this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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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.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Ah interesting, could def see that happening.

[โ€“] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Where I am most people are happy to drink the tap water, and we're all oddly proud of it. Which is fair, it's great water. Very soft too, I remember seeing ads on TV for products to remove limescale but that doesn't really happen here much. I find it a little odd that some places' tap water is so full of impurities that it leaves mineral deposits on their appliances.

Come to Scotland, try our tap water!

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago

Those aren't necessarily impurities in the nasty sense, just mineral content.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Scotland and North-West England have excellent tap water. The water in the Midlands and London is perfectly safe to drink, but it certainly has a taste to it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Severn Trent (the midlands) is often voted the best tap water in the UK.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

If you wish to taste some Finnish ones, I'm sure I can bottle and ship some of our tapwater for you guys to taste.

https://mediconnection.fi/en/water-finland-purest-world/

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I live in San Francisco, give me hetch hetchy

(that's where our tap comes from)

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Gotta get those excess micro plastics somehow

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

[people drinking out of lead pipes] ๐Ÿ—ฟ

[โ€“] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago

I used to live in Los Angeles and lived in Charlie Chaplin's house that was on the old lot(the current Broadway shoes).

The water coming into the house was probably clean, but the home's pipes were all lead. I did one of those lead tests and it failed.

So your sulfur taste could be from the home and not from the municipal water.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

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!

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 46 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Water and Wastewater operator here. In Texas, where I work and live water is sampled, tested, and reported to TCEQ the Texas specific extension of the EPA. If a water system continually fails to meet water quality standards set out by TCEQ, that system will be taken over by TCEQ and brought back into compliance. All this to say, yes, I drink it because I help make it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

w/ww op in canada. ditto

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

I work as a disaster/contingency planning consultant in Central Europe,not only in terms of water but for everything,but of course water is always an issue. Good friend of mine is the head of the regional government agency controlling the municipal water works around here. While we could do much much more in terms of disaster preparedness there is literally nothing wrong with the water itself - we don't even have any Chlorine in it, it's simply not necessary around here. Only when something goes wrong (e.g. main-line breaks) Chlorine will be added for a few weeks.

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