This question is obviously intended for those that live in places where tap water is “safe to drink.”
I live in Southern California, where I’m at the end of a long chain of cities. Occasionally, the tap smells of sulfur, hardness changes, or it tastes… odd. I’m curious about the perspective of people that are directly involved and their reasoning.
Get an undersink reverse osmosis and uv filter kit. Some come with a remineralizer so it doesn’t taste flat. Don’t go for a cheap one or it will leak. SoCal isn’t known for its water purity or consistancy.
Not a water person, but it might be the fire departments fault. If they use a hydrant upstream of you it flows so much water so fast that it can stir up some older stuff that’s been sitting in there a while.
Ah interesting, could def see that happening.
If you’re living in the US, I feel like it’s almost cheating to complain. A certain political party had worked for decades to lower safety, standards and oversight to the point that I would really feel nervous living in the States.
I used to work in a municipal city water department. Part of its job was to deal with some chemical blooms from bad waste disposal. While I am not a water science person, I trusted the water science people who told me it was safe and got to tour some of the cool filtration things.
I didn’t drink the water because water in that area has a “green” taste that’s hard to describe unless you’ve had it. Totally fine to drink, just personal preference. Most people I know gave me a lot of shit for it.
I just wonder about PEX tubing. Occasionally, the water has a strong plasticky taste/smell like hose water and I feel like that just can’t be good for you.
Gotta get those excess micro plastics somehow
[people drinking out of lead pipes] 🗿
The water is pretty solid in a lot of developed countries. If it tastes bad then it might have to do with the pipes and tubing.
I live in San Francisco, give me hetch hetchy
(that’s where our tap comes from)
Just generally, you can get a report of your municipal water testing. The biggest safety variable that I would be worried about testing at home for is lead in the pipes between me and the treatment plant. That includes my house/building and the municipal pipes.
Now taste, that’s a to each their own situation. Sulfury water is my limit for sure. No thanks!
I live in Grand Rapids, MI where the tap water is 2.4 ppt PFAS. I buy reverse osmosis purified from the store for $0.50 a gallon for drinking, and will continue to do so until I get my own place where I’ll install an under-sink one
I trust the city government with my water much much more than companies trying to save every penny bottling water.
And I’m more likely able to get the people responsible for poor quality water or death in result of this in jail over the likelihood of sending billionaire CEOs with their golden parachutes to a minimum security vacation “prison”.
cough cough Flint cough
whoopsie daisy, we shipped 500 million bottles of tainted water, “we’re sorry”. Meanwhile if a city did that it’d be national news for years.
While I’m a huge fan of municipal water (I live in the city that invented it), lots of cities have horribly mismanaged their water supply, often from privatization, but not exclusively. See Jackson Mississippi.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120166328/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis
Oh not saying it doesn’t happen at all, but it’s blown out of proportion for the most of the US. Main point is exactly that, when a city fucks up it becomes national news, if Pepsi fucked up it’s bottling (which comes from city sources anyway), they say “Oh no, we’re sorry”
I manage utility services - among other things - for a group of properties - and have had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination at various times. The results have always been absolutely fine. Not just with EU limits, but far, far, far within them for almost everything and definitely well within them for all measures.
I’ve got no issues at all with drinking tap water in the UK, even given the state of the rivers etc.
had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination
Can I ask how you go about doing that? I may want to test some water soon.
In my case, I approached our usual plumbing contractor who have a couple of labs that they usually used. I now go directly to those labs.
Could you tell me which labs? Are they local to you?
We have used ALS Testing in the past. More recently Latis Scientific. Both have been good, we swapped just because of some internal admin thing at one point.
I am sure G! will find local water testing for you.
But, before you do that, check your municipal water web site. Mine publishes their testing results. Monthly, iirc.
Of course, this is only part of the puzzle. Your exact tap may have very different results.
I work in food manufacturing and get the local water test results emailed to me monthly - they are alway well within limits
North East, US here. probably fine but I don’t trust it. we use a water filter for drinking
Same. I can take tap water fine but my wife hates it. But even so, we both can tell by taste when the filter is toast. We can also tell from the way our bathroom counters get white buildup just by incidental water droplets during handwashing that we have excessively hard water. Not dangerous but not pleasant.
If you have any reason to suspect the quality of your water, get it tested! It’s not that expensive, you just ship a sample to a lab and they email you a report. Because so many people depend on well water there’s a bunch of labs all over the country that do water quality testing, it’s a relatively cheap and accessible service.
