Exposure & Avoidance · Testing at home

What each home test actually tells you

The useful question isn’t whether a kit is accurate — it’s whether it measures the thing you’re worried about, in the place that thing shows up. Free path first, then the paid kit, then what a result should and shouldn’t tell you.

Not sure where to start?

Your address decides which test comes first

Radon, water contaminants, and lead paint cluster by geography, water source, and build year.

Read the location guide

Thinking about an at-home heavy metals panel?Read this first — most measure the wrong thing for the question people are asking.Does your address change what’s worth testing?What actually varies by location, what doesn’t, and why testing your own home still comes first.

Water$150+

Tap Water Test Panel: Lead, PFAS & Arsenic

Detects: lead, PFAS (PFOA/PFOS and related compounds), arsenic

Certified-lab mail-in analysis against EPA reference methods, not a consumer test strip — results are legally defensible and lab-verified.

Free path first

Utility Consumer Confidence Report (free, annual) plus direct request to your water utility — coverage and free testing vary by utility and don't capture your home's own plumbing.

What the number means: Lead action level 15 ppb (headed to 10 ppb, compliance ~2027); PFOA/PFOS MCL 4.0 ppt each (current); arsenic MCL 10 ppb (public systems only). — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Lead & Heavy Metals: What's Regulated, and Where Exposure Still Comes FromPFAS in Nonstick Cookware: What's Actually Restricted, and Since When

Read the guide

How a test earns a place here

Tier 1Validated and actionable — a recognized method with a published threshold to act on.
Tier 2Defensible with conditions — useful if you know exactly what it does and doesn't detect.
Tier 3Not recommended — never publishes as a recommendation on this site.

The free alternative is always named before any paid option — naming the free path is what makes a paid recommendation credible.

Health screening

Coming soon

Everything above tests a house. The other half of the picture is whether the people in it are current on the screenings their doctor would actually recommend — which is a different question, answered by different tools, and one we’d rather build properly than quickly. It’s coming, because health is most of what safety means.

Not sure where to start? Take the exposure quiz

What each home test actually tells you

Read first

Tap Water Test Panel: Lead, PFAS & Arsenic

Health screening