[Moorf]

For some people the state of the drinking water is a concern, and I hear many positive things said about how nice it is here. Certainly in Chch the water was beautiful, now we're in the sticks I think the Chch water a little icky and now my CURRENT water is bliss...

However, drinking water standards are slipping as cities become larger and fuller. I hear some areas of Auckland has nasty tasting water. Some people drink filtered rain water in rural locations.

Here in inland Canterbury we're on mains water with a village tank for emergencies. The water is crystal clear, always very chilled (especially this time of year!) and tastes crisp and clean. We've had the kettle 3 yrs (since arriving here) and there's not a trace of fur or limescale or anything in it - looks brand new. The water is soft if the reaction of shampoo in the shower has any bearing on it!

What's the tap water like where you are? Do all regions have crystal clear bubbling spring water on tap?

[Marie P]

Here in South Auckland our water is fine for drinking ,I must admit that in the summer you cant make it cold enough ,so we bottle it and chill it in the fridge.

We all drink much more water now than we ever did in the UK.

Marie x

[andrewandjane]

we still have to drink rain water on waiheke. tastes fine, and best still we dont have to pay for it.

[kanatakiwi]

When I first got to auckland from Canada I was struck by how strong the chlorine smell was from the tap water. I contacted Metrowater and they came and tested. Although it wasn't over the legal limit it was very close to it, and the person testing, said there was no need for it to be that high. Flouride was over the legal limit. Apparently they contract to a private company to add the chlorine and flouride in at source, and perhaps testing needs to be a little more rigourous. If my water is over the limit, then so is everyone else's in Auckland. They came back again another day a few weeks later and both were normal. But made me feel that its a bit of a crap shoot on any given day and not enough attention is paid to this issue, and I bought a Brita filter that fits right on the tap and filters the water.

[Lupin]

Here in Havelock North is is beautiful :)

[nippa&pippa]

My water is from the bore well next to my house :nice1 lovely and clean drinkable even we had to filter the water to drink it :confused: No rate for water :nice1

[willsken]

The water in Waipukurau is great on the whole and we all drink it. There have been one or two occasions when the work experience person must have added the chlorine as it was a little strong! :D

[jubjub]

Heres the quality report by the Ministry of Health.

Ours tastes OK, but we do put it through a filter (a little tap next to the kitchen sink) for drinking. Been here so long cant remember what I was used to before!

[KD17]

We live rural Wellington so have filtered rain water, which I'm sure is fine for drinking but we still buy bottle water - which has made me think why we buy it now ???

Saying that, although it doesn't seem to have the limescale, it isn't that soft, we need to use a lot of washing up liquid/powder etc, to make any bubbles, not sure why that would be if we're using rain water though :uhoh

At work, its purely bottled water. In the local cafes they have filtered tap water freely available, and it tastes "normal" to me, not chlorinated, but doesn't have a fresh zing about it either.


Keith & Debby

[gil]

Here in south east Auckland, we drink tap water and it is fine. Agree with Marie about its temperature, and like jub0jub, there is a filter tap thing in the kitchen which was here when we bought the house. We don't know how long it's been here, but te water tastes fine. Nicer than the water we had out of the taps in Cardiff and we thought that was nice!!

GIL

[Questor]

Kapiti Coast water is lovely, always cold, even in summer, though if the weather is too dry, we have to go on bore water for a bit, which tastes icky, fortunately that doesn't happen often!

[jubjub]

Gil re the filter thingy, if its like ours and its just a foot long fat tube under the sink, it does not get replaced, you have to take it apart and scrub it with a clean sponge, it looks like a very dense pumice stone.

[jen]

We drink the tap water here in Wellington - though I've heard people complain about the taste of unfiltered water they've gotten in restaurants here.

[Sam B]

Water in Cambridge is very nice. The water in Putaruru and Tokoroa where I work is from a spring and is complete heaven.

[Tia Maria]

Here on the North Shore, Auckland, the water is fine (well the boys drink it but I prefer Evian:D ). The kettle doesn't fur up like in London and there is less limescale to clean. I do find it goes a bit yellow round our taps in the bathroom - have no idea why.

We bought our super duper fridge over with us that connects to the mains water - filters it and chills it to whatever temperature we like :p . It also makes ice - cubed or crushed for those afternnoon cocktails that us mother's of toddlers are always drinking.

