Drinking water curiosity

[markiver54]

Just wondering. How many depend on , or trust their city drinking water.
I know some of you have wells. We have good pure drinking water at the mountain cabin via our well.
However, here at our home, in city, I still do not drink city water. Just don't trust it. Almost tastes oily to me, sooo... I purchace good quality spring ( bottled ) water for my own consumption.
What are your thoughts on this issue?

[Vaquero]

Lucky here Mark we have excellent city water. My daughter has well water that is very good also.

RP

[RanchRoper]

Well water here.

[JEBar]

at home we get excellent water from our county water system .... on the road, we never know what we will find so we have put together a system that filters every drop of water prior to it coming into our camper .... a portion of that water is further filtered by our Reverse Osmosis System from which we get all of our drinking, cooking, and water for our ice maker

[dave77]

Been drinking my well water for over 30 years now. I do have a filter for the refrigerator which I use for drinking water and I do buy gallon jugs of water for my coffee maker because the well water is very hard.

We went back to North Dakota a lot to visit my mom's family when I was a kid and I remember the well water at my uncle's house tasting so bad I could not drink it, they were all used to it and said it tasted fine. I had to drink pop the whole time we were there.

[dasmoeturhead]

Water will rust your pipes.

[markiver54]

Our city water probably isn't harmfull, however, it just doesn't taste as good as the bottled water I buy. I researched this a bit and one of the top three in quality is " Deer Park ". Mostly from springs in Pensylvania. I also buy " Summit Mountain " which is from springs right here in Cashiers, NC, which is from a secluded and protected area in a national forest.
When I compare them to the city water, they just taste cleaner to me.
Thanks for your input. Was pretty sure RR would have a well way up there.
When we had ours drilled up at the cabin, we ended up having to go down 750'.

[markiver54]

We went back to North Dakota a lot to visit my mom's family when I was a kid and I remember the well water at my uncle's house tasting so bad I could not drink it, they were all used to it and said it tasted fine. I had to drink pop the whole time we were there.

Yes, I know that happens sometimes with well water. Maybe it had Iron in it.

[markiver54]

On a well here. Have a mild arsenic issue. Common in deep bedrock wells here, and naturally formed. Standard used to be 5 PPB, we tested 3 PPB so we did nothing. The standard was changed to 1ppb, so we had a point of use filter and faucet installed for drinks and cooking and fridge ice cubes and ice water. Our physician said don't worry it won't hurt you. We did it anyway. One note on bottled water. We used to buy a brand from a Colorado mining company that also had natural springs on their property. They used to provide free water to nearby town. The town got after them for dumping mining sludge into property and the company stopped providing free water. We stopped buying their water.

Glad your water is testing safe.
Might be time to have ours tested again at the cabin...been a few years.

[Hatchdog]

On a well at my current place but I grew up in Spokane drinking city water and spent many years in the northern suburbs drinking water from a private water company. All are/were great both in taste and chemical analysis. But, we have this giant aquifer that supplies water to the entire area so it’s pretty much the same no matter where you live in this area. We’re very fortunate and the county puts out great effort to protect this precious resource.

[Sir Henry]

On a well at my current place but I grew up in Spokane drinking city water and spent many years in the northern suburbs drinking water from a private water company. All are/were great both in taste and chemical analysis. But, we have this giant aquifer that supplies water to the entire area so it’s pretty much the same no matter where you live in this area. We’re very fortunate and the county puts out great effort to protect this precious resource.

Spokane has an underground river running under it.

I drink regular tap water in in Woodinville.

[markiver54]

On a well at my current place but I grew up in Spokane drinking city water and spent many years in the northern suburbs drinking water from a private water company. All are/were great both in taste and chemical analysis. But, we have this giant aquifer that supplies water to the entire area so it’s pretty much the same no matter where you live in this area. We’re very fortunate and the county puts out great effort to protect this precious resource.

Spokane has an underground river running under it.

I drink regular tap water in in Woodinville.

I have always assumed that water up in you guys neck of the woods would be good quality. Heck, they even call one of those bottled waters I mentioned " Deer Park " Hatch...go figure.

[brm4450]

We went back to North Dakota a lot to visit my mom's family when I was a kid and I remember the well water at my uncle's house tasting so bad I could not drink it, they were all used to it and said it tasted fine. I had to drink pop the whole time we were there.

Yes, I know that happens sometimes with well water. Maybe it had Iron in it.

