Asklemmy

Straight and fresh from the pipes! Writing from Transilvania, Romania.

I do. When I was a child, I was even confused about why people don't drink tap water but buy them instead from shops or why they boil or someway disinfect them.

I live in the USA, and we don't have to boil tap water in my city, but after having lived for a spell in a place where tap water is boiled first, I boil mine because I like the way it tastes--it's sweeter. Maybe boiling it helps get rid of the chlorine taste that city water has? I don't know. But I do prefer it.

Philadelphia, PA, USA. We don't boil it, but I have a filter on the tap. The drinking water here is safe, but it smells funny, and my family filtered the water even back when we lived somewhere with better tasting water.

In Brazil we usually haver ceramic filters attached to our faucets, so we drink water from there.

Australia here - we drink water straight from the tap, but I picked up the habit of drinking boiled water from my frequent trips to Shanghai.

The further I searched, the more it seems to me that in developed countries (like US, Canada and the above examples), tap water is safe to drink directly. Is that true? Do you drink tap water without boiling?

Yes. It's a bit of a scandal when that's not true. (Canada here)

And to my surprise, I checked the Water Supplies Department website and notice it asserts that tap water in Hong Kong is potable, like many well-developed countries and regions.

Boiling it has to be "force of habit", then. I wonder how long it's been potable. I'm guessing mainland China is mostly boil-first.

I live in the great lakes region of Canada and our tap water is totally safe

Not at all...where I live tap water isn't clean at all. It comes in a white colour with pression. And mining industry contaminated a lot

I live in the Netherlands and we drink tap water without boiling.

I’m located in the US and like others have said it’s safe to drink the tap water, but me personally, I run my water through a filter first.

Australian here, I grew up drinking tap water without boiling it but since I married my wife who is Chinese, I must drink it after it was boiled. It's good for the healthy.

I live in the US in a location where the tap water is safe to drink (not always the case, e.g., Flint Michigan) but I still filter it for the taste (chlorine in the water).

Most municipal water is safe to drink in the US. Ground water depends entirely on where you live and many situational factors (City pollution, water level, etc.).

We will get boil notices from time to time when a contaminant is detected in the water supply. But that's been rare in my experience, after living in several regions in the US.

No one should ever use tap water for netty potting without boiling it though! You can contract a brain-eating amoeba if you don't boil, which has over 97% death rate.

We filter our tap water here in Korea. Most people do, but as I understand, it's safe to drink it just straight from the tap. It's just better through a machine that gets rid of any lingering chlorine and heats it or chills it for you.

In switzerland, we can drink the tap water without boiling it first.

I live in Bavaria, Germany, and I've been drinking tap water here for over 30 years without boiling.

But I live in a rural area. I once had a job in the industrial area of a semi-sized city and the tap water there was sketchy.

Depends, I guess.

nyc us here, only boil water if there is a warning due to a pipe break or something.

I’ve never boiled tap. It’s safe where I live. I do have a reverse osmosis filter though. But only for taste, and to remove hardness to protect my glassware.

In England we drink straight from the tap. I live in London which has incredibly hard water so it's not the nicest tasting and it will leave white residue on the glass but it's not bad for you.

Canada here - tap water is just fine, I filter it at home since I prefer the taste but I've never been adverse to drinking it straight

Argentina, drinking filtered tap water rn (not boiled). It's said to be safe but quality may vary throughout the country. Although it's not recommend for small childrens

US it depends on where you live. I grew up and live now in upstate NY and the tap water is great. In between I lived in Arizona and the water was terrible. I have at different times a water cooler or an undersink reverse osmosis. The water wouldn't make you sick though so you can drink it if needed, it was just very hard and tasted bad.

Here in El Salvador, you can drink tap water safely depending the region you are.

Scotland here. We don't boil water before use.

I have family down in North West England that do have to do this, though. They live in an area where there is a thin layer of soil and a lot of clay. The water isn't particularly hard but it also doesn't taste very nice if you don't boil it first.

Australia here, yes most people drink it without boiling but it depends a little what region you’re in. Some bits of the fat north or some island towns, you may be better off boiling it. Lots of people in the city use built in filter taps but I kind of write that off as con job.

Semi-rural American here. Our water comes from a well and is safe to drink. However, it is hard water and we often prefer to either use a purifier or buy purified water for drinking directly.

In Sweden, yes tap water is safe without boiling. Might want to filter for taste reasons.

I would drink the water in Iceland without boiling it, probably without a second thought. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it tastes amazing.

Norway = Yes. But the fresh water pipes are in the same trench as the sewer pipes, and being 100 years old, the clean water depends on the pressure. This is in Oslo btw..

In Canada I don't boil it.

In Vietnam, I do. Although more because I'm always making tea than anything else. Unless it's well water, in which case that's only for doing dishes, I won't drink that.

I did nearly die from cholera some years back, but it was probably not from the tap water specifically. Sanitation and food safety has really improved here in the last decade, I'm happy to say.

Here in the UK we just drink straight from the (cold water only by law due to differring regulations) tap without boiling and that's been the case for decades at the least across the entire nation. There's just no need to boil the water here unless you are cooking.

It's also safe in Iceland, I went there and their water is crystal clear and pure since it's sraight from the glaciers. You could drink out of a random stream there.

Canadian in a major city - yes, safe to drink right from the tap.

However, many remote communities here do not have access to safe drinking water.

Quebec, Canada. I grew up in a rural area where we had our own artesian well on the plot of land, so not attached to any city infrastructure, and no purification process at all, except what is done naturally from the soil. And guess what? It's the purest water I've ever seen, it taste amazingly fresh and the tap is directly plugged on it.

Moved to a big city and now have to use the city infrastructure, which of course have a huge purification plant and they do tests continuously to make sure it pass a high quality threshold. But even if it's probably cleaner than 90% of the rest if the world, it still have a slight unpleasant taste. I could probably buy a filter, but never bothered.

Buying bottled water is seen as wasteful and also a scam since it's often just tap water they bottled. When my family visited a country where bttled water is common, they were disgusted at how much plastic pollution it creates.

I would hate to have to boil water before every usage, I assume you always keep a few gallons in the fridge to keep some cold? It takes space and energy to prepare, must be annoying. But what I wonder the most is, how to do wash yourselves and your clothes? If the water smells foul, doesn't taking a shower just stink you even more than it cleans?

US, tap water is perfectly good to drink.

Having visited Iceland a few years ago, Iceland's tap water is the best tasting water I've ever had anywhere. Please take this opportunity to try it while you're there.

Poland: water is always drinkable from the tap.

UK, tap water is fine.