The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: EconDiva on January 29, 2015, 07:20:06 PM
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I have a Brita pitcher but I also favor Deer Park brand so I usually have a gallon of that in the fridge as well.
What kind of water do you drink at home?
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Straight from the Tap. I think getting a few germs is good for you...exercise the immune system...
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Tap.
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We are lucky to have excellent tasting tap water in our city, so I just drink unfiltered tap water. I also sometimes drink the Klarbrunn seltzer water in cans from Costco. But bottled water? Too expensive and not very environmental. It always amazes me how many people are buying large cases of bottled water at Costco and the grocery store. Seems very wasteful, especially since our tap water here tastes so good.
We used to use a Brita filter, but the replacement filters got expensive. We stopped and I haven't noticed the difference.
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Straight from the Tap. I think getting a few germs is good for you...exercise the immune system...
I'm not convinced my tap water has just 'a few' germs so I have to at least use the Brita filter...it definitely tastes better.
But even that's been a big step for me because for years I would never dare drink anything from the tap at home. I'm trying to increase my water intake though, and water consumption can get expensive.
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Unfiltered tap water.
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I buy store brand bottled water (BJ's, IGA, etc - wherever I'm shopping when I run out) because I'm trying to kick a terrible diet Coke habit. I find I do a lot better with the bottle constantly available (and no, a 'real' water bottle is just...different?). I think I have some kind of oral fixation or something :/
But I do fill the empties up several times with tap water or filtered water from the fridge door thing. I have well water though -- grew up with it and when I moved closer to campus and ended up in an apartment with city water, I couldn't drink the tap water or even give it to my cat because the chlorine smell coming off it was so strong. Yuck!
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Tap
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I used to buy water jugs too because my tap water doesn't taste good (silicon valley), but then I read up here a bit and realized how much cash I'm wasting, so now I just drink it - fuck it.
After drinking it for a few months it's not so bad now and I haven't died or anything.
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Filtered tap. W/o filter it has a nasty aftertaste here and at my old place. There are some places where it tastes fine and I'll drink straight tap (Chicago, San Fran Bay Area). Note: the pitcher/faucet filters don't filter for germs!! You'd have to get a Katadyn hiking filter or similar for that. Unless you have an RO filter, I guess.
I find I do a lot better with the bottle constantly available (and no, a 'real' water bottle is just...different?). I think I have some kind of oral fixation or something :/
I had all sorts of water bottles but kept refilling the standard commercial ones or vitamin water bottles so I had to admit I liked that formfactor, and then I got one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Copco-2510-2294-Hydra-Bottle-Purple/dp/B00D5UJ5XU (http://www.amazon.com/Copco-2510-2294-Hydra-Bottle-Purple/dp/B00D5UJ5XU) I've been loyal to it. Just in case you have the same issue but want to make the change. it's a nice improvement because you can open the middle, wash it out, put ice or fruit in, etc. I like it.
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Filtered tap. We live in the "stone belt" and I have a history of kidney stones. Sometimes those extra minerals aren't so good for you.
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I find I do a lot better with the bottle constantly available (and no, a 'real' water bottle is just...different?). I think I have some kind of oral fixation or something :/
I had all sorts of water bottles but kept refilling the standard commercial ones or vitamin water bottles so I had to admit I liked that formfactor, and then I got one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Copco-2510-2294-Hydra-Bottle-Purple/dp/B00D5UJ5XU (http://www.amazon.com/Copco-2510-2294-Hydra-Bottle-Purple/dp/B00D5UJ5XU) I've been loyal to it. Just in case you have the same issue but want to make the change. it's a nice improvement because you can open the middle, wash it out, put ice or fruit in, etc. I like it.
Thanks! I think part of my problem with regular water bottles is the size, so this might work better since it's the same as what I'm used to :)
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Tap back at home. But my current place has hard water, so I ended up using Brita. Although this thread is making me rethink my choices. After all, I cook, wash my dishes, brush my teeth, and shower with water straight from the tap.
I boil all my drinking water, so that should be sufficient.
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Tap at home and tap at work.
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We have two Brita pitchers. We get the filters at Costco when they have a coupon for them.
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I refill 5-gallon jugs at the grocery store with purified water for 25c/gallon. Tried going back to tap this fall, but found I just didn't drink as much water, even though I didn't particularly mind the taste. The purified stuff just tastes, well, more pure, and I'm apt to drink more of it.
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Growing up in NC I drank unfiltered tap water all the time. When I moved to AZ for college I found that the tap water was undrinkably awful even after filtration so I started drinking bottled water (usually whatever was cheapest).
Now that I am back in NC I drink straight from the tap again, and it is delicious.
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Tap. We're on a well with good water. When we lived somewhere with really awful city water, we put in a filtration system.
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The kind with barley, hops, and yeast cooked into it:)
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Filtered from the fridge. I only seem to have to change that filter every 6 months or so and we drink a lot of water (family of 4). I think a new one is $20 online. So $40 a year for decent tasting water. That doesn't really seem draconian to me.
Tap doesn't worry me though, I just think the fridge tastes better and it's nice having cold water on demand.
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Tap for almost everything.
I have a filter system for my homebrew to remove a few organics and other materials that are perfectly safe for drinking, but make it easier to adjust the minerals for brewing water.
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Well.
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Unfiltered tap in town. Our town has great water, and I do read the reports that get sent out every year about what's in it (not much -- other than, you know, water).
Wells in our area are naturally susceptible to having arsenic in the water because our bedrock contains shale -- not vast quantities of arsenic, but more than would be recommended if one drank from them regularly. As I spend a fair amount of time on farms for various reasons and don't know whose well has been tested (or what's been found), I try to keep a bottle or two of tap water in my car and to drink from those, but I don't freak out if I need to drink some well water.
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Tap water, always. My dad is a retired waste water engineer and consulted with cities throughout the country. He drinks it, I drink it.
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Tap water. Before I went to college, we had Sparkletts filtered water delivered and for my first year I had a Brita water filter jug. Then, it got to be too much of a hassle so I just started drinking the tap water. It tasted a little bit like dirt but it got better and I realized that I didn't really care that much.
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Tap. - cold or on ice. Filtered at work - on ice.
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The tap in our part of the city is funky... like we even need to use a filter on the shower kind of funky. Tried the Britta, Pur and Culligan filter dances for a while and gave up, partly because of cost, partly because it did very little to improve the taste.
