Anyway, I'm lucky. I have plenty to fuss about with a husband, two daughters, two cats and two dogs but the quality of my family's drinking water is not even a blip on my radar of concerns. I grew up in a small town with great water (Golden City, MO) and we have really high quality water where I currently live in Belton, MO. Besides relying on your taste buds and your nose to tell you if you have good or bad tap water, do you know how to found out for sure? Do you know where your tap water comes from? Ours comes from the Missouri River, believe it or not. I once took a riverboat cruise with my husband Dave and my in-laws on the Missouri River and the Captain described it as too thick to drink but too thin to plant anything in. Ha!
Our water is drawn out and treated by the Kansas City Water Plant before it is delivered to our homes. All residents are treated to yearly water reports with our water bills which tells me everything I need to know about our water quality. If you don't have one sent to you periodically, I encourage you to ask for one from your water department. It might even be posted on your city's website as they are in my hometown. Take a moment to get familiar with it. Do a little research online and see if the numbers seem in line with what national standards are for healthy drinking water. A really good water report, like ours, will give you definitions and present the information in a clear and concise manner.
Personally, I like to have a faucet filter in the kitchen and a filter on the water dispenser on my refrigerator water dispenser but honestly I don't hesitate to fill a glass from my bathroom faucet. It tastes fine and I know it's safe. We refill water bottles a lot in our home and I feel the added filtration is a nice bit of insurance.
So give yourself a little peace of mind. Check out your water quality. You might find out that you thought you had crummy tap water when you really didn't. Or you may find that a faucet filter, a filtered water pitcher, filtered water bottles or whole house filter would be a really good investment in your family's health.
Drink H20 to your health!
****Nikki has been plumbing designer for Larson Binkley Inc. in Overland Park, KS since 1993. She currently holds the position of plumbing department manager and loves helping clients find solutions to their plumbing needs. Plumbing might be often overlooked but it is never under used. :)
