VA and FHA well water requirements
You're buying a house on a private well with a VA or FHA loan, and somewhere in the paperwork there's a water test you now have to produce. Here's what it actually involves.
There isn't one national contaminant list
This surprises people. The VA does not publish a fixed list of contaminants and thresholds. What it requires is that the water meets the local health authority's standards for safe drinking water. Where there's no local standard, it falls back to state guidance, and then to EPA drinking water standards.
For most of North Idaho that means Panhandle Health District is the authority whose requirements govern your test. FHA works the same way through HUD's handbook, local health authority first.
Practical consequence: the right first question isn't "what does the VA require," it's "what does the health district require, and what does my lender want to see." Those are usually the same, and occasionally the lender wants more.
What almost always gets tested
The common panel across VA and FHA loans:
| Analyte | The standard usually applied |
|---|---|
| Total coliform bacteria | Must be absent |
| E. coli | Must be absent |
| Nitrate | Below 10 mg/L (EPA maximum contaminant level) |
| Nitrite | Below the EPA standard |
| Lead | Below 15 ppb (EPA action level) |
Arsenic gets added in regions where it's a known issue, and parts of the inland Northwest are exactly that, because arsenic occurs naturally in the regional aquifer system. Some lenders and some health districts will require it here. Ask before you test, not after.
Two procedural rules that cost people money
1. The sample usually has to be collected by a disinterested third party.
Meaning: not the buyer, not the seller, and generally not a company that stands to profit from the result. A water treatment company that would sell you the fix can be exactly the wrong party to collect the lender's sample.
We're telling you this on our own page because it directly limits what we can do for you. If you're testing for the loan, ask your lender who they'll accept, often a licensed sampler, a health district collection, or a certified lab's own courier.
2. Results have a shelf life, commonly 90 days from certification.
Test too early in a long escrow and you may be paying twice. Test too late and you're waiting on lab turnaround with a closing date on the calendar.
If the test fails
It doesn't kill the deal. It changes who pays for what.
The usual paths: treat the water, remediate the well, or connect to public water where that's even possible. Which one applies depends entirely on what failed.
- Bacteria present, this is a well and wellhead problem first. Shock chlorination, a look at the casing and cap, sometimes a driller. It gets re-tested after. Treatment equipment is not the first move and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.
- Nitrate above the standard, a treatment question, and a specific one. A softener does not remove nitrate. Neither does a carbon filter. ⚠ And if there's an infant or a pregnancy in the household, the immediate answer is bottled water, before any discussion of equipment.
- Lead above the action level, usually plumbing rather than the well, which changes the fix entirely.
- Arsenic above the standard, a treatment question with a specific answer that is not a softener.
The timeline is the hard part, not the fix. Which is why the water test should start the same week as the inspection.
Where we fit, and where we don't
We don't do the lender's collection. See rule one above, in most cases we're not an acceptable collector for the sample the underwriter sees, because we'd stand to benefit from the result.
What we're useful for is the part after. If your test comes back with something on it and the lender wants remediation before closing, you need to know fast what fixes it, whether it can be done inside your timeline, and what it costs. That's a phone call, and it's free.
We'll also tell you when the answer is "that's a driller, not us," which on a failed bacteria test it usually is.
If you're not against a deadline
If you're a well owner who just wants to know what's in the water, no loan, no closing date, the Water Assessment is a much wider panel than the loan test, a paid assessment, credited in full toward a system if you need one.
The loan test answers "does this pass." The assessment answers "what's actually in it."