Where do you turn when you want a refreshing drink of water? If you’re like a lot of southwest Floridians, you don’t turn on the taps. You may even associate water from the kitchen sink with a particular unpleasant flavor: It may taste dirty, like soil or mold; or it may have a chemical or metallic flavor, like chlorine or iron. Sometimes water from the tap smells like rotten eggs or tastes like saltwater.
Water quality in this region can vary from place to place, but wherever you are from Tampa to Fort Myers, there are quite a few things floating about in your tap water here that affect the taste.
The Florida aquifer is surrounded by limestone, which is predominantly made of calcium carbonate. That chalky rock gets dissolved into drinking water, releasing all kinds of other pungent substances. Iron creates an overpowering metallic flavor. Hydrogen sulfide is what gives Florida water that swampy, eggy characteristic. And while iron and hydrogen sulfide both pose serious health risks in large quantities, it takes very little of them to create big flavors. Water that is technically safe to drink can still just plain taste bad. (These metals and minerals are also bad for your home’s plumbing.)
Chlorine is added to Florida water as a decontaminate, but it leaves its own distinct chemical flavor behind. Give your glass of unfiltered water a sniff, and you’ll probably detect a bouquet reminiscent of a public pool.
Other things that can affect flavor include algae, the corrosion of metal pipes, and chloride, which can leave your tap water tasting faintly of the sea.
And as much as we all love a crisp, cool, refreshing glass of ice water, that’s not the only beverage that’s affected by your home’s unfiltered taps. Ice cubs, whether in your soda or your margarita, will also have these unpleasant flavors. You probably use tap water for your coffee, too, which means you’re ruining your good beans with bad tastes from the tap. Tea, lemonade, Jell-O and even boiled pasta and homemade soups will be flavored with southwest Florida water’s own distinct qualities.
So it’s easy to see why a home water filtration system is the way to go, but we take this process even further. When we test your home’s water, we can see which of these substances are making their way into your glass (and ice cubes, and soup pot). Then we can recommend the best system to clean up your home’s distinct “water recipe.”
After we install a Healthy Water Systems custom filtration system, when you reach for a glass of ice water, you’ll taste nothing but H2O.