Can't seem to get very big bubbles in the bath though - bubble bath doesn't seem overly common here anyway.

Cheers

Tia

[jubjub]

Just noticed my earlier post, and I am sure I put a link in there for the water report....

http://www.moh.govt.nz/water

Oh well...

[jubjub]

for those afternnoon cocktails that us mother's of toddlers are always drinking.



:laugh :cheers , I'm on my way over now, vodka packed... ;)

The one thing I noticed too was that there does not seem to be any limescale build up here?

[Tia Maria]

:laugh :laugh :laugh

Its a date, or is that a play-date?! I'll pop on my 1950s house wife dress, slice the lemons, frost the glasses and lock the children in the playpen errrrr I mean sit the children down to play quietly.

Cheers

Tia

[Island Moose]

When I first got to auckland from Canada I was struck by how strong the chlorine smell was from the tap water. I contacted Metrowater and they came and tested. Although it wasn't over the legal limit it was very close to it, and the person testing, said there was no need for it to be that high. Flouride was over the legal limit. Apparently they contract to a private company to add the chlorine and flouride in at source, and perhaps testing needs to be a little more rigourous. If my water is over the limit, then so is everyone else's in Auckland. They came back again another day a few weeks later and both were normal. But made me feel that its a bit of a crap shoot on any given day and not enough attention is paid to this issue, and I bought a Brita filter that fits right on the tap and filters the water.

Chlorine will off-gas if you leave your water in a pitcher for a while before drinking it. It's added to the water in gaseous form, not liquid. It's possible that the treatment centre found high levels of bacteria from a sample and dosed the water for a short period of time.

[Island Moose]

I do find it goes a bit yellow round our taps in the bathroom - have no idea why.

Tia

Iron in the water, used to be really common when everyone had iron pipes from reservoir to tub, now it's only in old city lines and old houses.

[Tia Maria]

Well we definitely have old pipes, you can hear them clanging whenever a tap is run.

I take it that iron in the water isn't anything to worry about?

Cheers

Tia

[Moorf]

My basins and baths all turn blue with the water - and I mean a BRIGHT blue - assume that's copper (remembering practical science lessons!) - so I hope it's not slowly poisoning us! Or, is it keeping the arthritis at bay :D

[katandbob]

filters???? what filters

I stick to red wine! seems to be keeping me sane at least!

LOL

Kat
(seriously - going to look into these filter tap thingys - my kitchen taps leaking so I'm (robs taking it apart) then we are going to get a new tap or seals ??? plumbing is robs domain!)

[Jo Jo]

My basins and baths all turn blue with the water - and I mean a BRIGHT blue - assume that's copper (remembering practical science lessons!) - so I hope it's not slowly poisoning us! Or, is it keeping the arthritis at bay :D

Too much copper in drinking water can be harmful - it has been linked with Alzheimers. There is some info about it here: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/dwg/copper.htm

It could be worth getting your tested to check the copper levels aren't too high.

[Jo Jo]

More info about copper in drinking water here: http://www.south-staffs-water.co.uk/households/learn_more.asp

[Moorf]

Hmm that would explain a lot! I literally have to Ajax the bath to get the blue off!

Thanks for that, I've got a local amenities guy in the village so I might go pick his brain :nice1

[Moorf]

Aha! Just read the Staffs site link too and the explanation of hot water being bluer is exactly what we're finding, the basin with the regular cold water use isn't at all blue, just the bathroom. Brill.. so we're not actually drinking much of the blue water - just bathing in it! I will get a test done though as I know my neighbour doesn't suffer from it (we're on mains water with village tank backup) so it must be our home's copper pipe system.

Cheers Jo Jo.

Moorf

[Island Moose]

Well we definitely have old pipes, you can hear them clanging whenever a tap is run.

I take it that iron in the water isn't anything to worry about?

Cheers

Tia

No, it's just a nuisance...it will eventually stain your white shirts an off-white...and your tea/coffee will never be quite right.

If the pipe clanging (called "water hammer") becomes an issue, you can install little copper chambers (they look like miniature scuba tanks) at the fittings (under the sink, at the washing machine valves) that eliminate this...it's essentially the impact of the mass of water colliding with the suddenly-closed valve.

[Island Moose]

filters???? what filters

I stick to red wine! seems to be keeping me sane at least!

