How do i check water ph?
- posted
7 years ago
How do i check water ph?
Fri, 06 Jan 2017 03:44:01 GMT, Ciny responded:
replying to Ciny, Grampy wrote: Use one these:
You are far better off with one of these I do water testing for the state and I have used a range of digital testers, my current one is an $8000 YSI Pro and if I don't calibrate it every time I use it, the results are all over the place. A cheap one you do not calibrate is just a random number generator that may give you a rough idea of pH but I would not trust it. The chemical testers may not get you out to 2 decimal places but it will be accurate +/- 0.4 points every time.
Good comments by someone who appears current. I'm a retired chemist but it has been years since I worked at the bench. pH meters were expensive and finicky and now it appears you can get them cheaply but these are finicky.
I've got a bunch of old pH papers left over from my lab days. Work OK but maybe no more accurate than half a unit which is fine for most of the stuff I want to check like house water and soil.
What was the problem? I worked for Orion Research back in the early '80s and recall the Ross electrodes as being quite stable. I'm a programmer though and not a chemist so I viewed them as a voltage source for the A/D that gave me numbers to play with.
The chemists were a strange lot, including Dr. Ross.
I just know I have been issued Hanna and YSI water testing instruments and if they are not calibrated frequently, you can't trust them.
In the lab I might be checking pH of a reaction every day and calibration was constantly done. As a home owner some cheap meter that you might only use every few months would also have to be checked when used. Papers would be more reliable.
The phenol testers are as good as litmus paper, perhaps better. The cheap one you use for a pool is plenty for most things. We had a more precise phenol tester that used a slightly different chemical that had a narrower range. I still use it as a sanity check on my digital meter. The old saying goes the difference between accuracy and precision is a digital meter can give you a wildly inaccurate measurement, precise down to 3 decimal places.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.