(704) 773-5121 Book my free water test

They’ll charge you an arm and a leg for the same kind of system.

We’re honest, we’re lower priced, and we won’t play games. $2,900 city. $4,500 well. Installed. Water filtration and softening for Charlotte, Rock Hill and Fort Mill, at two rates published before you call anybody.

  • $2,900 City water system, installed. About $121 a month, 24 months at 0%.
  • $4,500 Well water system, installed. About $188 a month.
  • $7,500–$11,000 What a premium national dealer quotes for a comparable full system in this market.

Market range: survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026, compiled from Angi, HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide and published dealer quotes

Nobody publishes a lower installed price. Find one, we’ll beat it.

Book my free water test See published prices

Start with the public record

Type your town. You get what your own utility’s report says, before anybody sells you anything.

Or:
What the reports say

Legal is not the same as clean.
Neither is scary.

Every utility in this metro passes its federal tests. Those limits are annual averages, most of them written decades ago, and they are a floor rather than a goal. Three numbers worth knowing before anyone quotes you a system.

63.7ppb

Chlorination byproducts, at 80% of the ceiling

Disinfecting lake water creates trihalomethanes, which are linked to cancer. Charlotte’s highest running annual average was 63.7 ppb against an 80 ppb federal limit, with individual samples between 17.2 and 77.4. That is legal, it is not a violation, and it is also not zero. Carbon and reverse osmosis remove them.

Charlotte Water 2025 Consumer Confidence Report

19.5% of wells

Arsenic, in the Union County wells that got tested

Peer-reviewed analysis of more than 5,100 state-laboratory tests found arsenic at or above the 10 ppb federal limit in 1,003 of 5,154 Union County well tests. Those are wells somebody chose to test. Nobody is required to test yours, and nobody will tell you if it changes.

Eaves et al., NCWELL database, Science of the Total Environment 2022 · Sanders et al., Environment International 2012

32mg/L

And your city water is already soft

Charlotte’s total hardness reads 32 mg/L, which works out to about 1.9 grains per gallon and sits inside the soft band. If somebody is selling you a softener for Charlotte city water, ask them to show you that number before they show you a price.

Charlotte Water 2025 Consumer Confidence Report

We will tell you when you do not need us.

The free test is not a sales visit with a briefcase. We measure your water at your own tap, hand you the readings whether you buy or not, and tell you which of four things you actually have: nothing, a taste problem, a hardness problem, or a well problem. Only two of those cost $2,900 or $4,500 to fix, and one of them costs nothing at all.

Book my free water test

Free · No obligation · No same-day-only discount

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.

  1. Book the test

    Pick a time, including weekday evenings and Saturday mornings. It takes about 45 minutes and it costs nothing.

  2. We measure

    Hardness, chlorine, total dissolved solids, pH and iron, read at your kitchen tap while you watch. You keep the readings.

  3. You get a number

    The standard rate if the standard build is what your water needs, or a smaller custom number if it is not. Plus the running cost for the first year. Written down before we leave.

  4. We install

    Usually inside the same week. Licensed install, tested on the spot, old equipment hauled away.

Published pricing

Two standard rates. Both on this page.

Clean water at a standard rate. That is what the name means, and these are the rates. A city house and a well house are the two things a house can be, so there are two prices. They are the same in every house we install in, they are the same on the invoice, and they do not move because you seem interested or because it is a Friday afternoon.

Whole-house filtration and softening tanks for the city water standard
If you are on city water

The city water system

$2,900installed · about $121/mo, 24 months at 0%
  • Whole-house filtration plus softening, at the point water enters the house
  • Treated water at every tap, shower, ice maker and appliance
  • Takes down chlorine and the trihalomethanes disinfection leaves behind
  • Lifetime tank and valve warranty
Book my free water test
Dual-tank well water treatment system for the well water standard
If you are on a well

The well water system

$4,500installed · about $188/mo, 24 months at 0%
  • Multi-stage treatment for iron, sulfur, sediment, low pH and bacteria
  • Built for Piedmont bedrock wells in York, Lancaster, Union and Gaston
  • Softening sized to the well’s hardness reading, where it genuinely earns its keep
  • Lifetime tank and valve warranty
Book my free water test

Nobody publishes a lower installed price. Find one, we’ll beat it.

That stands against both rates, the $2,900 and the $4,500.

Published, installed, like-for-like, Charlotte metro. Show us a competitor’s own published installed price for a comparable whole-home system in our service area and we will beat it. It has to be a number they printed, not one somebody said in a kitchen, because a price nobody will print is not a price.

Send us the page

A premium national dealer quotes $7,500 to $11,000 for a comparable full system in this market. Ours are $2,900 and $4,500, installed, published. We are not going to characterize that gap with an adjective.

Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026, compiled from Angi, HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide and published Culligan, Kinetico, RainSoft and EcoWater dealer quotes

Custom is quoted, and it usually costs less. If your house needs less than the standard system, a drinking-water system but no softening, say, that is quoted on its own and it lands under the standard rate. The standard is a ceiling for a typical house, not a starting point.

Every price we publish, installed: $2,900 city mixed-bed system with RO · $3,500 dual-tank city system with RO · $4,500 well system · $2,300 coconut-carbon or $2,500 catalytic-carbon system with RO, no softening · $700 tankless RO on its own. Financing is 24 months at 0%, which is about $121 a month on the city rate and about $188 on the well rate.

The test is free. The price is public. There’s nothing left to hide.

What is actually in those two numbers.

Five pieces of equipment, and the standard build combines them differently depending on what your water turns out to be. Any one of them can also be quoted on its own.

Complete Home System: whole-house filtration and softening tanks
Whole home

Complete Home System

Whole-house filtration plus softening. Treated water at every tap, shower and appliance in the house, on a lifetime tank and valve warranty. This is the equipment behind the $2,900 city water standard.

$2,900the city water standard, installed Book my free water test
Whole-home water softener tank
Softening

Water Softener

Kills scale, protects the water heater and the dishwasher, and clears the film off glassware. Part of both standard builds. On Charlotte city water, which reads soft at 32 mg/L, we will usually talk you out of it on its own.

In both standardsquoted alone if that is all you need
HW800 AlkaPro tankless reverse osmosis system
Drinking water

HW800 AlkaPro RO

Seven-stage tankless reverse osmosis. 800 gallons a day, pH balanced, no storage tank under the sink. This is the equipment class that removes PFAS and disinfection byproducts from what you actually drink.

Quoted separatelyon its own or added to a standard
5-stage under-sink reverse osmosis system
Drinking water

5-Stage Reverse Osmosis

The simple, proven under-sink upgrade for taste, chlorine and cooking water. For a lot of Charlotte city homes this alone is the correct answer, and it costs well under either standard.

Quoted separatelytankless RO included; $700 on its own
Dual-tank well water treatment system
Well specialist

Well Water System

Multi-stage treatment for iron, sulfur, sediment, low pH and bacteria, built for Piedmont wells. Nobody regulates a private well, so this one starts with a real test, every time.

$4,500the well water standard, installedDetails

You can read all of this before you talk to us.

What each system is actually for, what it costs to run in year one, and the case where you should skip it, on one page with no form in front of it.

See every system in detail

What you can check before you call anyone.

On 3 September 2026 we opened the other Charlotte-area sites in a browser and looked for one thing: a price. This is what a person shopping at 10pm actually finds.

Comparison of published pricing between Standard Water Solutions, Culligan of Charlotte and a local Kinetico dealer
Checked from a browser Standard Water Culligan of Charlotte Kinetico via CGC Home Services
Installed price for a whole-home system, published on the website YES
$2,900 city, $4,500 well		 NOT PUBLISHED
No dollar figure on the site		 NOT PUBLISHED
No dollar figure on the site
How the site says you get a price It is on this page, and again in writing at the test “Get Pricing” form, then a consultation “Get a Quick Quote” or book the free water test
Free in-home water test offered YES YES YES

Method: we loaded culligancharlotte.com, kinetico.com and cgchomeservices.com on 3 September 2026 and searched each for a published installed price. We are not claiming their equipment is worse. We are claiming that ours is visible without giving anyone your phone number.

Separately: a premium national dealer quotes $7,500 to $11,000 for a comparable full system in this market. Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026.

The things a browser cannot check, stated plainly. Nobody here works on commission, so no one earns more by putting a bigger tank in your basement. There is no discount that expires when we walk out. You keep your test readings either way. And if the answer is that you do not need us, that is the answer you get.

The comparison

An arm and a leg for the same kind of system. We won’t.

A premium national dealer quotes $7,500 to $11,000 for a comparable full system in this market. Ours are $2,900 and $4,500, installed, published. Same class of whole-home treatment, roughly half the money, and the number was on this page before you called anybody.

Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026, compiled from Angi, HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide and published Culligan, Kinetico, RainSoft and EcoWater dealer quotes

We are not going to tell you what anybody else is doing or why. We do not know, and guessing at it would make us exactly the kind of company this page is about. What we can hand you is five questions to put to whoever quotes you, us included, with our own answer printed beside each one.

01

“Where is your price on your website?”

The most useful question in this category, because it can be answered from a phone in ten seconds. On 3 September 2026 we looked for a published installed price on culligancharlotte.com, kinetico.com and cgchomeservices.com and did not find one on any of them. Family-run is nice. Published prices are better.

