i called northeast environmental testing about the water; for $20 they'll do a 1-liter 0-flush (water that's been sitting in pipes all night) and for $30 they'll do both that and a 5 min-flush (run water for 5 min. then fill up bottle.) it seems to me that if the overnight water's bad, we need to get the filter, so we could just do the 0-flush. we'd drop it off there and they'd give us results in a week.

but also we should just get a water filter at least for the kitchen, that does lead + the shit the city puts in. fluoride's great for growing teeth but my innards sure don't want it.

also i'm looking into dual-flush toilets (1.6/1.1 gpf) like this one:

http://www.absolutehome.com/web/catalog/product_detail.aspx?pid=308156&cid=308156091-6000:A:Nextag

but we need some for 10/11" rough-ins. i'm still looking but ya'll should ask about them at home depot just in case.