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Ask HN: What water do you drink?

by codingclaws on 6/23/25, 11:06 AM with 14 comments

• by anenefan on 6/24/25, 11:57 AM

  I'm in North Queensland, Australia. Generally as I'm in a not very polluted rural area, source good rain water from a tank - unfiltered and untreated for the most part. If away as in visiting large towns / cites; generally they have good water treatment so I don't have an issue drinking unfiltered water unless they're dealing with issues like flooding events. Over the other side of the Great Dividing Range, it's a very different story from some of the accounts I've heard and thus take enough to last for a couple days if I'm out that way, not that I do much of that any more. Apparently some smaller local authorities aren't so good at hiring the right people or have the right sort of treatment plant and resulting water might be more suited for scouring and restoring a clogged washing machine.

  I generally avoid bottled water (typically purchased if I must in larger containers over a gallon or 4 L) that is available at stores unless I'm sure the brand passes the one week after opening test; in that after a week taking a few cupfuls out of a say a 10 L container, letting fresh air in, the water retains a pleasant neutral odour, and not a pong from a much increased bacteria count.

• by Rotundo on 6/23/25, 12:51 PM

  Tap water, unfiltered, in the Netherlands. It regularly tests better than bottled water.

  In fact, the quality controls for tap water are more strict than for bottled water:

  https://www.drinkwaterplatform.nl/fleswater-vs-kraanwater-wa... (in Dutch)

  https://www-drinkwaterplatform-nl.translate.goog/fleswater-v... (Machine translated to English)

• by memcg on 6/23/25, 5:52 PM

  I fill 5 gal bottles at a water store. Some of the 12 bottles I use are 30 years old. My kids and their friends grew up drinking from a water cooler at our house instead of sodas or juice.

  When I started buying in 1993, my treated municipal water sourced from the Potomac river had a chlorine taste that seemed more noticeable in the winter. I now use unfiltered tap for coffee, tea and cooking, and barely notice any chlorine taste.

• by __d on 6/23/25, 12:51 PM

  > Do you buy bottled water from the store?

  No

  > Do you filter tap water?

  No

  > What filter do you use?

  N/A

  > Do you drink unfiltered tap water (which country)?

  Yes (Australia)

  > Something else?

  I use unfiltered tap water to make soda water -- I drink quite a bit of that.

• by justrudd on 6/23/25, 12:04 PM

  > Do you buy bottled water from the store?

  When driving. But not for day-to-day.

  > Do you filter tap water? What filter do you use?

  Yes. Brita. I don't know which one. It attaches directly to the faucet.

  > Do you drink unfiltered tap water (which country)? Something else?

  Yes. United States. I'm currently in Alabama and drink unfiltered tap water as needed. I also still drink straight from the hose outside when it is hot.

• by JohnFen on 6/23/25, 1:46 PM

  I'm in the US. I drink unfiltered tap water. It's very good in my neck of the woods.

  I don't buy bottled water unless I happen to be at some event or something where it's the only option, or I've traveled to an area where the tap water isn't good.

• by dtagames on 6/23/25, 12:33 PM

  I live in Houston with active natural gas production nearby. I don't drink the tap water. Both the dog and I drink grocery store bottled alkaline water, and I'm spoiled on Topo Chico for sparkling.

• by stop50 on 6/23/25, 11:17 AM

  Tap water, unfiltered. Im in Germany.

  There was never an problem with it.

• by RALaBarge on 6/23/25, 11:42 AM

  We have a well, we use a Reverse Osmosis 3-filter system. Replace the filters every year or so.

• by DemocracyFTW2 on 6/23/25, 11:25 AM

  tap water, unfiltered, sometimes with baking soda and citric acid for the fizz, ice, fruit syrup, ... I almost never buy bottled water or soft drinks

• by reify on 6/23/25, 12:45 PM

  Here in the UK we are told our tap water is fine to drink.

  however, quite a few years ago I started to see this black staining and sludge coming from my taps. In particular the inside of the toilet cistern there was black sludge growing up the sides of the Cistern.

  So I have not drunk any tap water for at least 5 years.

  I installed a water filter that has four ceramic water filter candles.

  The water now tastes great again. No sludge either.

  considering that Thames water has ripped people off, dumped tons of pollutents and sewage into our rivers yet still pay their executives millions in bonuses.

  All water companies need to be owned by the people, not some for profit wankers

  I wont drink that shit anymore

  I wont buy that shit in bottles either, have you bothered to read the label on bottled water.

• by incomingpain on 6/23/25, 11:44 AM

  >Do you buy bottled water from the store?

  Not regularly. More of an alcoholic.

  >Do you filter tap water?

  Yes.

  >What filter do you use?

  Brita? Nothing too fancy tbh. I'm not particularly conspiracy theory on the subject.

  >Do you drink unfiltered tap water (which country)?

  Canada, yes I'm sure I do. If i could flip a switch and never drink unfiltered, I would in a heartbeat.

  >Something else?

  I'm still unconvinced of the threat of fluoride and arsenic. Both of which are actively added to the drinking water in Canada.

  In my city they dont use chloramine but do add chlorine. You only need to let it breath a couple days before it's gone. You drink chlorinated water and that chlorine goes somewhere. Do you know where it's going and what it's doing to you? Is that why we have gut biome problems?

  BPA and other estrogens are extremely high in Canada. They did a study about how much birth control was in our drinking water and they said, 'oh no, less than 1% of the estrogens come from the pill' and that's entirely because there's that much. It mainly sources from diary farms. Not a problem for me.

  Im in a city, so there's very little heavy metal problem. If you're rural or native reserve that's very different. Uranium, lead, iron, mercury are common in the drinking water in northern ontario. Especially uranium surprisingly.

  Fertilizers, Herbicides and pesticides are extreme in Canada; our numbers are something like 20x-30x higher than the EU's limit.

  PFAOS are extreme in most of Canada.

  TLDR:

  dont drink the tap water in canada, drink alcholic beverages