Whatever was causing the tap water to be obscenely alkaline seems to have been corrected. It's down from a little past a 9 on the paper to 7.5.
I double checked a digital meter with the paper strips to confirm my findings.
I don't know exactly when they fixed it but it would explain why my last couple batches of HOCl have been stronger than usual--since I can't read the paper strips well*, I've been overcompensating for alkalinity.
* Once you get towards the oranger end of the strip test, the color scale gets a little harder to differentiate shades of orange/red with. 5 and 4 and 3 are clearly different, but the shade in the middle of them? Harder to read. And my last batch of HOCl that I thought tested at a perfect 4? Actually a 3.7, which is a little on the low side for general use, but a fine laundry sanitizer.
The next few batches are going to be better now that I can more easily keep an eye on the status of the water here.