Lived in central SD for a while in early 80’s and the town water was from artesian wells. Came out of the tap looking like orange soda and very warm. If you were a visitor and not used to it, bring the Kaopectate. Most of those towns now get water piped in from the Missouri. Well water in Hill City.

[markiver54]

We went back to North Dakota a lot to visit my mom's family when I was a kid and I remember the well water at my uncle's house tasting so bad I could not drink it, they were all used to it and said it tasted fine. I had to drink pop the whole time we were there.

Yes, I know that happens sometimes with well water. Maybe it had Iron in it.

Lived in central SD for a while in early 80’s and the town water was from artesian wells. Came out of the tap looking like orange soda and very warm. If you were a visitor and not used to it, bring the Kaopectate. Most of those towns now get water piped in from the Missouri. Well water in Hill City.

Yup, that orange sounds like iron.

[cooperhawk]

Our well water is heavy in iron. Heck, the whole state is.
We purchased a heavy duty Colligan water softener and a reverse osmosis unit.
Works great. Just feed it salt.

[dave77]

When we had ours drilled up at the cabin, we ended up having to go down 750'.

I thought ours was deep at 400 feet. When they were drilling it they were at 300' and didn't have much water, thought about moving the hole but then we would have one very expensive hole and maybe another one the same. Driller's took a break and called the owner, he said take it down another 100' and if you don't get more water we won't charge them for that 100'. We started getting more water after around 30 more feet.

What they said they were drilling through was either a very hard clay or a soft shale, they would hit sandy seams and the water volume would come up.

That was in '85, it's been very dependable but we don't use it for irrigation and try to limit outdoor use.

[markiver54]

When we had ours drilled up at the cabin, we ended up having to go down 750'.

I thought ours was deep at 400 feet. When they were drilling it they were at 300' and didn't have much water, thought about moving the hole but then we would have one very expensive hole and maybe another one the same. Driller's took a break and called the owner, he said take it down another 100' and if you don't get more water we won't charge them for that 100'. We started getting more water after around 30 more feet.

What they said they were drilling through was either a very hard clay or a soft shale, they would hit sandy seams and the water volume would come up.

That was in '85, it's been very dependable but we don't use it for irrigation and try to limit outdoor use.

Yeah Dave. They hit bedrock at 160'. The rest was slow going. Even as deep as we went, the result was only 1/2 gallon per min.
We have never run out though because of the reserve as a result of that much 6" PVC. Good quality water, thank goodness.

[dave77]

When we had ours drilled up at the cabin, we ended up having to go down 750'.

I thought ours was deep at 400 feet. When they were drilling it they were at 300' and didn't have much water, thought about moving the hole but then we would have one very expensive hole and maybe another one the same. Driller's took a break and called the owner, he said take it down another 100' and if you don't get more water we won't charge them for that 100'. We started getting more water after around 30 more feet.

What they said they were drilling through was either a very hard clay or a soft shale, they would hit sandy seams and the water volume would come up.

That was in '85, it's been very dependable but we don't use it for irrigation and try to limit outdoor use.

Yeah Dave. They hit bedrock at 160'. The rest was slow going. Even as deep as we went, the result was only 1/2 gallon per min.
We have never run out though because of the reserve as a result of that much 6" PVC. Good quality water, thank goodness.

They tested ours at 11 gallons a minute for several hours before it drew down to the pump sitting at 320 ft. Was back up to around 20 ft. by the next day. We run 2 households off this well, only time it's gone dry is when my neighbor's sister left a garden hose running full flow. When I got home from work it had already come back up enough to restart the pump.

We think we're living on borrowed time, were told the average life of submersible pumps is 15 years, ours was put in in 1986.

[markiver54]

We think we're living on borrowed time, were told the average life of submersible pumps is 15 years, ours was put in in 1986.

Uh oh. They never told us that, course I didn't think to ask either. We had to get a heavy duty pump because of the depth, and, it has to pump up hill to the cabin.
We may be on borrowed time as well...such is life, I guess. At least I can fill the Hot Tub without running out.

[beaverislander]

We have well water but my wife will not drink it so it adds up buying bottled water and it's generally a PITA. I have always wondered about what we'd do if someone ever managed to shut down the power grid, even though we live on a lake. I killed two birds with one stone a year ago bought a Big Berkey water filtration unit, somewhere around $300....took about 9 months to get. I think it holds 2.5 gallons and we go through that every day. The filters will last something like 60,000 gallons but now if worse comes to worse I can take a bucket down to the lake, pour it into the filter and we'll have all the water we could ever want plus it doesn't hurt to be prepared. Water tastes great and my wife is happy, can't put a price on that