Do you drink tap water?

[yoda313]

Do you drink regular tap water? Or do you buy bottled water? Do you use a water filter system?

I just use tap water. Just fine to me.

[FulciLives]

Sort of - I use a filter system with it

I have one of those Brita pitchers that you fill up then put in the refriderator so you always have cold filtered water.

However I have to admit that lately I've been drinking more pre-made iced tea (mostly green) and Pepsi than water though LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I use regular plain tap water for my ice cube trays.

[lantern]

I use plain tap water at home, but when I am at work or out, I use bottled water. The water most other places tastes lousy!

[gadgetguy]

Tap water is good enough for me. I also use tap water for my ice cubes. And I keep a couple of water bottles, partially filled with tap in the freezer that I pull out and fill with tap when I take the dog for a walk (the closest I get to exercize.)

[lordsmurf]

Filtered tap, unfiltered tap, bottled .... all the same to me. Drink some of each daily.

[somebodeez]

Rusty well water here so bottled water for us for drinking and cooking.

[ricky1756]

tap and scotch

[Epicurus8a]

I drink filtered water at home and work; and bottled water when I travel.

[Noahtuck]

I only drink glacier water shuttled in daily from HOTH

Seeing as their is not an all of the above or it don't matter 8)

Filtered tap, unfiltered tap, bottled .... all the same to me. Drink some of each daily.

Yep, if i'm thirsty it really does not matter, out in the yard working, grab the hose, in the house, tap, gone, whatever is availible....
Unless i can't see through the water or it smells funny :P

tap and scotch

HOW DARE YOU!!!! Doing that to innocent scotch!!!

[Safesurfer]

I drink tap water, but I only spray myself with Kabbalah Water Spray.

Gotta love the helpful directions -

To direct the cleansing power of the water to the area of your body that needs healing energy, simply spray on the area.

[jsmithepa]

Saw more than a couple of scientific study showing tap water (city filtered, fluoride) is actually heathier.

Yeah, some taste funny but so is bottle.

Plus, just pure principle, I won't BUY water. Ya crazy?

[INFRATOM]

If you check your water company they supply water to lots of discount bottling companies just bottle the same water.
I use filter (reverse Osmosis), to get clorine and bad taste out. Those who say tap water tastes good must be in a good area , in most places water comes from treatment plants and so it wouldn't sound bad they mix it with river water or something. Straight Tap water I don't think is that safe bacteria, lead posoining, kidney stones etc.

[redwudz]

Tap water at home. It's good most of the time. It comes from deep wells in a local river. Wintertime when the river muddies up the chlorine level gets a little high, along with the turbidity, so I usually make iced tea with lemon and it kills the chlorine taste if I have to drink it.

My work site water is from a shallow well in a small town, so that goes through a charcoal filter before I would drink it. It has an interesting 'yellow' color without the filtration during the summertime. You are never sure the toilet has been flushed.

EDIT: Our water suppliers are public utilities around here and they are required to send a yearly report to all users with a laboratory analysis of the makeup of the water. Turbidity is the big issue locally and the state is instituting new laws to lower that. The rules on water systems are fairly strict, so even if the water doesn't taste that good, it is always safe. And most all of the local bottled water suppliers use tap water and just filter it. Even if they used 'spring' water, they would still have to chlorinate it, then filter it, so there's not much point in getting it from a 'spring'.

[LOWTECH]

Been drinking TAP WATER for too many years to mention and have no reason to change now.......... buying water has little impact but to pay 500 times more for a simular thing.

You pay your money for bottled water and the choice is yours. It won`t make you any healthier or live longer, just wasted money that could be spent on something else ... health freaks just convince themselfs bottled is best and does you good ......

[kush]

Sometimes tap, sometimes bottled..Usually bottled, although never enough - I get my liquid intake mainly from Dr Pepper - that counts right? :P. Almost always use tap water in my coffee maker though, although it has one of those Brita filters built into it, so I don't see much of a need in using expensive bottled water for that. I treat my cats better on the water front (no pun intended) than the humans - they ALWAYS get bottled water.

[edit] And why do I buy bottled? Nothing to do w/ the yuppie gotta buy expensive bottled b/c it's cool or anything.. Because sometimes the tap tastes like CRAP, sometimes a metally/chlorine/something like taste to it.

