We’re fortunate to live in an era where pure water is readily available in most countries. It is still very important to identify if you and your family members have access to the most purified form of water. If you buy your water from a city tap, you might be getting high quality water. You’ll never know because there are no standards for testing the quality of municipal water supplies.
If you’re going to pay the bill for your home, then you have a right to know where your water is coming from. If the water treatment is actually a cause of specific contamination, then that’s something to think about.
Chlorine may seem like a harmless compound, but it’s actually very dangerous. In this guide, I’ll be sharing everything you should know about drinking water – what it is, how to treat it, how to test for it, and much more. Despite having some of best water filters at home, you may also wonder whether Brita filters remove fluoride.
Why is Chlorine Added to Drinking Water?
This product doesn’t have any harmful chemicals, so it can be used as a disinfectant. Oxidize your natural substances with this product and you’ll have an excellent disinfectant in your kitchen. In recent decades, the transition from chlorination to chloramine-treated water has been associated with an enormous shift in public health.
Treating water with chlorine kills pathogens, which can make us sick and cause disease if we consume them. Water with a high level of free chlorine isn’t safe for human consumption. If you want to make a good impression when going to your friend’s house, you should definitely bring some flowers.
Water that has been treated with disinfectants is safe to drink even if you don’t have any illnesses. Chlorine can help kill the bacteria in your drinking water. If chlorine doesn’t kill microorganisms why not use other means of killing microorganisms? The answer is that chlorine is relatively cheap and readily available.
Most other ways of disinfecting water, like reverse osmosis and UV purification, are very expensive in large-scale applications. Your local public water system can save a lot of money by using total chlorine to disinfect water, and they can do it for a lot less than it would cost you to buy it.
Should I Test My Water for Chlorine?
To get good tasting water, it’s important to test for chlorine in drinking water. All municipal water suppliers use either chlorine or chloramine to disinfect their water supply. It is best to know the amount of toxic disinfection byproducts in your drinking water and get your chlorine level tested if there is any chance of contamination.
How to Test Water for Chlorine
Test Kits
There are several test kits you can use to check for chlorine, depending on what type of chlorine you’re checking for (free, total, residual chlorine, etc.) and whether you want to know the source of your water.
Pool Test Kits
In this method, a liquid chemical is used. It’s called orthotolidine. This water is totally safe, and it turns the water to a bright, sunny yellow color. To use a pool test kit, just fill a tub with water, add two to three drops of solution and look for the color change. Remember that this test only measures the presence of total chlorine, so it does not measure free chlorine.
Color Test Kits
In this technique, a tablet chemical, referred to as dibucaine hydrochloride water has a distinct flavor, and is not as clear as regular drinking water. In order to choose a brand-new house paint color you don’t need to use a color test. The test can give accurate results if you don’t try to trick it.
Chlorine Test Strips
Chlorine test strips are a common way to test for free or total chlorine in your home’s drinking water source. When using chlorine test strips, take a strip from your test kit and place it in the water to be tested. To avoid getting the results wrong, hold the test strip under running water before inserting it into the machine. Remove your test strip after a couple of minutes.
Compare your test strip to the provided color chart. If it matches the color on the chart, then your water is safe to drink. Test strips are one of the easiest ways to detect the presence of chlorine in your swimming pool.
Digital Colorimeters
Chlorine detection is one of the most accurate ways to test for the presence of harmful bacteria. Two different methods of digital colorimeters use different technologies. In the first, a tablet is added to the sample water.
This causes the change of color to pin, which indicates the presence of chlorine. The best way to insert a syringe into a blood gas meter is to put the syringe in the tip of the barrel and
This is the instrument that reads the intensity of color changes by emitting wavelengths of light. There are several types of colorimeter, and digital colorimeters give the fastest results and the most accurate readings.
Certified Laboratory Testing
If a home water test doesn’t produce the precise results you need, I recommend that you use a certified laboratory water test. A certified laboratory test can provide information about your water’s exact free or total chlorine levels.
In this water test, you’ll send a sample of your water to a lab, where they will then test it and provide you with the results several days later. The best water testing services are from a certified laboratory, such as Tap Score by Simple Labs.
The Essential City Water Test tests for both chlorine and chloramine, which is handy if your state uses a combination of both chemicals, or just chloramine, to disinfect your water. This test also screens for common city water contaminants, like lead, fluoride, hardness, copper, and nitrate.
Water treatment systems that can remove a range of contaminants are useful for a wide variety of households, from those with a hard water problem to households with well water that has been contaminated with harmful pollutants.
Should I Remove Chlorine from My Drinking Water?
You need to maintain your pool clean to ensure that it provides safe swimming experiences for your family members. However, because there are risks associated with it, you may want to avoid it altogether.
The Environmental Protection Agency deems a low amount of chlorine up to 4 mg/L or 4 parts per million safe for consumption. Chlorine levels this low are unlikely to cause harm, but if you don’t want to drink it, you might consider washing your drinking water.
Chlorine gas, like that released when you’re taking a shower, may have some known health effects, like breathing in and breathing out the vap. One study found that chlorine can cause nausea, a cough, vomiting, and even loss of consciousness – though this would only occur if exposed to high levels of chlorine
If you’re concerned about your skin and hair being affected by chlorine, make sure to follow the Live Science article linked below for tips. Even with the high levels of chlorine, though, this issue is still more common in swimming pools.
Even though some people find the taste of chlorine unpleasant, there are also potential health effects for drinking water with high levels of chlorine. Your water tastes bad if it has a chemical taste. Chlorine is often added to swimming pools to keep it clean.
If your water smells funny, our guide on learning how to get rid of sulfur when well water smells may be helpful to you.
How can I remove chlorine from water?
There are several methods of removing free chlorine or residual chlorine from your drinking water:
Activated and Catalytic Carbon Filters
The most affordable method of removing chlorine from municipal water is to use activated or catalytic carbon filters. Activated carbon uses adsorption to trap chlorine and other contaminants across a large surface area.
This is an example of molecular size exclusion. Molecules smaller than the pore diameter cannot pass through, and molecules larger than the pore diameter cannot enter. Carbon filters have a much larger surface area, which makes them even better at removing chlorine and combined chlorine than other filters.
Whole-house water filter systems are used in both whole-home filter systems, and countertop filter systems, and even water bottle filters.
Reverse Osmosis
While carbon filters can only reduce chlorinated water levels, reverse osmosis can completely remove combined chlorine, residual chlorine and free chlorine from water. This filtering system removes 99.9% of total dissolved solids from the water before it enters the sink.
A reverse osmosis system is a different kind of water filter than most people are used to. It works by pushing water through a semi-permeable membrane. The cell membrane has tiny holes that prevent contaminants from entering the body and keep everything from getting into the body. Reverse osmosis systems are usually installed under a kitchen sink.
Other Chlorine Removal Systems
Chlorine is often found in water supplies, but there are many ways to remove it from water including distillation and chemical neutralization. You can also remove chlorine from your water by leaving it to evaporate from your water through exposure to oxygen in the air, or boiling your water to speed up the evaporation process.
There are some methods that are cheaper than others.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to test my water for chlorine if I have a private well?
You are correct. Chlorine is used to disinfect drinking water. It is only a water quality concern in public water systems because it is added at the time of the water treatment process. Despite that, your well could still be at risk of chemical contamination, especially if you live in an area where agriculture is prevalent.