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Is your water safe to drink straight from the tap?

D

DCal430

Diamond Member
Just curious who has water that can be drunk straight from the tap, or who needs to purify or filter their water first.

Here the water contains high levels of lead, arsenic, and manganese. Levels that far exceed safety limits set by the government. So it should be filtered or purified to remove these things.
 
I use a glass for my city water. Tastes better than many bottled versions (ie Dasani TLS). I've been thinking about building a still for some time though.
 
Our water is very good quality, no problems consuming tap water. I'm assuming the OP has well water, not municipal/city water.
 
DCal430 said:
Just curious who has water that can be drunk straight from the tap, or who needs to purify or filter their water first.

Here the water contains high levels of lead, arsenic, and manganese. Levels that far exceed safety limits set by the government. So it should be filtered or purified to remove these things.
Click to expand...
Where do you live? Those levels are set for a reason: if they're too high they get lowered.

The vast majority of the US can drink its tap water. I lived in one area that had very nasty sulfur smell to it and never bothered, but where I am now I guzzle like mad.

It sometimes has a chlorine odor and I've thought about getting a filter to pull that out, but none of the research I've done really shows it's worth the effort.
 
The first apt I moved in had water that tasted like fish, and it got noticeably salty in the summer when the bay backed up into the river due to lower flow. It was tolerable when chilled, but had an "earthy" character at room temperature :^D It was safe, just not entirely pleasant.
 
DCal430 said:
Is your water safe to drink straight from the tap?

Just curious who has water that can be drunk straight from the tap, or who needs to purify or filter their water first.

Here the water contains high levels of lead, arsenic, and manganese. Levels that far exceed safety limits set by the government.

So it should be filtered or purified to remove these things.
Click to expand...

Are you in the U.S.?
 
DCal430 said:
Just curious who has water that can be drunk straight from the tap, or who needs to purify or filter their water first.

Here the water contains high levels of lead, arsenic, and manganese. Levels that far exceed safety limits set by the government. So it should be filtered or purified to remove these things.
Click to expand...


Really?

Coliform
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/coliform.cfm

Chlorine
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/chlorine.cfm

Lead and Copper
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/lead_copper.cfm

Disinfectant Byproducts
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/disinfectant_byproducts.cfm

Corrosion Control
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/corrosion_control.cfm


Lead Monitoring Results and Status of Orthophosphate Treatment
In January 2012, EPA received DC Water's most recent report on lead levels in DC drinking water. DC Water reported that 90 percent of the samples had lead levels of 5 parts per billion (ppb) or less, below EPA's lead action level of 15 ppb. This is the fourteenth monitoring period in a row that DC Water has met the lead action level.
Since August 2004, the Washington Aqueduct has been adding orthophosphate to the drinking water as a corrosion inhibitor. Orthophosphate is a tasteless, odorless, food-grade additive that is used by many water systems to control corrosion. It works by forming a protective coating inside pipes that decreases the amount of lead that leaches from lead service lines and customers' plumbing systems. Orthophosphate was added to the entire DC distribution system beginning on August 23, 2004.
Click to expand...
 
Ice cold (I don't know how they do it, but unless it's really insanely hot outside, it's so cold it actually hurts to hold a hand under the cold water for longer than a few seconds) and very drinkable water at my home - slightly calky, but not nearly as bad as I've seen elsewhere.

Funky tasting water at work, which I refuse to drink. Probably due to 70s plumbing, and being slightly outside of town in a semi-swamp (flood plain..).
 
I live in the US so of course my water is safe. I use a Brita filter, but even that is largely because I like having cold water in the fridge. Filtering seems to improve the taste marginally but I admit that that might be in my head.

In the past I have lived in countries such as Cameroon where it absolutely was not safe to drink the water from the tap. If you didn't boil and filter your water there you were asking for diarrhea from hell.
 
Yes. Our tap water tastes great, probably due to high mineral and / lead content. I heard that lead makes water taste quite a bit better.

I don't worry about it though. There are far worse things that we're all exposed to on an everyday basis, plus millions or billions of people drinking far dirtier water every day and still surviving. People worry too much about a few bad things that could get into their system everyday, and thus have virtually no tolerance to fight against it. I don't go out of my way to poison myself, but I also don't fret about what bad things could be coming from our crystal clear well water, unless I specifically hear a reason to believe that it's unsafe.

It makes me laugh when I talk to people that will only drink a certain brand of bottled water, because it's the cleanest and safest, but they'll go out for a cigarette right after the conversation...
 
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