For the longest time, we'd just been getting refillable bottled water from the grocery store which helped, but I was getting sick of the cost and freshness issue with the water itself... so I recently started researching filters again. We picked up a two gallon Zerowater five-stage filtration system just last week, and the taste of the water so far is like night and day. Best filter we ever tried.
Given it's a particulate filtration system, and going by their recommendations and our water contamination levels, they're claiming we'll only get around 12 gallons per cartridge before we hit their recommended 6ppm change-out point, and the cartridges cost between $9.50-15.00 making the water more expensive per gallon than the store (estimate about 80+¢/gallon). However, I did research. Apparently, the cartridges can easily last until at least the 30-40ppm particulate contamination point before the water starts going really skunky (5-6 times the lifespan). Some clever fellow on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/review/ROU4QJWOTQQV3/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0073PZ6O0&nodeID=284507&store=kitchen) suggested the larger two gallon system paired with a smaller Zerowater pitcher and a filter rotation system as they both use the same cartridges. When the primary water reservoir's filter hits 6ppm, it gets rotated into the secondary pitcher filter until it hits around 35ppm, wash, rinse, repeat. This method should give us 60+ gallons per cartridge while still getting filtered water within the recommended levels. Preliminary napkin math says that going this route will give us water at around 10-15¢/gallon if we buy our filters in bulk, with a little extra work double filtering. I can live with that for cheaper, fresher, drinkable water.
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Tap...but it comes from the same source that the local distillery uses, so it can't be all bad!
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Tap
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Usually just the tap stuff, but I have a couple of glass bottles in the fridge as I prefer it cold. Once I've emptied one, I'll fill it and switch to the other.
Used to use the Brita-style filters, but these days I can't be bothered with that.
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I drink coconut water! Yes I know it is $4/liter.
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Filtered from the fridge.
Tap doesn't worry me though, I just think the fridge tastes better and it's nice having cold water on demand.
+1. And ice cubes too
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tap
But just this summer I've started keeping a bottle in the fridge, spritzing it in the soda-stream machine and adding a shot of lime juice. I drink WAY more when I do this.
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Well water here, but filtered through the refrigerator. Husband wouldn't buy a whole house filter and the well water tasted somewhat like sulfur and has organic iron in it. So, I did make sure to get a refrigerator with a filter for the water and ice. So I drink and cook my food, make coffee etc, from the refrigerator water. It tastes good, way better than the well water!
Miss Prim
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I used to spend a lot of time and money going out of my way to get "higher quality" water.
I now just drink my tap water with no filter and am feel much less stressed as this is the easiest option.
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We have a well on our semi-rural property that provides great tasting high-quality water. It is nice and cold out of the tap at 44°F. (That compares with Ohio where it averages 52°F. In southern Florida it is 77°F -- yikes!). In northern Canada the water temperature of tap water can actually be higher than ours. It is common in the northern communities to heat the water in municipal systems to prevent it from freezing! (Sewer lines are often heated too!)
Here on our island 100% of tap water is groundwater sourced - that is likely the highest percentage in North America for a State or Province. That compares with 20% of water usage in the USA is groundwater sourced.
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Britta Pitcher
I will occasionally concede to a 24pack of expensive (deer park) water from Costco for my better half. Its probably her most expensive request 1-2 months, so it could be worse. I also had to stop referring to it as expensive water.
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Mostly tap, but I do have a Brita water bottle and dispenser, the latter so I can have cold water since Richmond's water source is the James River and it gets really warm in summer.
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Tap water. In the warmer months I keep a jug or two in the fridge and dispense into my insulated bottles.
My city has good water but there's definitely places I've been where I'd need some sort of filtration, at least until I adjusted.
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Tap from a city water system. They filter it.
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Brita jug here.
I hate the taste of the water where I live. When I'm in other places I drink tap water though.
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Tap.
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Tap for me.
FYI - a lot of bottled water is just straight from a tap. And I would even question the difference in "spring" water too. I have not been to a bottled water facility, but I would venture to guess that their treatment/filtering techniques are not any different than what your local water utility is doing. I agree that some tap water tastes terrible, but bottled water is just a different, more expensive tap. Don't fall for their fancy explanation of filtration techniques.
Also, as another poster mentioned, your Brita or Pur filter does nothing to remove germs. In fact, it may add germs if you don't change them regularly.
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Straight from the Tap. I think getting a few germs is good for you...exercise the immune system...
I'm not convinced my tap water has just 'a few' germs so I have to at least use the Brita filter...it definitely tastes better.
But even that's been a big step for me because for years I would never dare drink anything from the tap at home. I'm trying to increase my water intake though, and water consumption can get expensive.
Are you in the US? Is this city water? You should look into how often your water is tested for bacteria, harmful contaminants, etc. Tap water is quite safe and tested daily in larger distribution networks. Now, taste is another matter (taste is not regulated, only contaminants.). And many contaminants I would be concerned about (in my city, sometimes we have higher than the allowable level of nitrates in our sourcewater that have to be removed at the plant) are not able to be removed by a pur or brita filter. Also, what MandyM said about germs.
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Tap water that is filtered by the ground (well).
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Tap water until 2 days ago...when our City announced a city wide boil water advisory. Now I drink boiled tap water and send my kids with bottled water! The advisory is over today thank goodness!
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We have the best municipally supplied water in the country. Each year it wins an award for taste.
No, I don't buy water or filter water or goof with it.
When our young European cousins were here on a visit I tried to get them to drink the tap water but they would not. They went to Walgreens and stocked up on cases of water. I find that to be ridiculous, but to each his own. DH says that in Switzerland (where they are from) everyone drinks bottled water. I can't see why, what about those clear mountain streams?
Anyway, it makes me appreciate American engineering of water systems. Also, being old as I am, I grew up as did DH with the concept of drinking water. We did not drink soda or "juice" at dinner, our parents just did not buy that stuff.
I think that's one of the simplicity gift of life that parents can give their children: teach them to drink water. Not flavored water, just tap water. Don't get them accustomed to drinking flavored liquids meals. And when they've been exercising and playing, let them learn to enjoy the satisfying thirst quenching nature of pure water. All of that flavored crap just makes one more thirsty a few minutes after drinking it, anyway.
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Tap, kept in a Brita pitcher with an ancient, dead filter. I like fridge-temperature water better than tap-temperature water, and I might as well make use of the pitcher.
