Why Does My Water Taste Like Shit?



What an annoying thread, OP asks question, leaves out details, doesn't answer questions.

I didn't know I was supposed to do a Q & A.

Ok, so to clear things up...it's SoCal municipal water and the filter is only a month old.
 
Not sure about your Brita filter but you should invest $15 in one these: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/HM-Digital-TDS-EZ-Measurement-Resolution/dp/B002C0A7ZY]HM Digital TDS-EZ Water Quality TDS Tester, 0-9990 ppm Measurement Range, 1 ppm Resolution, +/- 3% Readout Accuracy - Amazon.com[/ame]

It measures dissolved solids in the water - I'm in Phoenix and our tap is at about 550 PPM. For comparison, the EPA recommended max is 500 PPM. I'm sure its fine but I put RO in after finding that out. The RO water is at 30 PPM and the difference in taste/smell is huge.
 
There are more regulations/standards/testing on tap water than bottled water.

DTA: Don't trust anybody.

Considering the govt. thinks flouride is good for your health I have less then 0 confidence in their ability to protect us from anything.
 
I live in San Diego and our water is shit, absolute shit. Like I can't even drink tap water anymore. We have a water store here that sells premium filtered water for $0.40 a Gallon, which is about 25% the price of normal bottled water.

I've read some disturbing stuff about the water here. It's regularly failing federal minimum standards.
 
BTW, this really wakes me up to A.) There will be a water crisis in the future, and B.) why every Senator buys up land in Montana.
 
I would also guess that it's the plumbing. I have similiar problems and live in a pretty old appartment complex. Water is undrinkable, and nom it's not the municipal water supply. I have to buy bottled water and it makes good sense to do so. But to be fair, i have also noticed that water can drink nasty after using a brand new britta filter. I don't really know why that is. Perhaps it needs to be broken in.
 
You guys are some serious suckers for marketing.

There wasn't even a demand for bottled water until it was created. It's a racket, my friends, a racket!

Because back then there were less people on this fucked up planet, there was less strain on municipal water supplies, and they had less chemicals being added. People's wells weren't contaminated because of industrial farming and fracking.

When I was younger, the municipal water in Vancouver was awesome and you couldn't taste the chlorine added. As time has passed, there have been numerous E-coli outbreaks in North America and other shit along with a population explosion that has stressed the system. Not to mention a crumbling infrastructure. Now you can smell and taste the chlorine added to the water. Go to other places without such glorious natural resources and you might as well be drinking swimming pool water. When I was in Dickinson North Dakota the water was so heavily chlorinated that the smell and taste made me retch. It was vile stuff. Las Vegas and NYC weren't much better.
 
I do agree that we have some seriously foul shit in our piping. That's a huge problem. I decommissioned a ton of the old pipes in a building once and replaced them with the flexy PVC type stuff (can't remember what it's called). But we busted those pipes up and there was this organic creature growing all through it. I can't remember what that's called either. But anything living poops.
 
American tap water has been getting worse over the years and Fatbat is totally right bout the larger cities being worse than small towns. Lived in Chicago, Detroit, Philly and Fort Worth and also in a bunch of little towns; city water sucks.

Ironically here in Mexico I have a little ranch with a well and that is the cleanest damn water I've found. We had it tested when we bought the property and it's safe to drink. Of course we still filter it but it's bad ass, just clean pure water, ice cold all year round. Here at my city house though we don't even use the tap water to brush our teeth. Everyone buys water, trucks pass a few times a day to pick up your empty 5 gallon bottles and sell you full ones.
 
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In the city the worst is if an old fire hydrant gets hit or used, it puts all this nasty shit into the neighboring water lines. One day ours was brown as shit, literally, like pure diarrhea, called the water dept and they said a hydrant several blocks down was hit and stirred up a bunch of shit in the lines.

I notice I can drink the city water right after pouring it fine, but if I let it sit for 15min+ and drink from it the chemical taste is overwhelming.
 
From Wikipedia on Poland Spring:

"In June 2003, Poland Spring was sued for false advertising in a class action lawsuit charging that their water that supposedly comes from springs, is in fact heavily treated common ground water.[9] The suit also states, hydro-geologists hired by Nestlé found that another current source for Poland Spring water near the original site stands over a former trash and refuse dump, and below an illegal disposal site where human sewage was sprayed as fertilizer for many years.[9] The suit was settled in September 2003, with the company not admitting to the allegations, but agreeing to pay $10 million in charity donations and discounts over the next 5 years.[10] Nestlé continues to sell the same Maine water under the Poland Spring name."