I always used the regular tap water until our city messed up their yearly maintenance last year. My water started smelling like a swimming pool and the two weeks post maintenance was awful to drink from the fridge’s filter. This year, when the city announced the maintenance, I bought this. It’s like the under the sink Kent RO that we have in India. I won’t go into the installation details with the nanny and I insisting we can DIY(call a plumber) but the RO water is good. This won’t do for apartments but in a home, this is pretty good. Someone did tell me we need to add back essential minerals into the water and this RO system seems to do it. I use this for drinking and cooking. Need to fix one to the fridge (will call plumber for installation).
With curfew on, anticipating irregular supply of bottled water and to avoid delivery man visiting home (social distancing) got an acquaguard water filter - new advanced with power of copper plus zinc, manganese and calcium for us during mid March thanks to my daughter & son in law & his parents. Corporation water in chennai would be good most part of the year for bath and wash. Sometimes the supply gets contaminated with gutters mixed up with water supply lines. During rainy season it used to be with more chlorine.
We have been buying prima water - these are big water bottles (5 gallons each), so I use 2 bottles for a week. I use it for cooking and drinking. You can get these from Walmart and a lot of stores offer refilling. You can reuse the bottles or return it to the store and get new ones. Carrying this to house is the only downside.We change bottles once in a while.
We have been doing this until last month. Kroger nearby our apartments have stopped it temporarily due to Covid 19. Whole foods is little far for us so getting bottled water currently. Since we live in the top floor carrying it is a big headache. Waiting for Kroger to resume the RO water service.
We used to get water from Safeway in the beginning 1 year and then we stopped it. For a few months we used water filter (not the one attached to tap) but the one where you have to pour into the filter and collect the filtered water. Then we ditched the filter too. The problem with filters is you would have to maintain the filter, clean the filter and replace the concerned parts periodically. We just drink straight from the tap now. Unless your tap water is really bad - contaminated with lead or other chemicals, it is absolutely safe to drink. It is just a mental thing that you have to drink only filter water. I don't need to mention that you have to also see that your tap is clean all the time, but that is still much less a hassle than maintaining a filter.
I agree with this. I buy water because of my picky husband. I worked for a water department for a city for a while, and what I found is that, they test the quality of water everyday and make sure it is potable. Depending on what state you live,the taste of water can be different. If the building you live is very very old, it might have lead pipes. But this is highly unlikely in houses built after 1980s or so.