💧 Borewell water in our area has started tasting off, anyone else noticing this?

Our building relies on a shared borewell along with the municipal supply, and for the first time in the six years I have lived here, the borewell water has started having a noticeable taste and smell, slightly metallic and a bit off in a way that is hard to describe precisely but easy enough to notice the moment you fill a glass straight from the tap without letting it run first. Mentioned it to the building watchman, who said a couple of other residents had complained about the same thing over the past two or three weeks, though nobody had actually done anything beyond complaining informally among themselves so far. We have not gotten it tested by any lab yet, which in hindsight is probably the first thing that should have happened before anyone started speculating about causes among themselves. A neighbor who works in a related field mentioned that borewell water quality can shift for a number of reasons, seasonal changes in the groundwater table, something nearby affecting the soil, or simply the borewell itself ageing and needing proper maintenance or a deeper redrill after enough years of use. Without an actual test though, all of that remains pure guesswork rather than anything we can act on with any confidence. For now most of us have switched to using only the municipal supply for drinking and cooking, keeping the borewell water for washing and other non drinking uses until we figure out what is actually going on, which is a reasonable precaution but not really a long term solution if the borewell is genuinely our building's backup source during municipal supply gaps that do happen occasionally in summer months here. Has anyone dealt with a similar sudden change in borewell water quality, and if so, what did an actual water test end up showing, and roughly what does getting one done cost and take in terms of time here?

Given it is specifically for drinking water, I would genuinely push to get this tested sooner rather than waiting for a few more weeks of informal watchman complaints to pile up first. Even if it does turn out to be something relatively minor like a seasonal shift, ruling out anything actually harmful properly with an real test seems worth the small cost and effort involved here.

Seasonal shifts in the groundwater table genuinely can change taste noticeably without anything actually being wrong long term, this happened with my parents' borewell every year right before monsoon specifically and always cleared up naturally once the rains properly set in and the water table recovered. Worth checking if this started right before this particular season shift too before assuming something more serious is happening.

Six years is actually a reasonable stretch for a borewell before this kind of issue starts showing up, ours started having similar problems around year seven and it turned out the casing pipe genuinely needed replacing rather than anything wrong with the groundwater source itself. Might be worth asking whoever originally drilled it whether a redrill or casing check is due around this specific age.

Got our building's water tested last year through a private lab, cost around twelve hundred rupees for a fairly complete report covering the common contaminants, and the whole process took about five working days from sample collection to getting the actual results back. Worth doing sooner rather than later honestly, the peace of mind alone was worth the relatively small cost involved.

Switching to municipal water for drinking and cooking while keeping borewell for washing is exactly what we did too during our own similar scare, and honestly it worked fine as a temporary arrangement for close to two months while we sorted out the actual borewell issue properly. Just make sure the municipal supply itself is reliable enough in your area to actually depend on for that stretch of time.

Any recent construction or digging happening nearby could easily be disturbing the groundwater table enough to change taste and quality temporarily, this happened in my own area when a new building foundation was being dug just two streets away last year. It settled back mostly to normal after a few months once that specific construction phase finished, though I understand that is not a guaranteed explanation for your specific situation.

Everyone complaining informally without anyone actually getting it tested is such a common pattern honestly, complaints spread through word of mouth in the building but nobody wants to be the one to spend the money or make the calls to actually get it checked properly. Might be worth you personally taking the lead on organizing a shared test with a few other residents splitting the cost between everyone.

The metallic taste description matches exactly what happened with our building's borewell about two years back, started subtly and got more noticeable over just a couple of weeks before anyone actually took it seriously enough to investigate further. In our case it turned out to be a corroding section of the actual pipe rather than the groundwater itself, which was oddly a relief once we finally found out what it actually was.