[fritzi93]

Tap water. The township authority in charge of utilities here has a couple of reservoirs in the mountains, surrounded by state forest land. Nothing nasty to treat except critter poop, but they do treat for bacteria, then filter and add fluoride. So it's pretty good. I can see why folks filter their water, though, there's always some sediment in tap water. I'm reminded of that fact when I flush out the water heater every few years.

[träskmannen]

Bottled water. The tapwater tastes horrible here, and although it is perfectly safe to drink I'd rather avoid it. Doctors advice against giving it to babies, and I for one will follow that advice.

[edDV]

Here (Sierra Foothills, CA) the tap water is better than any bottled water. It comes straight from the snow melt.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Here (Sierra Foothills, CA) the tap water is better than any bottled water. It comes straight from the snow melt.

Not with the yellow writing, I hope.

[classfour]

DRINK the tap water? Heck, I MAKE tap water.

Ours actually comes from a spring (of the blue hole variety), and usually only displays one annoying quality: Hard as a Rock (Limestone Country).

Minute or non-existent quantities of everything else - yet we still use full treatment.

If you've never seen what goes into it, I suggest you visit your local water treatment plant (stay away from the wastewater plant, they can smell pretty bad if not operated properly),
you might be surprised what it takes to clean water enough for human consumption.

BTW: FTI: In 1900: The average number of Americans who died from water borne diseases was 25,000 per year - about what drunk drivers kill now.

Nowadays, if someone as much as gets diarrheah, it's grounds for a lawsuit.

The chlorine that many complain about is actually a compound called chloramines - which is what you get when chlorine is improperly used (i.e. isn't fed at the correct dose to remove all oxidizable compounds), and is a result of chlorine combining with residual ammonia, nitrates, etc.. remaining from an insufficient treatment process - or dirty water mains - you pick, LOL.

If it were up to me: I'd discontinue the use of fluoride in all drinking water. I believe it causes more harm than the alleged benefit to dental health (which is based on one ancient study).

I'd also use Ozone for killing organisms and burning out contaminants, along with Ultraviolet for bacterial and viral disinfection; UltraFiltration or Reverse Osmosis to polish - then feed enough chlorine to protect the customer in the event of a main break. A more expensive approach - and one that many of us are unwilling to pay for.

Bottoms Up!

[TheFamilyMan]

We drink bottled water. Here in Sunnyvale, CA (i.e. in Silicon Valley) most of our water comes from wells that are too close for comfort to high tech electronics manufacturing firms, though they claim the water is safe for drinking. We'd rather be proactive about it than to discover we'd been drinking toxic wastes for the last few months.

[Conquest10]

There was a program a while back on the Science channel and it said that it was the chlorine in tap water that made the taste that most people dislike. Bottled water doesn't have it but it was also not as clean as tap water.

[redwudz]

Chlorine is used in almost all larger water systems in the US and in most bottled water to meet safety standards. But what people detect is the chlorine residual. It should be close to zero when it comes out of your faucet. It likely is with bottled water. But to be on the safe side, most water systems keep it at a low percentage in case they get infiltration from outside contamination into the water lines. This happens when a water main breaks and the pressure drops low enough.

When our river water source muddies up during the winter and the turbidity rises, they have to increase the chlorine levels and the residual will be higher. If your water always tastes like swimming pool water, you either have really bad water to start with or they are setting the residual too high.

But other chemicals and minerals are also in the water in varying percentages. Check with your water supplier for a detailed report. In most areas, they are required to make it available. It might surprise you what's in there.

A simple charcoal filter can make a big difference. A kitchen under sink model works well. A lot cheaper than bottled water and if your chlorine residual is high, the filter will make the water taste and smell much better.

.

[classfour]

Sometimes - not enough chlorine will be more offensive than the proper dose. Most people do not find "free" chlorine to be offensive until it reaches 3 or more parts per million (mg/L). I've been doing this over 20 years: Chlorine + Ammonia (etc.) equals chloramines - far more offensive than free chlorine (or chlorine that has been properly dosed). More times than not, there isn't enough chlorine in the water when you smell "chlorine" "bleachy". You can take a drink of what I'm producing right now (2 mg/L free chlorine) and you WILL NOT taste or smell chlorine.

Also: Many large cities use Chloramines for disinfection, due to the fear of disinfection byproducts (you would have to consume 1,000 liters of water per day for 1,000 years for the chlorine byproducts to cause cancer, hence the term "suspected carcinogen" - but one drink of untreated water can kill you).