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Seltzer water -- tap water carbonated with repurposed beer kegging equipment.
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Back in Ohio I drank tap water - Columbus had really great municipal water.
Here in Florida I drink Brita filtered water and cut the cost with couponing/target brand replacement filters. There are "boil alerts" pretty frequently in surrounding counties. I figure that if my county goes under a boil alert and I don't get notified or see the news right away, at least the filter is catching a portion of the grossness. It's not a big enough concern to switch to bottled water though - I've already eaten the cost of a basic pitcher filtration system.
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Tap.
Municipal water supplies are highly regulated, and the price is also highly subsidized. Good ol' USA tap water is cheaper, safer and better tasting than almost anything you can find.
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Tap back at home. But my current place has hard water, so I ended up using Brita. Although this thread is making me rethink my choices. After all, I cook, wash my dishes, brush my teeth, and shower with water straight from the tap.
I boil all my drinking water, so that should be sufficient.
Acorn, where do you live that you feel the need to boil your tap water? Although there have been a few incidents with municipal water supplies, the reality is that drinking tap water is incredibly safe and boiling it is just a huge waste of energy.
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Back in Ohio I drank tap water - Columbus had really great municipal water.
Here in Florida I drink Brita filtered water and cut the cost with couponing/target brand replacement filters. There are "boil alerts" pretty frequently in surrounding counties. I figure that if my county goes under a boil alert and I don't get notified or see the news right away, at least the filter is catching a portion of the grossness. It's not a big enough concern to switch to bottled water though - I've already eaten the cost of a basic pitcher filtration system.
Those boil alerts are often for only potential bacteria contamination. Usually around here they are when the system potentially lost pressure. Note that I said potentially, not actually. A loss of pressure leads to the *potential* for back siphoning or pulling in contaminants which can lead to bacteria in the water supply. I think they're overly conservative to do a boil order when it was simply a *potential* loss of pressure, but that's me, not a regulator of the water supply, and when I was I was low enough on the totem pole that my opinion didn't matter. Then, of course, there are boil orders for actual bad samples, which are often from sampling error but can be from bacterial contamination of the water supply. These are relatively rare.
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We drink unfiltered tap. We use distilled for ice cubes because chilling our water precipitates stuff, and DH hates floaties in his drinks.
I remember my grandpa's house having a lot of iron in the water, which made it taste funky. His solution was to chill it; he said he noticed the taste less when it was cold. I don't remember how well it worked (I haven't been back there in years).
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Unfiltered tap.
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When our young European cousins were here on a visit I tried to get them to drink the tap water but they would not. They went to Walgreens and stocked up on cases of water. I find that to be ridiculous, but to each his own. DH says that in Switzerland (where they are from) everyone drinks bottled water. I can't see why, what about those clear mountain streams?
This is true, but I don't know exactly why either. Perhaps everyone simply has been fought that it's not proper and folks in this country love following rules. Quality is fine here as well…
I drink bottled water at work because it's supplied for free. At home I don't drink pure water at all, only tea and apple juice.
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Filtered tap. I went through chemo several years ago, and it does weird things to your sense of smell and taste. I could smell the chlorine in a glass of water from across the room. I couldn't drink it. Dh put in a filtered tap on the kitchen sink. My sense of smell never returned to normal entirely, so I continue to use the filtered water.
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When our young European cousins were here on a visit I tried to get them to drink the tap water but they would not. They went to Walgreens and stocked up on cases of water. I find that to be ridiculous, but to each his own. DH says that in Switzerland (where they are from) everyone drinks bottled water. I can't see why, what about those clear mountain streams?
I bet cows poop in those clear mountain streams and you'd get giardia if you didn't boil that water 5+ minutes ;)
But on a serious note, I don't know about Switzerland but in Russia everyone drinks boiled tap water or bottled water because you really can't trust the municipal water supply. Wouldn't put it past other countries to have had the same problem, at least 1-2 generations back, and these habits don't go away instantly. My parents brought the boiling habit with them, and I grew up with it (we usually had leftover water from all the tea we drank, anyway, but instead of reheating it we just threw it in a bottle or pitcher), but it was too much of a hassle in college, and the water from the drinking fountain in my hall tasted good, and no one got sick. Now I drink from the tap if it tastes good to me, or from a filter if it doesn't. Not a huge expense to encourage the excellent habit of water-drinking (and reduce consumption of sweetened or alcoholic beverages)!
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I used to drink unfiltered tap and felt fine, but after a while I noticed I was drinking less because it just had a weird aftertaste to it.
Now I use a Brita filter and it tastes so much better. I am one of those who doesn't drink unless I'm eating or I'm thirsty... which is bad, I know. I try to keep a glass filled next to me so I get in a better habit of drinking during other times as well.
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Brita. Never did it before living in Guam, but the water did NOT taste good there (and later I found out they'd had problems with contaminated tap water in the recent past). Have since moved back to the continental US, but kept the Brita pitcher. I also like to put it in my coffee maker because the coffee even tastes noticeably better!
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When our young European cousins were here on a visit I tried to get them to drink the tap water but they would not. They went to Walgreens and stocked up on cases of water. I find that to be ridiculous, but to each his own. DH says that in Switzerland (where they are from) everyone drinks bottled water. I can't see why, what about those clear mountain streams?
I bet cows poop in those clear mountain streams and you'd get giardia if you didn't boil that water 5+ minutes ;)
But on a serious note, I don't know about Switzerland but in Russia everyone drinks boiled tap water or bottled water because you really can't trust the municipal water supply. Wouldn't put it past other countries to have had the same problem, at least 1-2 generations back, and these habits don't go away instantly. My parents brought the boiling habit with them, and I grew up with it (we usually had leftover water from all the tea we drank, anyway, but instead of reheating it we just threw it in a bottle or pitcher), but it was too much of a hassle in college, and the water from the drinking fountain in my hall tasted good, and no one got sick. Now I drink from the tap if it tastes good to me, or from a filter if it doesn't. Not a huge expense to encourage the excellent habit of water-drinking (and reduce consumption of sweetened or alcoholic beverages)!
I grew up in southeast asia, and back home we put a cloth filter over the tap and boiled all tap water before drinking. The water quality got better as I grew up, but my parents (and grandparents) still insist on boiling all drinking water. I've lived in a few places since but I've brought the boiling habit with me. I boil water for tea and whatever's left goes into a jug for drinking water.
