Author Topic: What kind of water do you drink?  (Read 42073 times)

EconDiva

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What kind of water do you drink?
« on: January 29, 2015, 07:20:06 PM »
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? 

h2ogal

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2015, 07:24:04 PM »
Straight from the Tap.  I think getting a few germs is good for you...exercise the immune system...

JohnnyDollar

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2015, 07:25:35 PM »
Tap.

justajane

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2015, 07:27:54 PM »
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.

EconDiva

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2015, 07:28:12 PM »
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. 

lizzzi

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2015, 07:32:17 PM »
Unfiltered tap water.

caliq

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2015, 07:34:29 PM »
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!

Annamal

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2015, 07:37:03 PM »
Tap

dividendman

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2015, 07:46:28 PM »
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.

galliver

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2015, 07:49:31 PM »
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 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.

geekette

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2015, 07:58:21 PM »
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.

caliq

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2015, 08:03:24 PM »
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 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 :)

Quinn

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2015, 08:10:17 PM »
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.

NinetyFour

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2015, 08:11:17 PM »
Tap at home and tap at work.

Groovin Old Hippie

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2015, 08:13:48 PM »
We have two Brita pitchers.  We get the filters at Costco when they have a coupon for them.

horsepoor

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #15 on: January 29, 2015, 08:16:55 PM »
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.

Clever Name

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #16 on: January 29, 2015, 08:30:57 PM »
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.

MicroRN

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #17 on: January 29, 2015, 08:38:01 PM »
Tap.  We're on a well with good water.  When we lived somewhere with really awful city water, we put in a filtration system.

SaintM

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2015, 08:53:18 PM »
The kind with barley, hops, and yeast cooked into it:)

greaper007

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2015, 09:01:19 PM »
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.

clarkm04

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2015, 09:03:41 PM »
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.

Bob W

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #21 on: January 29, 2015, 09:24:03 PM »
Well.

bogart

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #22 on: January 29, 2015, 09:26:25 PM »
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.

Sarita

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #23 on: January 29, 2015, 09:35:40 PM »
Tap water, always.  My dad is a retired waste water engineer and consulted with cities throughout the country.  He drinks it, I drink it.

StacheEngineer

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #24 on: January 29, 2015, 09:40:30 PM »
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.


G-dog

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #25 on: January 29, 2015, 09:44:55 PM »
Tap. - cold or on ice. Filtered at work - on ice.

Daley

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #26 on: January 29, 2015, 10:06:24 PM »
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 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.

worms

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2015, 12:37:02 AM »
Tap...but it comes from the same source that the local distillery uses, so it can't be all bad!

gooki

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2015, 12:41:37 AM »
Tap

alsoknownasDean

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #29 on: January 30, 2015, 12:45:27 AM »
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.

DCJrMustachian

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #30 on: January 30, 2015, 12:50:13 AM »
I drink coconut water!  Yes I know it is $4/liter.

M from Loveland

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #31 on: January 30, 2015, 12:50:39 AM »
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

homehandymum

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #32 on: January 30, 2015, 01:41:52 AM »
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.

Miss Prim

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #33 on: January 30, 2015, 02:31:54 AM »
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!
 
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wealthviahealth

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #34 on: January 30, 2015, 03:27:20 AM »
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.

PEIslander

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #35 on: January 30, 2015, 03:55:24 AM »
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.

chasesfish

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #36 on: January 30, 2015, 06:19:53 AM »
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.

MandalayVA

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #37 on: January 30, 2015, 06:43:38 AM »
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. 

Thegoblinchief

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #38 on: January 30, 2015, 06:48:25 AM »
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.

I'm a red panda

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #39 on: January 30, 2015, 07:05:45 AM »
Tap from a city water system.  They filter it.


pancakes

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #40 on: January 30, 2015, 07:15:51 AM »
Brita jug here.

I hate the taste of the water where I live. When I'm in other places I drink tap water though.

frugalnacho

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #41 on: January 30, 2015, 07:17:22 AM »
Tap.

MandyM

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #42 on: January 30, 2015, 08:01:15 AM »
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.

 

KCM5

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #43 on: January 30, 2015, 08:27:57 AM »
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.

gt7152b

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #44 on: January 30, 2015, 08:35:48 AM »
Tap water that is filtered by the ground (well).

hunniebun

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #45 on: January 30, 2015, 09:15:55 AM »
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!   

iris lily

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #46 on: January 30, 2015, 09:18:34 AM »
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.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2015, 09:27:24 AM by iris lily »

jaye_p

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #47 on: January 30, 2015, 09:27:24 AM »
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.

cambridgecyclist

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #48 on: January 30, 2015, 09:29:31 AM »
Seltzer water -- tap water carbonated with repurposed beer kegging equipment.

OSUBearCub

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Re: What kind of water do you drink?
« Reply #49 on: January 30, 2015, 09:32:19 AM »
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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