Ours$2,900
$4,500installed, on this page
02

“Why isn’t it $2,900?”

A market survey of this metro put a premium national dealer’s full combination system between $7,500 and $11,000. Their range starts at $7,500. Ours tops out at $4,500. There may well be a good reason for the difference, and asking for it is fair — so is asking for it in writing.

Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026, compiled from Angi, HomeAdvisor, HomeGuide and published dealer quotes

Market range$7,500
to $11,000premium national dealer, full combination system
03

“Will this be the price next Friday?”

A number that only exists while somebody is sitting in your kitchen is not a price. If it drops when you stand up, it was never the first one. Ask what it will be in a week and write the answer down.

OursUnchangedit is a standard rate, not an offer
04

“Can I keep the test readings if I do not buy?”

A free water test is table stakes in this industry and it is also the part of it with the worst reputation. Whoever performs the test also profits from what it finds, so the readings should leave with you either way.

OursYesyou keep them, buy or not
05

“Does the person quoting me earn more if I buy more?”

Worth asking plainly, because the answer shapes every recommendation that follows it. Commission is not dishonest on its own. It is just information you are entitled to have before you weigh the advice.

OursNonobody here works on commission

They’ll charge you an arm and a leg for the same kind of system. We’re honest, we’re lower priced, and we won’t play games.

Anybody can say they’re transparent. Ours is a number — two of them, in fact, published where a competitor can read them, on a page you did not have to hand over a phone number to see. No showroom, no commission, no games. $2,900. Money where our mouth is.

Nobody publishes a lower installed price. Find one, we’ll beat it.

Your water, by utility

Same river. Different tap.
A citation on every number.

Charlotte, Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Tega Cay and Indian Land all drink soft Catawba-basin surface water, so the real answer changes far more between a city address and a well than it does between towns. Here is the short version, and nothing below is printed without the report it came from.

Charlotte Water

Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson, Matthews, Mint Hill, Pineville

  • Soft. Total hardness 32 mg/L, which is about 1.9 grains per gallon by our own conversion. No utility here prints grains.
  • Chlorine, not chloramine. Free chlorine, running annual average 1.04 ppm.
  • Trihalomethanes 63.7 ppb at the highest running annual average, against an 80 ppb limit. Single samples ran 17.2 to 77.4.
  • PFOA and PFOS were not detected. Three unregulated PFAS were: PFBA, PFHxA and PFPeA at 2.1 to 2.5 ppt. None of those three carries a federal limit.

Charlotte Water 2025 Consumer Confidence Report · read it

Rock Hill Water

Rock Hill, and by purchase Fort Mill, Tega Cay, York and Lake Wylie SC

  • Soft. Hardness 18 to 35 ppm, about one to two grains per gallon.
  • Lake Wylie and the Catawba River are the intakes. Fort Mill, Tega Cay, York and Lake Wylie run no plant of their own and buy this water.
  • Trihalomethanes 54.5 ppb at the highest running annual average. One sample reached 86.3, which is above 80 but is not a violation, because the limit applies to the average.
  • PFHxA and PFPeA detected at 4.0 and 4.6 ppt. Neither is federally regulated, and PFOA and PFOS are not listed.

Rock Hill 2024 water quality report · read it

Lancaster County (LCWSD)

Indian Land and the Lancaster County service area

  • Soft. Average 25 ppm, printed in the report as 1.5 grains per gallon.
  • Chloramine. The one local system disinfected with chloramine rather than free chlorine, which changes which filter media actually works.
  • PFOA and PFOS below the reporting limit in all four 2025 quarters. The last published detections, in 2023, were 2.6 to 3.3 ppt, under the 4.0 ppt federal limit.

LCWSD 2025 Consumer Confidence Report · read it

On a private well? Then no report exists, because nobody is required to write one. Piedmont bedrock brings iron, manganese and low pH, and peer-reviewed testing found arsenic at or above the federal limit in 19.5% of Union County wells that were tested. That is the case where a full stack is genuinely justified, and it is the case where a real test matters most. Look up your town on the full water report.

The standard

We didn’t write a paragraph about trust. We wrote $2,900. The category runs on adjectives, and adjectives cost nothing to say and cannot be checked, so we published a number instead and let it do the arguing. Here are the six rules behind it, and you can hold us to any of them.

Book my free water test

01

The number comes before the pitch

We measure your water first, at your tap, and you keep the readings whether you ever buy anything or not.

02

The price is on the website

$2,900 installed on city water, $4,500 on a well. Those are flat rates, and they do not move because you seem interested or because it is a Friday afternoon.

03

Nobody here works on commission

No one on this team earns more by putting a bigger tank in your basement than your water calls for.

