather than a list of worries

The genuinely useful piece of guidance here comes from the state itself. The environmental services department recommends testing a Standard Analysis suite covering arsenic, bacteria, lead, uranium and other important parameters.

That recommendation does more work than it appears to. Faced with a list of possible contaminants, most homeowners either test for nothing or test for one thing at a time, which is more expensive overall and much more likely to miss something. A single suite covering the parameters that actually matter here converts an intimidating problem into one appointment.

The other reason to take it seriously is that none of the main New Hampshire concerns are detectable by a person. Arsenic, uranium and radon are all invisible, tasteless and odourless in water. Clear, good-tasting water is entirely consistent with any of them. That is different from iron staining or a sulfur smell, where your senses give you a prompt. If you are on a well here, water that seems fine is precisely the case where testing has the most to tell you.

Winter on old housing

The seasonal half of New Hampshire plumbing follows the northern New England pattern, with the specific local hazard being the nor’easter that takes the power out.

Older housing here routes pipe through unheated basements, crawl spaces, attics and exterior walls. Those spaces stay below freezing for months, and it is the house’s heat that keeps the pipe within them survivable. Lose that heat for a day or two and lines freeze that would have handled an ordinary January night without difficulty. Insulating the accessible runs, disconnecting hoses in autumn and confirming that the main shutoff turns are all October jobs.

For the Lakes Region and mountain properties that stand empty, draining rather than turning down is the standard: shut off at the main, empty the supply lines and the water heater, put non-toxic antifreeze in every trap, and deal with the well pump and pressure tank. Every plumber we dispatch in New Hampshire holds the state licence and pulls the local permit where the work requires one.