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Tap- in the States you're much better off drinking tap water. It is held to a significantly higher standard than bottled water. (I'm in Canada, but our standards vary province to province, and federally we only have Health Canada guidelines, whereas in the States there are national standards. Even still, our tap water is amazing where I am).
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Back in Ohio I drank tap water - Columbus had really great municipal water.
Here in Florida I drink Brita filtered water and cut the cost with couponing/target brand replacement filters. There are "boil alerts" pretty frequently in surrounding counties. I figure that if my county goes under a boil alert and I don't get notified or see the news right away, at least the filter is catching a portion of the grossness. It's not a big enough concern to switch to bottled water though - I've already eaten the cost of a basic pitcher filtration system.
Those boil alerts are often for only potential bacteria contamination. Usually around here they are when the system potentially lost pressure. Note that I said potentially, not actually. A loss of pressure leads to the *potential* for back siphoning or pulling in contaminants which can lead to bacteria in the water supply. I think they're overly conservative to do a boil order when it was simply a *potential* loss of pressure, but that's me, not a regulator of the water supply, and when I was I was low enough on the totem pole that my opinion didn't matter. Then, of course, there are boil orders for actual bad samples, which are often from sampling error but can be from bacterial contamination of the water supply. These are relatively rare.
Considering how well other governmental duties are handled in Florida, I still like the added sense of comfort. Likewise, these boil orders seem to be every other month in a different surrounding county. Merited or not, it seems a bit to frequent. :-)
And I already own the pitcher and the pitcher also takes out the slight sulfur tinge of "Florida water".
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Bottled water
We tried using Brita a while back, but the water would get moldy, even if we cleaned the pitcher and used a new filter.
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I think that's one of the simplicity gift of life that parents can give their children: teach them to drink water. Not flavored water, just tap water. Don't get them accustomed to drinking flavored liquids meals. And when they've been exercising and playing, let them learn to enjoy the satisfying thirst quenching nature of pure water.
+1
Having easy access to clean, safe, great tasting water is something to be appreciated with every glass. "Mmmmm... Waaater... " (Say that in a Homer Simpson voice).
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During the spring and sometimes at other times the tap water here is really awful. It smells like agricultural chemicals and I'm told that runoff can be a problem at times. I tried to drink it but the smell turned my stomach, especially when it warmed up on long runs in my water bottle, so now I use a pitcher with a Brita filter. Much, much better.
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Tap water at home, filtered water at work since the fridge there dispenses it. We both have water bottles we refill regularly.
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I drink water that's been filtered through a Brita pitcher. Our regular tap water tastes like ass.
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I drink up at work, so I dont have to drink when I get home. probably saved me $2 a month.
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I have a deep addiction to fizzy water - so I either use the Soda Stream w/ filtered tap water (fridge and sink both have filter) or I spring for a bottle of soda water (.42 a bottle). I don't buy bottled flat water.
I have a tendency to get dehydrated (my office is ridiculously dry) and have had a few kidney infections as a result - fizzy water motivates me to stay hydrated, so it is worth the expense for me.
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We drink tap water, at room temperature. We live in Calgary and our drinking water is of excellent quality, as attested by the results of the water quality testing posted on the city website.
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Tap
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Whatever come out of the tap.
Years ago I worked in a very old building, most of which was warehouse space. Whenever they worked on the plumbing or otherwise jostled the pipes the "water" would come out a rusty brown color. That's when I started using a mug with a dark interior for my tea. I think I was the only one who drank the water during those times.
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Personally I drink tap water after ditching a water cooler we had. Water cooler wasn't all that costly as we would go through a large bottle every couple of months but it took up space and I am always trying to declutter.
My wife drinks cans of carbonated water. not a horrible habit, but at 12 cans every 5 days it adds up and I'm not 100% sure it qualifies as water.
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Tap water, unfiltered. My city's water supply is fine, no need to filter. I don't like ice cold water, so I prefer to drink straight from the tap. Water and tea are my favourite drinks.
There are some small towns within a few hundred km radius of where we live, though, where the water tastes funny. Then I won't drink the water (but usually we've brought water with us from home, and can muddle our way through with that, particularly if we get fluid intake from tea instead).
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Pure, sweet tap water.
DH works for the water district. When we were house hunting, we only looked within this district because the water quality is so superior to the surrounding areas. As a bonus, now he walks to work.
Crazy water aside. We had to buy a counter-depth refridgerator for this house. I don't like outside the door dispensers because they drip water and generally look crappy after five or six years. Virtually all of the counter-depth models have dispensers, so we chose a model with the water dispenser inside the door. My MIL and her pal Al Z. Heimer moved in with us not long after. She uses that damn dispenser all.the.time. She will even try to fill pitchers with it. She's never had a fridge with any kind of dispenser and you can't see it from the outside, so how the hell does she know it's there? We seldom use it because our water is so good and the filters are expensive. In addition, if you don't stop the flow and wait for the last drop of water, it ends up in the produce drawer. Of course I know my MIL's been using the dispenser when I find soggy lettuce. Okay, thanks for letting me vent...
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Unfiltered tap water. I live in an area that's pretty high on the list of water quality. I don't notice any taste to it at all. Also, it comes out cold enough that I don't need to refrigerate it.
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Unfiltered city tap water.
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Tap filtered with Brita. I had headaches with tap alone....high aluminum maybe?
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Back in Ohio I drank tap water - Columbus had really great municipal water.
Here in Florida I drink Brita filtered water and cut the cost with couponing/target brand replacement filters. There are "boil alerts" pretty frequently in surrounding counties. I figure that if my county goes under a boil alert and I don't get notified or see the news right away, at least the filter is catching a portion of the grossness. It's not a big enough concern to switch to bottled water though - I've already eaten the cost of a basic pitcher filtration system.
Those boil alerts are often for only potential bacteria contamination. Usually around here they are when the system potentially lost pressure. Note that I said potentially, not actually. A loss of pressure leads to the *potential* for back siphoning or pulling in contaminants which can lead to bacteria in the water supply. I think they're overly conservative to do a boil order when it was simply a *potential* loss of pressure, but that's me, not a regulator of the water supply, and when I was I was low enough on the totem pole that my opinion didn't matter. Then, of course, there are boil orders for actual bad samples, which are often from sampling error but can be from bacterial contamination of the water supply. These are relatively rare.