04

We will tell you to skip it

Charlotte city water measures 32 mg/L hard, which is soft. Most city homes need filtration and a drinking-water system, not a softener, and we would rather say so than sell one.

05

Every figure cites its report

If we print a water-quality number anywhere on this site, the report it came from is printed next to it and linked.

06

A written total before we leave

Equipment, installation, and the salt or filter cost for the first year. One page, handed to you, no follow-up required to see it.

Straight answers

Is Charlotte’s water hard?

No. Charlotte Water reports total hardness of 32 mg/L, which is about 1.9 grains per gallon and sits inside the soft band. Anyone pitching you a softener for Charlotte city water should be able to show you a hardness reading before they show you a price.

Charlotte Water 2025 Consumer Confidence Report

Then do I need a softener at all?

On city water in the metro, usually not. Softeners earn their keep on private wells and in outlying areas where hardness, iron and low pH are real. That is why the test comes first: it is the difference between a $2,900 decision and a shrug.

What does it cost?

Two standard rates. The city water system is $2,900 installed, about $121 a month at 24 months, 0%. The well water system is $4,500 installed, about $188 a month on the same terms. A premium national dealer quotes $7,500 to $11,000 for a comparable full system in this market. And if your house needs less than the standard system, you pay less than the standard rate. That is the only direction a quote moves here.

Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026

Why are you so much cheaper?

None of it is the equipment. We install two standard configurations instead of designing something new in every house, so it is the same job every time. Nobody here works on commission, so there is no one whose pay goes up when your system gets bigger. There is no showroom to keep the lights on in. And the price is published, so it never has to start high enough to come down twice. A premium national dealer quotes $7,500 to $11,000 for a comparable full system in this market; ours are $2,900 and $4,500. What is inside anybody else’s number we genuinely do not know, and we are not going to guess at it.

Market survey of the Charlotte metro, July 2026

Is it the same equipment?

It is the same kind of system. We are an independent authorized dealer of Honest Water Co® products: point-of-entry filtration, ion-exchange softening where the readings call for it, and reverse osmosis at the drinking tap, on a lifetime tank and valve warranty. That is the same category of whole-home treatment the national brands sell. What we will not claim is that it is the identical part number to a particular competitor’s, because we have not taken theirs apart and most of them do not publish their specifications. Ours are listed by name and stage count on the systems page.

Should I be worried about PFAS?

Here is the part nobody selling filtration wants to say out loud: Charlotte’s report does not contain a PFOA or PFOS result at all. What it lists is PFBA, PFHxA and PFPeA at 2.1 to 2.5 parts per trillion, which are short-chain compounds with no federal limit. The 4 ppt limit the EPA set in April 2024 covers PFOA and PFOS, and systems have until 2029 to comply with it. So the accurate sentence is that some PFAS are measured in Charlotte’s water and the two regulated ones are not reported. If you want them out of your drinking water regardless, reverse osmosis is the equipment that does it.

Charlotte Water 2025 CCR · EPA PFAS national primary drinking water regulation, April 2024

I am on a well. Is that different?

Completely. No agency tests a private well, so there is no report to read and no violation anybody would notify you about. Piedmont wells around Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Union, Gaston and Cabarrus commonly show iron, manganese and low pH. Peer-reviewed testing found arsenic at or above the federal limit in 19.5% of the Union County wells that were tested. This is the case where testing is not optional.

Eaves et al., NCWELL database, Science of the Total Environment 2022 · Sanders et al., Environment International 2012

How long does installation take?

A typical whole-home install is a half day, and we can usually get you on the calendar in the same week as the test. We test the system before we leave and take the old equipment with us.

What happens if I say no?

You keep your readings and we leave. There is no discount that expires at the door, no second visit from a manager, and no follow-up sequence designed to wear you down. If we call once afterwards and you say no again, that is the end of it.

All questions

Get your free water test.

Takes about 45 minutes. You get the readings, the recommendation and the price in writing: the standard flat rate if the standard build is right, a smaller number if it is not, and nothing at all if you do not need us.

Call or text
(704) 773-5121
Email
hello@standardwaternc.com
Hours
Mon to Fri 8am to 6pm · Sat 9am to 2pm
Service area
Charlotte, Huntersville, Matthews, Mint Hill, Concord, Gastonia, Monroe, Indian Trail, Waxhaw, Weddington, Marvin, Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Tega Cay, Indian Land and Lake Wylie. Full list
Standard rates
City water system $2,900 installed, about $121 a month at 24 months, 0%. Well water system $4,500 installed, about $188 a month. Custom is quoted, and it usually costs less.

Book my free water test

Takes 30 seconds. No obligation.

Every price published, installed. Pick the closest one — the free test confirms it, and custom is quoted and usually costs less.

100% free · No obligation · We will tell you if you do not need us

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