WATER in Adelaide

[Guest AJ1881]

I spent last few days (given its a bank holiday) wading the forum. It is informative, but one thing got me thinking, water.

 

I've seen posts and in later search online articles (by various authors) on poor water quality in Adelaide.

 

It appears that not one single person drinks water supplied via tap to their home. Is this true?

 

Apparently average monthly water supply is AUS$ 60, as supply sources vary from rain collection, reservoir and river (filtration).

 

Thanks

Alex

[jimmyskinner]

We drink it straight from the tap.

[Blossom]

No, nowhere near true.

Some people have filters, but then some people do in the uk too. I have a filter and ice maker on my fridge. If I didn't I'd just drink the tap water.

I can only talk about water bills while renting, where the landlord pays the sewerage charge etc, but my last quarter was $36.16

[Blossom]

Ohhhh yer, we have a water fountain at work. It isn't filtered. Everyone uses it.

[Guest Claire-n-tel]

Straight outta the tap in my house!

 

TBH out of all of our friends, one has one of those pura taps and one has water from dispenser on their fridge EVERYONE else i know drinks tap water........hmmmmm i wonder if i have scabby friends!?

[Guest Claire-n-tel]

I am only guessing but are the reports of bad water and 'everyone' having filter taps by one of the filter companies?

[adelaidenow]

I have never drunk the water out of the tap (I don't think). From what I have heard the water is not very nice drinkable but not nice.

[flossybeth]

Coming from a soft water area in the UK the water here is definitely harder (and the limescale, oh do I battle the limescale....) but in terms of drink-ability it's fine. The house we live in already had a Puratap installed so we use it but our rented accommodation didn't have one and we survived a year!

 

As far as bills go, we now pay $86 a month but given that in the UK our water company was South West Water I think we're doing OK.

[Rabeah]

You'll survive drinking water from the tap.

It's not that bad like I had it in Sri Lanka on holiday where it was nearly prohibited for tourists.

We usually don't drink from the tap, but I did it once, it was okay.

[cliffy]

Whereever we have lived (except now) we have had a rainwater tank, often as our only supply, and have drunk that.

Adelaide water is a lot better now than when I first came, when it ran light brown out of the taps at Moana, but I still can't drink it even boiled.

We either bring rainwater from the farm back with us, or I buy water for drinking. Same when I go to other cities, water always tastes chlorinated to me.

[Blossom]

Coming from a soft water area in the UK the water here is definitely harder (and the limescale, oh do I battle the limescale....) but in terms of drink-ability it's fine. The house we live in already had a Puratap installed so we use it but our rented accommodation didn't have one and we survived a year!

 

As far as bills go, we now pay $86 a month but given that in the UK our water company was South West Water I think we're doing OK.

I grew up in Cambridge which has really hard (but delicious) water. I have never thought of here as having any limescale issues at all. Maybe I've been lucky? I've never had to clean out a kettle here. In Cambridge lumps of limescale could end up in your tea!

[adelaidenow]

At least we don't have cocaine in our water.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625659/Cocaine-use-Britain-widespread-DRINKING-WATER.html

[scooterdan]

Always used tap since been here in 4 different houses!!! Never had a problem with it.....

[NicF]

The tap water in Adelaide used to be pretty bad - I remember being here on holiday the first few times and finding it tasting really bad. It has much improved since my first visit some 14 years ago. We had a filter in the rental and always used to chill water before drinking it and now we have a fridge that dispenses ice and cold water that is also filtered but we use water straight from the tap for the kettle and cooking and it's fine. How different it will be to what you are used to will depend on where in the UK you are from as the water in the UK varies dramatically from area to area.

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

The water is very hard and limescale is a real problem with taps, showers and filters.

If you pour a cup of vinegar down the toilet at night it clears it from the bowl and disolves the scale.

 

My OH gets sick when he drinks the water. When we moved here I was dumped with the kids and he flew back to sort things out. Every time he flew in for short stays he was sick. Many years ago he was stationed in a rural area (overseas) where they obtained their water from aquafirs. The water made him sick and he was on bottled water for 3 years.

I find the water ok but he's sick if he drinks it. He bought some no name brand of bottled water a few weeks ago and spent a couple of weeks being sick. He's convinced that they filled it from a local Adelaide tap!

The water is not for everyone and if you have cramps and get sick, try some bottled water for a while...

