New Feature: Compare Water Quality Between Suburbs

Ever wondered how the water in your suburb compares to where you grew up, where you’re thinking of moving, or where your mates live? Now you can find out.

We’ve just launched our suburb comparison tool — a simple way to compare water quality data side by side across any Australian suburbs in our database.

How it works

Head to the comparison page and search for two or more suburbs. You’ll see a side-by-side breakdown of:

• Overall WaterScore — the headline water quality rating out of 100
• Individual parameters — hardness, chlorine, pH, turbidity, fluoride, TDS, and more
• Guideline compliance — how each suburb’s readings compare to ADWG guideline values
• State and national averages — contextual benchmarks for each measurement

It’s designed to be intuitive. Pick your suburbs, and the data does the talking.

Example: Sydney vs Melbourne

To give you a taste, here’s what you’ll see when comparing a Sydney suburb with a Melbourne one.

Water hardness is one of the most noticeable differences. Melbourne’s water is sourced primarily from protected mountain catchments and is famously soft — typically under 50 mg/L as calcium carbonate. Sydney’s water, while still relatively soft by global standards, tends to sit higher, around 40–80 mg/L depending on the suburb. If you’ve ever moved between the two cities and noticed your kettle scaling up (or not), hardness is why.

Chlorine levels tend to be comparable between the two cities, though suburbs further from treatment plants may show slightly lower residual chlorine.

pH and fluoride readings are generally similar, with both cities fluoridating their water supply to the recommended range of 0.6–1.1 mg/L.

Try it yourself — compare Sydney and Melbourne suburbs and see the full picture.

Why compare?

The comparison tool is useful for a range of scenarios:

• Moving house — compare your current suburb with where you’re considering. Our moving to Sydney and moving to Melbourne guides can also help.
• Choosing a water filter — if your new suburb has harder water, you might need a different filtration approach.
• Satisfying curiosity — sometimes you just want to know. We get it.

Give it a try

The comparison tool is live now at waterscore.com.au/compare. Search for your suburb and start comparing.

As always, if you have feedback or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you — drop us a line.