Water treatment in Aurora for Denver Metro homes

Aurora's tap water is supplied by Aurora Water, which operates and treats every drinking-water system in the city. About 95% of the supply is surface water from the South Platte alluvial aquifer plus Denver Water augmentation. Aurora operates three water treatment plants that hold the highest Partnership for Safe Water designation and runs the Prairie Waters potable reuse system. What leaves the plant and what reaches your faucet are two different stories, though — the tap inside city limits still has chlorine residual and disinfection byproducts on board, and older homes in the historic neighborhoods often have galvanized service lines or lead solder that pick up trace metals between the main and the faucet. A real on-site test at your address is the only way to know what your tap delivers.

Aurora Water publishes a long list in its annual report — arsenic, chlorite, chromium, haloacetic acids, radiological contaminants (including radium), fluoride, bromodichloromethane, and total trihalomethanes. The chlorine residual sitting in the distribution main overnight generates HAA5 and trihalomethanes, which is why a carbon stage ahead of the drinking-water tap matters. In the older in-town neighborhoods — Aurora Hills, City Center North, Morris Heights — the everyday concern is plumbing-side: galvanized service lines in pre-1990 homes, lead supply lines in historic City Center North, and trace lead and copper pickup at the tap inside any pre-1986 house. Testing at your address sorts out which are actually present.

For homes on the Aurora Water supply, test at least once a year for hardness, chlorine residual, pH, total dissolved solids, lead and copper (especially if your home was built before 1986), and the disinfection byproducts you want kept down. For homes on a private well on the outer reaches, test annually for coliform bacteria, nitrates, iron, and manganese. Test again after a major storm or snowmelt pulse, after work on the well, pump, or plumbing, and after remodeling in a pre-1980 home where you have disturbed solder or galvanized pipe. Once a year is the minimum — more often if your source or plumbing changes.

Most do. Aurora Water's finished supply comes out of the plant with measurable hardness — about 99.9 mg/L (5.8 gpg), which is moderately hard on the USGS scale. Inside many homes the working hardness climbs above that because of mineral pickup in the older service lines and the long distribution runs to the outer neighborhoods. You'll see it as scale on faucets and shower glass, spotting on glassware, and wear on water heaters, dishwashers, washing machines, and ice makers. On the outer-lying acreage and farm reaches where homes run on private wells, the working hardness is well above the in-city average. A properly sized ion-exchange water softener for your Aurora home removes the calcium and magnesium that drive the damage.

Yes. Our Denver Metro office at (303) 248-3390 covers Aurora and the surrounding inner-ring east communities, with service techs running scheduled routes across the I-70 / I-225 / E-470 corridors year-round. On-site testing, softener and reverse osmosis installs, and filtration work on the older in-town homes with galvanized pipe or pre-1986 plumbing, plus the outer eastern acreage reaches with private wells, are routine for that crew. Statewide dispatch out of our four regional offices covers anything further out, including homes near Bennett and Watkins on the far eastern edge.

For most Aurora homes, yes. Aurora Water meets federal and state standards at the plant, but chlorine residual, disinfection byproducts, trace metals from older plumbing, and naturally occurring radium are all still present at the tap to some degree. A reverse osmosis system in your Aurora home pulls those down to drinking-water levels at the one tap your family drinks from. An under-sink RO unit with a carbon stage ahead of the membrane is the standard setup for Aurora Water supply homes. For outer-well properties, RO also handles nitrates and any arsenic the well delivers.