Considering how well other governmental duties are handled in Florida, I still like the added sense of comfort. Likewise, these boil orders seem to be every other month in a different surrounding county. Merited or not, it seems a bit to frequent. :-)
And I already own the pitcher and the pitcher also takes out the slight sulfur tinge of "Florida water".
(FYI - I spent 7 years in Florida in the municipal water industry.) Florida's water regulations are pretty strict. Water is a big deal there - the whole tourism industry is centered on it. So everything from drinking water, to wastewater, stormwater, reclaimed water, etc is ahead of the curve. Some of their treatment standards are essentially double what some other states require.
Also, if there is a lot of construction going on your boil water alerts will probably go up - like KCM5 noted, if there is a loss of pressure you will get an alert. So if there is a lot of construction going on, the likelihood of an accidental line break goes up, which results in a boil water notice.
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Tap back at home. But my current place has hard water, so I ended up using Brita. Although this thread is making me rethink my choices. After all, I cook, wash my dishes, brush my teeth, and shower with water straight from the tap.
I boil all my drinking water, so that should be sufficient.
FYI I'm pretty sure a Brita filter does not make the water less hard. You'd need a salt filter for that.
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Tap water always, everywhere.
(And I totally thought this thread was going to be a joke before I opened it! :))
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Tap- in the States you're much better off drinking tap water. It is held to a significantly higher standard than bottled water. (I'm in Canada, but our standards vary province to province, and federally we only have Health Canada guidelines, whereas in the States there are national standards. Even still, our tap water is amazing where I am).
This is so true. Our city water in the US is regulated by the EPA, whereas bottled water is regulated by the FDA.
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Sounds like we have a lot of people knowledgeable about municipal water systems. Here's a question: how can one have any certainty of what's going on between the water testing point and consumption point (i.e. home faucet)? Particularly if you're in a rental (no control over pipes).
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We have the best municipally supplied water in the country. Each year it wins an award for taste.
LOL, I just saw recently that Tulsa won some kind of award for best municipal water in the southwest.
I drink unfiltered tap at home and filtered at work. And I drink a fuck ton of water. I guess I'm lucky because I have lived in a few different parts of the US and have yet to live somewhere with tap water that I wouldn't drink unfiltered. I find if I leave a cup of water sitting out for a few hours at home, it tastes weird and I have to dump it out and get a new one. No idea why that is. Also, when the city started using chloramine in 2012 I swear it tasted weird/gross straight out of the tap, but I could leave it for ~10 minutes and then it tasted fine... now I don't even notice it, I don't know if they changed anything or if I got used to it.
Bottled water enrages me, maybe to an irrational extent (other than of course in countries with a sketchier water supply, I get that).
Tap water always, everywhere.
(And I totally thought this thread was going to be a joke before I opened it! :))
Haha, me too :)
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Sounds like we have a lot of people knowledgeable about municipal water systems. Here's a question: how can one have any certainty of what's going on between the water testing point and consumption point (i.e. home faucet)? Particularly if you're in a rental (no control over pipes).
The water testing point is the consumption point. Municipalities are required to test water actually at peoples homes and businesses. For example, a municipality will test lead levels in a home with piping that would have the potential to leach lead into the water after that water has sat in the pipes for approximately 8 hours. So people open the tap for a sample for the municipality in the morning. That said, I still run water to clear out my taps every morning before I take a drink. If you have more concerns about it, call your city and ask them their sampling procedures/requirements. Most are more than happy to discuss it. Also, requirements vary quite a bit based on facility size.
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Tap water filtered through the refrigerator.
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Sounds like we have a lot of people knowledgeable about municipal water systems. Here's a question: how can one have any certainty of what's going on between the water testing point and consumption point (i.e. home faucet)? Particularly if you're in a rental (no control over pipes).
The water testing point is the consumption point. Municipalities are required to test water actually at peoples homes and businesses. For example, a municipality will test lead levels in a home with piping that would have the potential to leach lead into the water after that water has sat in the pipes for approximately 8 hours. So people open the tap for a sample for the municipality in the morning. That said, I still run water to clear out my taps every morning before I take a drink. If you have more concerns about it, call your city and ask them their sampling procedures/requirements. Most are more than happy to discuss it. Also, requirements vary quite a bit based on facility size.
I'm not sure what to think about having never encountered/heard about water testing at my home or school, or seen anyone do it...
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Tap water at home for me. GF drinks filtered tap water at home in our Brita pitcher. I'll drink from it sometimes if it's on the table next to me. I prefer the taste of tap water though.
At work I'm the only guy that drinks from the tap, because it tastes better than our water cooler and its Fancy Weekly Water Delivery 5 Gallon Jugs. I will use the water cooler for hot water to brew tea.
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Tap water always, everywhere.
(And I totally thought this thread was going to be a joke before I opened it! :))
Me too, I thought I was in the AWSC subforum for a bit.
The only place I've had unpleasant tap water was the water fountains at the Phoenix airport.
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The water that comes out of my fridge.
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Sounds like we have a lot of people knowledgeable about municipal water systems. Here's a question: how can one have any certainty of what's going on between the water testing point and consumption point (i.e. home faucet)? Particularly if you're in a rental (no control over pipes).
The water testing point is the consumption point. Municipalities are required to test water actually at peoples homes and businesses. For example, a municipality will test lead levels in a home with piping that would have the potential to leach lead into the water after that water has sat in the pipes for approximately 8 hours. So people open the tap for a sample for the municipality in the morning. That said, I still run water to clear out my taps every morning before I take a drink. If you have more concerns about it, call your city and ask them their sampling procedures/requirements. Most are more than happy to discuss it. Also, requirements vary quite a bit based on facility size.
I'm not sure what to think about having never encountered/heard about water testing at my home or school, or seen anyone do it...
Yeah, me neither until I started working with public water utilities. They really do do it, though! Obviously, not at your actual home, because they'd organize it with you, but they do it at peoples homes. Some of the sampling they have the residents do (like the lead tests) and others, like bacteria, they do themselves.
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Bottled spring water. I don't want to drink the fluoride in tap water.
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Tap, but I only have 16-20 oz (my morning wakeup glass) of plain tap a day. The rest of my fluid intake is a single cup of coffee and then iced tea. I do brew the tea at home using tap water.
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Shhh - don't tell my DH.
