FAQ
We provide one-on-one consultation to ensure the highest quality service in the water testing industry.
Real answers from an independent, EPA-certified lab.
DentiSafe is a North Carolina-owned, full-service water and spore testing company founded by a practicing dentist, with a mission to educate the entire dental industry. We’re the only independent, EPA-certified lab serving dental practices today — and we’re always glad to walk through your specific situation in a quick, free consultation. Below are the questions we hear most, including what’s changing with the launch of DentiSafe ONE this July.
There are potentially severe health and legal risks for not testing your waterlines. Just because you can’t see a problem doesn’t mean there isn’t a threat hiding in your water supply. Regularly testing your waterlines helps protect the health of your patients. It protects the health of your dental staff — the ones with the greatest exposure to bacterial infections in your waterlines — and helps minimize lost time for sick days in your office.
Regular testing, using methods approved by the EPA, also helps mitigate your legal exposure in court. The lawsuits pending for almost a decade now against Children’s Dental Group in Anaheim, CA, may end up settling for damages in the $100 million range. Compared with that risk, the cost of regular, effective waterline testing is well worth it. The ADA statement on dental unit waterlines is clear: the CDC recommends that dental unit waterlines used in non-surgical procedures measure less than or equal to 500 colony-forming units of heterotrophic bacteria per 1 mL of water — the same standard the EPA sets for drinking water.
We recommend following your dental unit manufacturer’s IFUs for maintaining and monitoring waterlines — a minimum of once per quarter. You’re also welcome to contact us directly for a no-charge consultation about the best testing schedule for your clinic.
DentiSafe ONE is our new all-in-one compliance package — water line testing, spore testing, and secure digital record-keeping, all handled by our independent lab through a single client portal. Choose between traditional R2A testing or DentiSafe’s PureView™, our new bacterial imaging technology to create the customized infection control package that works best for your office. DentiSafe ONE launches in July 2026. Join the waitlist to be among the first practices to get access.
There are several waterline testing methods on the market today. Here’s how they compare, starting with the only method approved by the EPA.
R2A Agar Test
R2A Agar testing, the gold standard for over 20 years, is a non-biased nutrient broth that allows bacteria to grow at body temperature (35.5°C) over a five-to-seven-day period, giving both fast- and slow-growing bacteria time to mature. When your sample reaches our EPA-certified lab, a trained microbiologist plates it and counts the resulting colonies after incubation — producing a colony-forming-unit (CFU) measurement that reflects what would actually be harmful to a patient. It’s the only EPA-certified testing method available.
Paddle Tests
Paddle testing is done in-office: a sample is taken and incubated at room temperature for 48 to 72 hours, then read by a member of your dental team rather than a microbiologist. Because it’s performed outside a certified lab setting, results are only a rough range and depend heavily on how the test was handled, read, and timed.
Flow Cytometry
Originally developed for cancer research, flow cytometry uses fluorescent dye and lasers to estimate total bacteria in a sample — live, injured, or dead — in 24 hours or less, without incubation. It’s fast, but it wasn’t designed to test water: it measures whether cells are present, not whether they’re actually capable of harming a patient.
PureView™ Bacterial Imaging (available July 2026 with DentiSafe ONE)
PureView is our new HD bacterial imaging technology. Like R2A, it measures culturability — whether bacteria can actually reproduce and put a patient at risk — rather than simply detecting that cells are alive, the way flow cytometry does. The difference is speed: PureView delivers R2A-level reliability in as fast as 5 hours, instead of five to seven days. PureView becomes available starting July 2026 as part of the DentiSafe ONE package. Learn more about PureView.
Yes, we recommend testing at least once a year. The CDC’s website reports that, “health departments reported almost 7,500 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in the United States in 2017”.
This video shows how easy it is for Legionella bacteria to be spread through aerosol produced by equipment attached to the waterlines in your dental office.
Read more about our Legionella testing kits.
There’s a specific “aseptic” technique for collecting water samples correctly — please refer to our how-to video at the top of our resources page for a full walkthrough.
In our post results consultation we will work with you and your staff to correct the water problem. We will be with you every step of the way until the problem is corrected. Our resources page has more information about how to handle this situation.
No, these results are confidential and we will not share them without your consent.
It depends on which testing method you’re using.
With standard R2A testing, every kit and subscription includes our FASTRead™ feature: if your sample already exceeds safe bacterial thresholds, we’ll flag it for you within 24 hours so you can take action right away. We then continue monitoring the full sample for the complete five-to-seven-day R2A incubation period — necessary to catch slower-growing bacteria — with your full results posted to your Customer Portal within about a week of us receiving your sample.
Starting July 2026, DentiSafe ONE customers using PureView™ will get full, R2A-level results in as fast as 5 hours — no week-long wait required.
Results are posted to your secure Customer Portal as soon as they’re ready, and we’ll follow up by email. If anything needs attention, one of our water testing representatives will also reach out directly to walk through next steps with you.
Every testing kit includes a prepaid overnight shipping label, so your samples are ready to go as soon as you are.
Shipping is included in the cost of your testing kit — no separate charge.