Choosing a drinking water delivery service may sound simple until the first delivery arrives late, the bottles arrive in the wrong size, or you discover that the price you saw online did not include half the charges.

Whether you need drinking water for your family, a home office, a busy office kitchen, or a large workplace, you need to consider a number of factors for you to choose a dependable water delivery service.

Some of the factors you should consider include:

The amount of water you need

Before you get in touch with any water delivery company, you should figure out your real water consumption. Most people guess, and they guess wrong.

What you should do is to track the number of bottles your household or office goes through in a week.

If you have five people at home, are you drinking through two bottles a week or five? At an office, is it one bottle every three days or one every day?

This is vital as it determines the water service that you hire.

The actual water cost, not just the water price

Imagine this. A company quotes you a higher price per bottle, and another quotes a much lower price.

The cheaper option looks better until you realize they charge a delivery fee, require a monthly minimum order, or charge more for small bottles.

What you should do is to take the number of bottles you use per month and multiply it by the price of each bottle, then add delivery fees, cooler rental, and any other charges.

That’s your real water cost.

To ensure that you are hiring the right company, do this for a number of companies and you’ll see which one is genuinely cheaper, not just which one looks good at first glance.

How often the company delivers

Some services deliver once a week on your chosen day. Others deliver multiple times a week if you want them to. Other services only deliver on certain days to certain neighborhoods.

If your neighborhood only gets deliveries on Mondays and Thursdays, that dictates when you can order.

If you use water predictably and run out on a Wednesday, you’re stuck until Thursday. Know what days work for your schedule before you sign up.

Whether the company delivers in your area

Not every service covers every neighborhood within a city. We’ve had customers sign up only to discover that while we deliver five miles away, we don’t service their specific zip code.

Before you sign up, call and give your desired company your exact address. Don’t just ask “do you deliver in my city?”

Ask whether they deliver to your street or your neighborhood.

You want to work with a company that delivers to your exact area and zip address.

The water source and treatment process

Where does the water come from? Is it filtered municipal water, spring water, or purified water? What treatment process do they use?

You should know this as it determines the quality of the water.

Some water services just take city tap water and run it through a basic water filter. Others have multi-stage purification systems.

To ensure that you are getting quality water, you should ask the water company to explain their process in detail.

A company that can’t articulate what they do is either hiding something or doesn’t know their own product.

And this is not a company that you want to work with.

How the water is stored

Once the company has purified or treated the water, how do they store it? Is it in a climate-controlled warehouse or outside in the sun?

We have come across companies that keep bottles in warehouse corners where temperatures swing wildly, which degrades water quality over time.

You want a company that stores its water in a cool, dark place.

If you come across a company and can’t get a straight answer about storage conditions, assume the worst and avoid that company.

Bottle deposits

Some water services charge a deposit on the bottle itself, while others charge nothing. A few companies sell you the bottle outright.

Here’s the catch with deposits. If you’re traveling, move, or just forget a bottle for a few weeks, you lose that money.

You should ask the company whether the deposits are refundable, how long they hold money after you return bottles, and what happens if you lose a bottle.

Collection of empty containers

Does the driver take your empty bottles when they deliver new ones? Or do you have to return them yourself?

If you have to schlep empty bottles somewhere, that will create friction you’ll notice every delivery.

If they pick up empties, that’s convenient and this is what you want. Ask upfront and factor it into your decision.

Dispenser compatibility

Not every water bottle works with every cooler. Some bottles have wider necks, some have different thread styles, and some are shaped differently.

If you already own a cooler, find out if the water bottles supplied work with your specific model before you sign up.

We’ve had customers order from a new service only to discover the bottles don’t fit their existing dispenser.

In such a situation you have to either buy a new cooler or switch to a new service.

Handling of the deliveries

When the driver arrives, how carefully do they handle the bottles? Do they place them gently, or do they toss them into your garage?

A rough company staff damages bottles, cracks the plastic, and causes leaks.

Over time, this adds up to lost water and money.

During your first delivery, watch how careful they are. If bottles are getting banged around, that’s a sign of a company that’s either training drivers poorly or pushing them to work so fast that care goes out the window.

And you don’t want to work with such a company.

Parting shot

Water delivery is simple, but it touches your life multiple times a week.

Get it right and you won’t think about it once. Get it wrong and you’ll spend months wishing you’d chosen differently.

As mentioned, only consider working with a bottled water home delivery Meadville company that perfectly fits your needs.