We drink unfiltered tap water from the fridge that I secretly reset the filter light on every time it turns yellow. DH swears the fridge water tastes "so much better" than the tap because it is filtered. I haven't replaced the filter in years.
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Tap back at home. But my current place has hard water, so I ended up using Brita. Although this thread is making me rethink my choices. After all, I cook, wash my dishes, brush my teeth, and shower with water straight from the tap.
I boil all my drinking water, so that should be sufficient.
FYI I'm pretty sure a Brita filter does not make the water less hard. You'd need a salt filter for that.
Brita is just activated charcoal, which is not supposed to do anything about hardwater. But I get limescale buildup in my kettle and humidifier without it, so it must be filtering out something. (?)
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Whatever I can get. I've done international travel, high school band, military, international work.. I've drank from tap, hand-dug wells, creeks in several countries, bottles, bags, mountain springs, hand-pumps.. I'm not sure there is a water source I haven't had in the US or overseas.
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Brita pitcher. I swear it is mostly the colder temp that makes it taste better.
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Tap. And when I get super fancy I use a soda stream to give my tap water bubbles.
If I was more mustachian I'd get a let spendy CO2 set-up. The cost of CO2 with sodastream canister is way higher than normal canisters.
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Tap. And when I get super fancy I use a soda stream to give my tap water bubbles.
If I was more mustachian I'd get a let spendy CO2 set-up. The cost of CO2 with sodastream canister is way higher than normal canisters.
If you are a homebrewer and keg your beer, you could use this cheap fitting to get your bubbles into the water:
http://www.amazon.com/LiquidBread-The-Carbonater/dp/B0064OKADS/ref=pd_bxgy_k_img_z
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If you are a homebrewer and keg your beer, you could use this cheap fitting to get your bubbles into the water:
http://www.amazon.com/LiquidBread-The-Carbonater/dp/B0064OKADS/ref=pd_bxgy_k_img_z
Thats the ultimate plan. Want to get my brews to a decent standard first before investing in the keg lines.
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I use a big berkey water filter myself. Part of my job deals with the testing and maintaining the proper phosphate, fluoride and chlorine levels coming out of wells to supply a local area. Biggest reason i use the filter is to filter out the fluoride. Our fluoride level coming out of the tap is around 5ppm and that is a bit too high for my liking. Plus berkey filter we have can make raw water drinkable so it is great for our camping trips as well!
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Bottled distilled water. Wife and I dislike chlorine and chloramines. Our pets get it too. We also use the distilled water in food, (but not for boiling pasta or potatoes) and for making the most wonderful cup of fancy coffee. At $1 per gallon and average one gallon per day, it is more than worth it to us.
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from my well.
I really like Aquafina though.
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Tap. Preferably from work.
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Tap. I also work for a company that makes mass spectrometers and we use them to test drinking water. Municipal water in the U.S. is good stuff, in terms of safety. Taste, that's another matter. Luckily we have pretty tasty water min Minneapolis.
The best tasting tap water I've ever had was in Iceland, and Denmark was a close second.
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Unfiltered tap. Tap water is 100% fine for you in the US. It's very well regulated. Some areas of the country have more mineral content in their water, which might taste funny. If it bothers you, you can filter it.
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Tap filtered through a Brita pitcher. The kitchen tap water tastes like dirt otherwise. The bathroom line is a bit better. I really do like bottled water, and was buying cases and cases. Then I got tired of lugging it upstairs.
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Well water filtered with reverse osmosis. Cost - $100 or so for the system and around $15 a year for the filters (bought in bulk four years ago). Needed RO water for the fish tank, unless we put drops in our well water (annoying and not free either), or filled jugs at a quarter a gallon at the grocery store (also annoying and also not free.)
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In Holland almost every-one drinks tapwater. Drinking bottled water is more a fashion-statement of some people then a necessity.
In restaurants you can get bottled water, but you can also ask for tap water. Which is free. Some restaurants refuse, but the law requires that restaurants should give it to their costumers if they ask for it.
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
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Tap.
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Grew up on well, drink tap now. Usually keep a reusable bottle filled in the fridge for nice cold water. Still just tap though. We have great water here.
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There are kinds of water? O_o
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Refreshe seltzer. 2 or 3 cans a night.
I am surprised no one posted this yet
I pay too much, about $1 a liter, an probably 2 liters every 3 days.
http://priceonomics.com/soda-makers/sodastream/
Safeway brand carbonated water is fairly cheap, $0.89 for a liter bottle (and almost twice as cheap per liter if you spring for a two liter sized bottle). Since the SodaStream costs $0.28 per liter, you save $0.61 per liter! So how long will it take you to pay back your investment in the device ($113)?
It takes 93 weeks or almost two years to pay back the investment. If you only drink a liter of sparkling water every two weeks, it would take over seven years! If you normally buy 2 liter bottles of water from Safeway, it will take much longer.
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
Jesus. You just painted a picture that turned my stomach. Please someone put a little science behind drinking tap water so I can get the idea of poop, hair, and tampons out of my head. For real - my stomach lurched at this post.
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
Jesus. You just painted a picture that turned my stomach. Please someone put a little science behind drinking tap water so I can get the idea of poop, hair, and tampons out of my head. For real - my stomach lurched at this post.
It is actually a very cool process once you learn all about it.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/h2o4.htm
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
My tap water comes from a reservoir in central Massachusetts, and my waste water goes into the Atlantic Ocean (after being treated). There's actually a walking trail around the treatment facility and it doesn't smell bad (well I've only been there once; maybe it does some days?)
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
My tap water comes from a reservoir in central Massachusetts, and my waste water goes into the Atlantic Ocean (after being treated). There's actually a walking trail around the treatment facility and it doesn't smell bad (well I've only been there once; maybe it does some days?)
I grew up about 1/4 mile from a water treatment facility. In my experience, it's mainly the very hot days and the very cold days that are issues. Otherwise it tends to be pretty minor, no worse than a dairy.
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The kind that Coors Brewing Company puts in its beer;)
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
Jesus. You just painted a picture that turned my stomach. Please someone put a little science behind drinking tap water so I can get the idea of poop, hair, and tampons out of my head. For real - my stomach lurched at this post.
Blue House - do you work next to a water treatment plant or a wastewater treatment plant (sometimes called a water reclamation facility)? Water treatment plants can smell on occasion, but likely its wastewater.