Unless you need a full pathogen panel, you can just buy the tests for pretty much anything at hardware stores. There are kits that include several.
I live in SE Michigan, so… … …yeah, I want to trust my city water, but I can’t. Not since Flint, Michigan.
why trust or not? Just get it tested if you’re worried. Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you can take a sample and send it out to find if everything is in safe levels. (Just remember all water is going to have impurity, the key words are safe levels)
How much does it generally cost to get it tested? I make very little money.
Probably less than you’d spend on bottled water over two or three months, worthwhile investment if tests show it’s drinkable.
I don’t buy bottled water. I buy gallon jugs that I then refill at a filling station. Where I’m at, the filling station is typically about 0.40 USD/gallon.
Still, I get your point. It would, of course, still be cheaper by far to use tap water.
Personally, I would trust those filling stations a whole lot less than my tap water. Tap water is constantly purified and being tested, and strictly regulated my multiple agencies, and the press is ready to jump on it the second it’s unsafe.
One of those filling stations? Well for one the water I’m 90% sure is the same tap water anyway, and for 2, do they produce reports every month showing how safe they are like our city water does?
Tap water is constantly purified
But unlike a lot of the filling station water, tap water is often not purified with UV or reverse osmosis. (I looked it up and mine isn’t anyway.) So some dangerous byproducts from mining and the like get through.
and the press is ready to jump on it the second it’s unsafe.
Honestly, this is an excellent point I hadn’t thought of.
One of those filling stations? Well for one the water I’m 90% sure is the same tap water anyway …
It is, I believe, but with UV & reverse-osmosis so it’s more strongly filtered than tap water in the end.
… and for 2, do they produce reports every month showing how safe they are like our city water does?
Fair point.
(Also, please be aware that I fully admit I am not knowledgeable on this stuff; I’m just trying my best. So, if I am spouting any misconceptions, I welcome correction as long as it is kindly done.)
Sounds like UV and reverse osmosis are better, but if your city is already purifying it’s probably overkill. From my very quick research it sounds like it’s a good option only if your local tapwater is currently failing, which honestly some american towns and cities are. In that case - go for it, but if you’re city is passing, then it sounds like you’re purifying already perfectly safe to drink water.
https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/home/reverse-osmosis-water-pros-cons/
depending on how much want to do, I have seen kits for ~$30. Pretty sure I’ve seen some small kits taken for camping, so they can’t be too pricy. And if you can’t afford it, just start bringing it up around town! Maybe somebody will get excited and do it for you.
Thanks. :)
Not expensive but it depends on what you want to test. Most of the available tests can be gotten from aquarium supply stores. Got to keep fish healthy after all. Others can be gotten from pool supply companies.
Thank you. :)
Municipal drinking water is tested multiple times per day in Toronto, as it should be. Testing once and assuming the complex machinery and chemical levels are the same a week later is pure folly.
Note that this is different from testing well water, which shouldn’t change much. Testing well water once a year is a good idea though.
Oh for sure, I’m not worried at all, but if other people are I don’t see why they don’t just get it tested rather than buying hundreds of dollars in bottled water
I’m in mid Michigan, and you’re fine. The circumstances that lead (ba-dum) to the issues in Flint are unlikely to occur elsewhere, particularly if you’re closer to Detroit.
I live in Monroe County.
Yeah, you’re fine. The issue with flint was because they moved away from the supply that you’re on.
they moved away from the supply that you’re on.
As in, that’s what they did before the massive catastrophe that was “everybody gets cancer in the everything”, to paraphrase, right?
Correct.
Flint was on the Detroit water supply, and then tried to save money by switching to one that the pipes couldn’t handle, which damaged the protective coating on the pipes and let lead leach into the water.
After the coating was damaged there was no real way to fix it that was better than “replace the pipes”, which was on the agenda anyway.Lead pipes are bad, but they’re typically safe enough that it’s not an emergency due to the coating. It’s a worldwide effort to replace lead pipes with other materials that’s usually happening roughly inline with the usual service replacement schedule, but some places are going faster because of public concern or just a good opportunity. (My local water supply got the budget to do it while doing a different project, so it took two or three times as long, but happened a few decades early and was much cheaper, then when Flint happened they looked great by being able to respond to questions by saying they started years ago and are almost done)
