Drinking Tap Water Safe? (home, to buy, live)

[smokingGun]

LA DWP water is consistently ranked as some of the best in the nation, better than many bottled water of other states. If you've ever lived in NYC or Boston, you'd know that our water is like geyser spring angel tears compared to their cloudy off-smelling runoff. Just get an everpure undersink filtration spigot and you're set!

[Charles]

Originally Posted by smokingGun

LA DWP water is consistently ranked as some of the best in the nation

Very true. A lot of it is Owens Valley water - runoff from Chair 16 at Mammoth.

[bhcompy]

Only problem with LA area tap water is that it's very hard water, but that's a big problem. Get a water softening system and you're okay

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by SoCalAngel2009

Guess I'm an idiot, 'cause I only drink bottled water... my preference Arrowhead... Dasani is okay in a pinch... and Evian when I feel like splurging.

Where I live in Santa Clarita, the water is hard, so the taste is atrocious and I have a soft water system in my house... it's not drinkable. When my dog was alive, he drank bottled water, too.

My water doesn't even run clear most of the times so there's no way I'm drinking that! Bottled water is the only way for me.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

The water is fine from the tap. Although I will agree with Chatteress that at times it can look bad depending on where you are. In Ventura the water gets bad when the lake turns. Not sure what that means, but that is what they tell you when the water looks dirty or taste bad. I have a filter as well to clean it up.

Saying that my wife prefers to drink bottled water.

[drunk on kool aid]

DWP water is supposed to be excellent and among the best municipal waters in the nation. Agree with BRinSM that water is no longer chlorinated--it is treated with ozone.

However, once it's out of their hands and flows through your local plumbing, funky things can happen. I use a filter since the dwelling's plumbing is very old (water turns rusty if not run in a while) and I'm primarily concerned about lead contamination from the pipes/solder. I think local plumbing accounts for the highly variable reviews of DWP water (along with personal taste, of course).

[miyu]

I have a very acute sense of smell and I cannot drink tap water in the summer because it smells like sulfur. I made the QC people take samples and they said the well had a bloom of sulfur producing bacteria, but within the limits of what is considered safe - on a small scale of ppm. Unfortunately, not within the limits of what I can smell!!!

Also when I was in college, I kept getting bad acne until I switched to filtered water. Weird.

I think water from plastic bottles also have a horrible plastic aftertaste.

Best solution is to get a filtration system that fits on your tap.

[jtur88]

It is perfectly safe. You might not like the taste of it, nor the appearance of it, but it will do you no harm. If the taste of it bothers you, put a bit of lemon juice in your water bottle, that will mask some of the bad taste and give it a refreshing fruity flavor. And, vitamin C.

[bchgirl]

this may also depend on what part of the city you live in. in the 80's we received a notice from the city (venice) NOT to use tap water for your fish tanks. it might have been for a certain time period as they might have been fixing them at the time, but seeing the rust that has come out of the pipes at times is enough to know i'm not drinking that. we also don't have a dish washer and the dishes in the drain provide a very scary gunk on the counter underneath it. i can't imagine what it is but i also wouldn't want that in my body. use a filter or a filter bottle if you're going to drink from the tap. it isn't that expensive and better safe than sorry.

[Oogax3Girl]

Okay... I may be a bit naive... but why wouldn't you drink the tap water in LA? I mean is there something wrong with it?

I drink our water (in South Carolina) from the tap and hate the taste of it in other places... but the only time I've ever been concerned about drinking it was when I was in Jordan and Egypt. I didn't even have to worry in Israel.