The time/distance between the wastewater and drinking water in Florida is pretty big. The vast majority of drinking water in FL is groundwater, which is generally a cleaner source than surface water. Plus, after wastewater is treated, the majority (or possibly entirety) is used as irrigation (i.e. reclaimed water). Reclaimed water has to be treated to a higher standard than normal wastewater discharge, which means it has to have secondary disinfection. The reclaimed water has a long way to go before it gets back to the aquifer and becomes groundwater.
This is a lot different than a place like Kentucky or most anywhere along the Mississippi River - you pull your drinking water from the river, which is also where you dump your treated wastewater.
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tap
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cold water
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Well water to house is sulphurish but I drink it sometimes, but I grew up on well water. Family (city kids & hubs) will only drink the spring water that we haul in from spring near the house. I sometimes drink it as well. So I drink FREE water.
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I work next door to a water treatment plant. It smells so bad that some days I wretch and dry-heave in the parking lot. I cannot believe that we drink water that just a few days before someone pooped into and was rinsed down the drain with a pile of soap-encrusted hair or tampons.
Still, I drink tap water. no problem with it. But at work, the pipes are very old and you'll find brown "floaters" in the water. So I carry tap water from home in stainless steel canteens.
Jesus. You just painted a picture that turned my stomach. Please someone put a little science behind drinking tap water so I can get the idea of poop, hair, and tampons out of my head. For real - my stomach lurched at this post.
Blue House - do you work next to a water treatment plant or a wastewater treatment plant (sometimes called a water reclamation facility)? Water treatment plants can smell on occasion, but likely its wastewater.
The time/distance between the wastewater and drinking water in Florida is pretty big. The vast majority of drinking water in FL is groundwater, which is generally a cleaner source than surface water. Plus, after wastewater is treated, the majority (or possibly entirety) is used as irrigation (i.e. reclaimed water). Reclaimed water has to be treated to a higher standard than normal wastewater discharge, which means it has to have secondary disinfection. The reclaimed water has a long way to go before it gets back to the aquifer and becomes groundwater.
This is a lot different than a place like Kentucky or most anywhere along the Mississippi River - you pull your drinking water from the river, which is also where you dump your treated wastewater.
My apologies to everyone whose stomachs lurched at my description! I know the feeling!
MandyM, you're right and I didn't realize the distinction: To treat wastewater, DC Water operates the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest advanced wastewater treatment facility in the world.
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Tap at home
Bottle nestle (cheapest for 24 pack) in the car for emergencies and for sporting events where I need it to be portable/mobile.
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
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Typically Tap Water when in the US. In "developing" countries I tend to get water that has been filtered or treated with my steripen. I really try to avoid bottled water. The biggest global shame we have is the lack of potable water in underdeveloped countries and how much the local population has to pay companies just to have water to drink.
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We've got great quality tap water here, so that's what I drink.
When going out / to work / sports / whatever I bring a soda bottle I filled with tap water.
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::Adjusts tin foil hat:: Well water if available, such as at my parent's house or in-laws. Bottled water everywhere else. I don't do tap water. Too many conflicting opinions about the safety of injesting flouride and I'm not a doctor or a scientists, so I don't feel that I'm qualified to make the determination myself. I'll hold off on drinking it when possible for now.
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Tap at home
Bottle nestle (cheapest for 24 pack) in the car for emergencies and for sporting events where I need it to be portable/mobile.
Sleepyguy - are you in agreement with the CEO of Nestle that water is not a human right? Ughhh. I've given ALL Nestle products a heave-ho from my shopping cart since I read his quote. Check it out.
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
It's like $4 for a pack of 24 half liter bottles. So it's about $1 for 3 liters of water. Compare that with approximately <$0.01 for 3 liters out of my tap. So it's 100X+ as expensive as tap water, wastes resources in the form of making, shipping, and disposing of plastic bottles, and requires you go to the store and get it.
If you drink 3 liters per day your daily water habit will cost you about $365/yr (plus you have to go pick it up at the grocery store, and you are adding 2190 plastic bottles/yr to the landfill).
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
It's like $4 for a pack of 24 half liter bottles. So it's about $1 for 3 liters of water. Compare that with approximately <$0.01 for 3 liters out of my tap. So it's 100X+ as expensive as tap water, wastes resources in the form of making, shipping, and disposing of plastic bottles, and requires you go to the store and get it.
If you drink 3 liters per day your daily water habit will cost you about $365/yr (plus you have to go pick it up at the grocery store, and you are adding 2190 plastic bottles/yr to the landfill).
This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
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I drink tap water unless the county's turned the water off for one reason or another. Then I carry water up from the spring. Tap water at work.
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
If you google this, the cost difference ranges anywhere from 300x up to 2000x. But water rates can vary substantially from city to city. Pull out our water bill and check. Mine comes out to about 1.2 cents per gallon (which includes taxes and the base fee/"water service charge").
On the Sam's club website you can get a pallet of bottled water (1728 bottles, 16.9oz each) for $498...so $2.18/gallon. So 1 gallon of bottled water is the same cost as over 181 gallons from my tap.
If you buy a single 16.9 oz bottle for 89 cents its even worse: $6.74/gallon. (1 gallon bottled = 561 gallons tap)
So no, I wouldn't consider bottled water expensive, but it is an unnecessary cost for the vast majority of people. Tap water is ridiculously cheap in comparison.
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
IMO any beverage is expensive relative to $0.0034/gallon which is what I pay for tap water--okay, plus $0.00564/gallon for sewer, so almost a penny a gallon total... adding in taxes and fixed fees as MandyM did I also get 1.2 cents a gallon. but for me the grotesque environmental impact of bottled water is the real turnoff. it just seems stupid when you have an ultra-cheap, safe, tasty, and healthy beverage coming out of the faucets of your home (I realize that this is not the case for everyone).
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is bottled water really expensive? i know a lot of people say it is but some of the cases seem pretty cheap and depending how much you drink, you are not spending a whole lot?
what's the cost per quart or better yet liter in comparison?
IMO any beverage is expensive relative to $0.0034/gallon which is what I pay for tap water--okay, plus $0.00564/gallon for sewer, so almost a penny a gallon total... adding in taxes and fixed fees as MandyM did I also get 1.2 cents a gallon. but for me the grotesque environmental impact of bottled water is the real turnoff. it just seems stupid when you have an ultra-cheap, safe, tasty, and healthy beverage coming out of the faucets of your home (I realize that this is not the case for everyone).