[Guest Guest12727]

We have filtered tap water and I prefer it to unfiltered to drink and to fill the kettle, but I still cook with unfiltered. I expect the taste varies depending where you live. Water is clear and perfectly safe, just have a chlorine taste that we don't like. It is only about $60-$70 year for a replacement filter - much cheaper than buying bottled water.

Our water bills including sewerage charge is around $120 per month. Pretty cheap I think to give us safe reliable water and remove and process our waste.

 

Saw a recent article in UK about Cocaine being traceable in all drinking water in London. Very worrying.

[snifter]

We drink the tap water here. Have not found it hard at all either. Not had fur growing in the kettle or grungy showers etc from lime scale. A breeze from where we lived in the UK which was hard water and meant we filtered it to boil in the kettle and so in to prevent lime scale.

[Guest Guest12727]

The water is very hard and limescale is a real problem with taps, showers and filters.

If you pour a cup of vinegar down the toilet at night it clears it from the bowl and disolves the scale.

 

My OH gets sick when he drinks the water. When we moved here I was dumped with the kids and he flew back to sort things out. Every time he flew in for short stays he was sick. Many years ago he was stationed in a rural area (overseas) where they obtained their water from aquafirs. The water made him sick and he was on bottled water for 3 years.

I find the water ok but he's sick if he drinks it. He bought some no name brand of bottled water a few weeks ago and spent a couple of weeks being sick. He's convinced that they filled it from a local Adelaide tap!

The water is not for everyone and if you have cramps and get sick, try some bottled water for a while...

 

That seems very odd Tamara. He should get checked for funny bacteria in his gut. There is nothing unsafe about Adelaide water, sounds like there is something else going on that needs to be cleared up.

[Anne B]

Adelaide water used to be awful when I lived here in the 1990s. Tasted of pond water. I never used to drink it. In recent years it has improved considerably and it quite OK to drink. Someone once said you should drink the tap water because it has fluoride in it so is good for your teeth, don't know if that is true. I remember running a bath in a motel in the Barossa in the 90s and the water was dark brown ! Adelaide water still doesn't taste as good as English water though in a cup of tea, although that probably has something to do with the teas bags here which are so weak - but that's another thread!

[Guest Guest12727]

Apparently, filtering water doesn't remove the fluoride, but bottled water doesn't have fluoride in it.

[sidestep]

Supposedly it used to be the case that visiting cruise ships did not top up their fresh water supplies when in Adelaide. Dunno if this is/was true though.

[kadina]

We have a filter tap and have never looked back always had one and always will, I was told when I first got here the water was awful and ive just stuck with it, but its perfectly fine tasting a lot better than it used to be I use it for cooking but find the filter tap great for putting in the kettle as it prevents the limescale as its very hard water here, and I was spending a fortune on boxed water I love my filter tap but I know lots of people that drink straight from the tap my aussie friends and they don't think anything of it xx

[kadina]

Yes we were told this by many when we first came over I believe it to be true, at least back then

 

Supposedly it used to be the case that visiting cruise ships did not top up their fresh water supplies when in Adelaide. Dunno if this is/was true though.

[Rabeah]

There is a misunderstanding in some posts here. Water in Adelaide is definitively not hard at all, we don't have limestone. We used to have very hard water where we came from overseas but not here.

 

Also I can prove it: buy a fully automatic coffee machine included a tester for the hardness of water like we did. The water has Australian rating 2 (out of 4) which is medium soft water. The coffee machine itself was originally adjusted to 4, the common water scale for most European water.

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

There is a misunderstanding in some posts here. Water in Adelaide is definitively not hard at all, we don't have limestone. We used to have very hard water where we came from overseas but not here.

 

Also I can prove it: buy a fully automatic coffee machine included a tester for the hardness of water like we did. The water has Australian rating 2 (out of 4) which is medium soft water. The coffee machine itself was originally adjusted to 4, the common water scale for most European water.

 

Can there be different quality of water for different areas? I know that different areas have different soils and the reactive soils are the cause of subsidence and cracks in houses.

 

I sometimes get houses where the toilets have a massive build up of scale. The only thing that gets it off (if I have to do it in a hurry) is a product called CLR (Calcium Lime and Rust). If I am not in a hurry I can pour vinegar into the bowl and the deposit has gone by morning.

I find that metal filters on the washing machine hoses and strainers on the taps are the same. Soak them in vinegar and it clears. I have to do the kettle as well.

I believe that we get our water from the Happy Valley reservoir. I was hoping that the Stanvac desalination plant was going to solve this issue but it's been mothballed so still stuck with the water!