The downside of this: When the chlorine to ammonia ratio gets off, taste and odor suffers; also, it takes 100 times longer for chloramines to kill bacteria et. al.; or 50 hours - chlorine can kill them within 30 minutes. When the larger cities went to chloramination, they failed to increase the storage capacity - meaning the first customer is getting water in less than 50 hours, putting them at a certain degree of risk.

As to muddy water sources and chlorine tasting water: Once again, the utility IS NOT reaching a level of chlorine enough to kill or burn out what is entering the plant, or they are not achieving enough removal of contaminants prior to chlorination - both are cause for concern. Some utilities lower the chlorine residual to the system due to customer calls regarding "chlorine tasting water" - resulting in more complaints! The real issue is quality of treatment, quality of personnel treating the water, quality of personnel in the distribution system and the budget that the utility is working with - all due to the quality of the management and utility board. If you don't take it out at the water plant, it goes to the customer.

15 years ago, I doubled the chlorine residual entering the system - while improving finished water quality ten-fold with the use of enhanced coagulation and other processes - and started a semi-annual flushing program: Result: I eliminated 90 percent of our customer complaints. Lucky for me, I did have management that allowed experimentation. The final cost to the customer: ZERO.

If your water tastes like crap most of the time - you either have a utility that doesn't care, or doesn't know how to treat and distribute drinking water - or you have a turnover problem in your main: Too few people, too big of a pipe, usually a dead end. If the latter is the problem: Keep after your utility, ensure they set your line up for a regular flushing schedule - you'll taste the difference if your water is going stale.

Per the EPA: All utilities serving a population greater than 500 persons are required to produce and distribute a Consumer Confidence Report each and every year. If you aren't getting one, call the EPA.

I do currently use a carbon filter (I do not consume what I produce) for taste and odor removal. I plan to install a 1 micron or less filter ahead of a carbon in the future. I really don't trust my local utility since I found out the taste and odor problem a few years back (which they blamed on turnover in the lake) was from a sewage lift station that was running over for two weeks because they were too cheap to keep an adequate supply of spare parts on hand for repairs.

[laspis59]

My tap water is fine,it depends on what region of the UK you are in.

I like my R Whites lemonade.8 2 litre bottles per fortnight.

[Scorpion King]

At home I drink water from my 580ft deep water well. At work and when traveling I only drink bottled.

[TBoneit]

If you tasted what comes out of my tap you would know why I drink bottled water.

Sometimes it smells like swamp water, other times like a Swimming pool, and it never tastes good.

Plus I swear it pits the bottom of the water glass I use to rinse out toothpaste. How can this be?

[thecoalman]

Tap, all our water is from moutain spring fed dams. We live in a Valley so there are many of these dams. It does go though a plant before getting piped but that only adds a slight chlorine taste. Here's a bit of trivia, New York City has some of the best city water in the world. It's all piped in from upstate New York. At least when it gets to the city, what happens to it after that...

[gll99]

I just lick the melting permafrost but that methane sure lights up the den when I belch

[ZAPPER]

Grew up drinking water out of the bottom of Lake Michigan, Gary Hobart Water Co (supposed to be amoung the best in the country yada yada yadi, sez them)

Got a well at the homestead here in GA. 350+ or so (But you know how them well diggers lie and it is alot like fishing stories, mine is bigger than your's and so on) It don't taste too bad, sometimes it seems bitter or dry to the tounge but no real flavor. It does leave a green/turquoise stain on the ceramic in the shower ( I should really fix that dripping) I just figured that that was from the copper pipes installed in 1960 and the lead solder. Let it run long enough, like washing the dishes and then it taste like water or should I say that it doesn't taste at all? (Never does get ice cold though, but I couldn't take a shower in it as cold as it is)

The ole lady keeps a supply of bottled water on hand just to have around (The cheap stuff from wherever) It is just kind of handy to grab a couple of bottles for long drives or trips to the park or whatever.

As far as floride goes, I would say that it is a good thing. My Olelady is a pediatric nurse, and while very rare (round these parts), the results of non floranated water or kids that didn't get the floride treatment can be extreame. The guy she works for thinks that the standard treatment of city water is higher than really needed as is the standard medical or do it yourself stuff. But better too much than none at all.

I have camped out before and had to boil water to purify it, and I got to tell you that boiled water sucks! I know that not doing it could be worse. I have drank from a solar still before too, very hard to keep sand and grit out of your water. And while it might keep you alive it sure will make you thristier with all that sand in your mouth. Drinking out of a creek bottom ain't so bad, just do it above the cattle crossing or it taste alot like whatever the cattle last ate.