LOL

Kat
(seriously - going to look into these filter tap thingys - my kitchen taps leaking so I'm (robs taking it apart) then we are going to get a new tap or seals ??? plumbing is robs domain!)

I read a study from the US that found that more than 90% of all filter owners (the Brita inline filter style) don't change the carbon elements in their filters as often as they should, and essentially run their drinking water through a colony of bacteria for weeks or months after the activated carbon stops acting as a filter and starts acting as a bacteria medium....

...so unless you're organized...I would take chlorine over cryptosporidium...

[Island Moose]

Aha! Just read the Staffs site link too and the explanation of hot water being bluer is exactly what we're finding, the basin with the regular cold water use isn't at all blue, just the bathroom. Brill.. so we're not actually drinking much of the blue water - just bathing in it! I will get a test done though as I know my neighbour doesn't suffer from it (we're on mains water with village tank backup) so it must be our home's copper pipe system.

Cheers Jo Jo.

Moorf

Well, if it is your home's piping, you are drinking it, it's just not blue because the blue is apparent only when the water is warm. I tend to think it might be your water heater though.

Do you have a large tank-style hot water heater or the small "as-you-need-it" heater? I ask because the big North American style heaters have meters of copper element coiled inside the tank to heat the water.

I would get a professional in to check, copper is different from iron...it can be harmful...and IF YOU HAVE BLUE DEPOSITS ON YOUR FAUCETS...YOU ARE AT RISK!!!...also....where there is elevated copper levels, there are often elevated lead levels....have them test for both...lead is a 1st class ticket to long-term health problems:


"You may find that there is a metallic taste in your drinking water before copper levels are high enough to cause adverse health effects. You may also notice blue or bluegreen stains around sinks and plumbing fixtures


Copper in our diet is necessary for good health. You eat and drink about 1,000 micrograms (1,000 ug) of copper per day. Drinking water normally contributes approximately 150 ug/day. Immediate effects from drinking water which contains elevated levels of copper include

* vomiting
* diarrhea
* stomach cramps
* nausea

The seriousness of these effects can be expected to increase with increased copper levels or length of exposure.

Children under one year of age are more sensitive to copper than adults. Long-term exposure (more than 14 days) to copper in drinking water which is much higher than 1,000 ug/I has been found to cause kidney and liver damage in infants. Other persons who are highly susceptible to copper toxicity include people with liver damage or Wilson's disease. " (Wisconsin Dept of Nat. Res.)

[tecso]

Good gravy, the water here (Remuera, Auckland) is the best I have ever had! I was utterly stunned when I tried it. I grew up in a town in the US that fluoridated their water, and as a result very rarely drank water while growing up. I absolutely hated most US tap water until I got a filter (albeit 30 years later!!).

So, yay for NZ water!

Jen

[kanatakiwi]

The water in auckland IS flouridated, And if you are worried about the water filter wearing out as Island moose mentioned, (because it is an issue) you can get a Brita filter that indicates when your filter gets to that point. when I turn my tap on it shows a green light if the filter is good, and then a red light when its time to change the filter. if you dont have an indiactor light, a good rule of thumb is to replace your filter at least every 6 months f not sooner. They are very inexpensive so not worth trying to save a few cents when your health is involved.

[katandbob]

We bought a filter kit that has its own tap and the filter under the sink($149.99), and Rob can fit it today (hard task master arn't ! LOL)
We used to have the jug type in the UK but I didn't bring it with us as it would have been useless if I couldn't get refills.
Our water being rain water,(mixed with town supply from River which is treated when we run out) tastes OK, but we don't tend to drink it straight up - rather in cups of tea and we drink Juices such as Apple/Orange etc from big 3L bottles. But it tastes ok, and the kettle - which was covered in Limescale in the UK has only a trace of it left on the element.

Kat

[kanatakiwi]

My basins and baths all turn blue with the water - and I mean a BRIGHT blue - assume that's copper (remembering practical science lessons!) - so I hope it's not slowly poisoning us! Or, is it keeping the arthritis at bay :D

Moorf
I woudl get your water checked. If you are on water mains, get the water provider to come and test it, that doesn't cost you anything and can give you peace of mind, or get the situation remedied. If you are on your own water system you will likely have to pay to get a private person to check it.

[Moorf]

Cheers Kan/Kiwi - that's really helpful, we're on mains so I'll give them a buzz next week - thanks for the all helpful advice and links all :nice1