And convenient!!
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This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
I really wouldn't consider a basic Britta pitcher all that "fancy pants". The buy-in for the pitcher was less than $20 and the filters - I use Target's brand with coupons/cartwheel/target mobile coupons - is $30-40 per year. Yes, tap water is still much cheaper. For me, the piece of mind is worth 10-12 cents a day (including the price of the pitcher, amortized over three years so far.)
And, as I've mentioned, the surrounding counties issue municipal water "boil alerts" pretty frequently. Whether due to construction, caution, or outright contamination, I still like knowing I've got a window of meager protection should I miss the morning news.
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Tap.
I'll actually request tap water over Britta filtered or bottled water. Many people don't change their filters often enough to get any benefit, and having the water sitting around in a plastic container that has to be shipped around wasting resources just seems phenomenally stupid.
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This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
I really wouldn't consider a basic Britta pitcher all that "fancy pants". The buy-in for the pitcher was less than $20 and the filters - I use Target's brand with coupons/cartwheel/target mobile coupons - is $30-40 per year. Yes, tap water is still much cheaper. For me, the piece of mind is worth 10-12 cents a day (including the price of the pitcher, amortized over three years so far.)
And, as I've mentioned, the surrounding counties issue municipal water "boil alerts" pretty frequently. Whether due to construction, caution, or outright contamination, I still like knowing I've got a window of meager protection should I miss the morning news.
It was my understanding that brita is just a carbon filtration system. It will remove some organics from the water, but it will not remove any viruses or bacteria. So it will help reduce chlorine, minerals, other chemicals, and chunks from the water, but if the water supply is contaminated with any virus/bacteria the brita filter will do absolutely nothing to protect you. It may just make it taste slightly better, but it will still be contaminated.
I could be wrong on this and I have not done any research, but that was my understanding. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in?
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This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
I really wouldn't consider a basic Britta pitcher all that "fancy pants". The buy-in for the pitcher was less than $20 and the filters - I use Target's brand with coupons/cartwheel/target mobile coupons - is $30-40 per year. Yes, tap water is still much cheaper. For me, the piece of mind is worth 10-12 cents a day (including the price of the pitcher, amortized over three years so far.)
And, as I've mentioned, the surrounding counties issue municipal water "boil alerts" pretty frequently. Whether due to construction, caution, or outright contamination, I still like knowing I've got a window of meager protection should I miss the morning news.
It was my understanding that brita is just a carbon filtration system. It will remove some organics from the water, but it will not remove any viruses or bacteria. So it will help reduce chlorine, minerals, other chemicals, and chunks from the water, but if the water supply is contaminated with any virus/bacteria the brita filter will do absolutely nothing to protect you. It may just make it taste slightly better, but it will still be contaminated.
I could be wrong on this and I have not done any research, but that was my understanding. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in?
Hence I said "meager" protection.
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This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
I really wouldn't consider a basic Britta pitcher all that "fancy pants". The buy-in for the pitcher was less than $20 and the filters - I use Target's brand with coupons/cartwheel/target mobile coupons - is $30-40 per year. Yes, tap water is still much cheaper. For me, the piece of mind is worth 10-12 cents a day (including the price of the pitcher, amortized over three years so far.)
And, as I've mentioned, the surrounding counties issue municipal water "boil alerts" pretty frequently. Whether due to construction, caution, or outright contamination, I still like knowing I've got a window of meager protection should I miss the morning news.
It was my understanding that brita is just a carbon filtration system. It will remove some organics from the water, but it will not remove any viruses or bacteria. So it will help reduce chlorine, minerals, other chemicals, and chunks from the water, but if the water supply is contaminated with any virus/bacteria the brita filter will do absolutely nothing to protect you. It may just make it taste slightly better, but it will still be contaminated.
I could be wrong on this and I have not done any research, but that was my understanding. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in?
You're right. The carbon filter is basically for taste and will do nothing for most things that will actually make you sick. It doesn't even remove fluoride (added by many municipal water systems for dental health).
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This. I am shocked at how many people here are buying water from a store or using fancy pants "water" products. Tap water for me both at work and at home.
My best investment ever was a nalgene bottle (pre-MMM). Instead of buying bottles of water at $0.50-$1 (circa 2007) each day, I bought a $10 water bottle. Less than two week payback.
I really wouldn't consider a basic Britta pitcher all that "fancy pants". The buy-in for the pitcher was less than $20 and the filters - I use Target's brand with coupons/cartwheel/target mobile coupons - is $30-40 per year. Yes, tap water is still much cheaper. For me, the piece of mind is worth 10-12 cents a day (including the price of the pitcher, amortized over three years so far.)
And, as I've mentioned, the surrounding counties issue municipal water "boil alerts" pretty frequently. Whether due to construction, caution, or outright contamination, I still like knowing I've got a window of meager protection should I miss the morning news.
It was my understanding that brita is just a carbon filtration system. It will remove some organics from the water, but it will not remove any viruses or bacteria. So it will help reduce chlorine, minerals, other chemicals, and chunks from the water, but if the water supply is contaminated with any virus/bacteria the brita filter will do absolutely nothing to protect you. It may just make it taste slightly better, but it will still be contaminated.
I could be wrong on this and I have not done any research, but that was my understanding. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in?
Hence I said "meager" protection.
I think meager is the wrong word though. I think it's actually zero protection in the case of boil alerts, and any protection you think you get is actually illusory. It may be giving you a false sense of security. I'm not an expert though.
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Tap straight from a shallow well
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Brita. It may be a placebo but if it tastes better I'll drink more of it, which is definitely a health perk.
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FYI - a lot of bottled water is just straight from a tap. And I would even question the difference in "spring" water too. I have not been to a bottled water facility, but I would venture to guess that their treatment/filtering techniques are not any different than what your local water utility is doing. I agree that some tap water tastes terrible, but bottled water is just a different, more expensive tap. Don't fall for their fancy explanation of filtration techniques.
I buy 19 liter jugs of water. I know the local company, they take tap water and put it through a couple extra filtration processes. The end results tastes much better than tap water. Our tap water is heavily chlorinated and sometimes silty. Sometimes when you draw a bath, you get a lovely layer of exfoliate in the bottom of the tub.
I go through about 1 jug a month because work provides a water cooler that I take advantage of. So I figure $7/month is worth it to ensure that I actually drink more water than I would if I forced myself to drink tap water.