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Chlorine Taste and Smell in Drinking Water

We kind of have a love-hate relationship with chlorine around here.   It’s one of the oldest technologies still being utilized.  It all but stopped a typhoid outbreak in its tracks.  But that was over a century ago.  It is phenomenal at oxidizing just about anything organic, but we have chemical-free ways to do that with iron anyway. In 1993, Milwaukee learned that things like cryptosporidium are relatively immune to it.  Yet the brain-eating nastiness from naeglaria in Louisiana is being treated with it today. Chlorine has a role in water treatment.  Shipping.  It has done its job once in your home.  The city won’t come and remove it.  That’s up to the homeowner.
From Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services:

Do standards exist for regulating chlorine?

Water: The proposed federal drinking water standard for chlorine is 4 parts per million (ppm). Many city water supplies are treated with chlorine to reduce the possible spread of bacterial disease. The system operators are required to maintain a detectable level of chlorine in the piping system. We suggest you stop drinking water that contains more than 4 ppm of chlorine on a regular basis. Air: No standards exist for the amount of chlorine allowed in the air of homes. We use a formula to convert workplace limits to home limits. Based on the formula, we recommend levels be no higher than 0.01 ppm of chlorine in air. Most people can smell chlorine when levels reach 0.02-3.4 ppm. If you can smell chlorine in your home, the level may be too high to be safe.
What about your water?  What about your shower? While, in general, most things that chlorine kills could be similarly disabled with chemical-free disinfection in the home, it does kind of play an important role in the transportation of water. At the end of that transportation, the chlorine has done its job.  Fortunately, it is pretty easy to remove. Contact us for a free water analysis to discuss chlorine and any other water considerations.  
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