Asklemmy

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 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

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.

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!

I live in San Francisco, give me hetch hetchy

(that's where our tap comes from)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.