Panicking - Just received a letter about high lead levels in our water

[TheYearOfTheCat]

We have lived in our old house for over 6 years, and I had always had a nagging doubt about whether there were lead pipes in it. I contacted our water supplier a couple of weeks ago, and they tested the water.

I just got a letter today saying that our lead levels are almost 5 times the safe level - 117 micrograms / litre - The UK safe limit is currently 25 micrograms, and is reducing to 10 micrograms next year.

Crikey, I am really worried about what this has done to our DC, who are 5 & 3. I think I will see if our GP would test for blood lead levels.

That is quite high level but it is not high enough to cause immediate problems, micrograms/L is the same as parts per billion. Did the water company test water that had been sitting in the tap? or was the result from water that had been run for a while? Usually the lead level is much lower if you have run the tap for a while as the lead leaches into the water from the lead pipes. I would ask my GP if they could test as lead has an accumulative effect but I would not worry too much. You should probably drink bottled water though until you can afford to change your pipes!

Thanks for the reassurance. The test was done first thing in the morning, but I ran the tap for about a minute before taking the sample.

I went to Tesco last night and stocked up on bottled water.

You could ask for another test after you have run the water for a 5 mins or so to see if the levels come down below the limits. This may be a solution in the short term. Best of luck!

Well I have been to the GP today, who is taking blood to analyse blood lead levels for me. The Water Service are coming out tomorrow to take another, midday reading.

The thing is, the damage may already be done, but I would prefer to know how much or little exposure there has been.

Hopefully the blood tests will be OK. If your children have high levels there are treatments that can be given to reduce the lead levels but unless thay are showing any symptoms of lead poisioning I can't imagine it will have done them much harm!

Hiya, hope you don’t mind me posting but in a similar boat and wondered where you ended up with this? I hope everything worked out fine!