How to Remove Chloramine From Your Tap Water
Chloramine filtration in the Bay Area
Your water is probably chloraminated, not chlorinated
If you have filtered your water and it still tastes like a swimming pool, you are not imagining it and your filter is not broken. It is the wrong media for the job. Most imported water in the Bay Area is treated with chloramine rather than free chlorine, and chloramine is considerably harder to remove than chlorine. Standard carbon filters, including pitcher filters and refrigerator cartridges, reduce it poorly.
Book a free water testWhy your pitcher filter does not remove chloramine
Four things explain almost every chloramine complaint we hear, and none of them are obvious from the label on a filter box.
It is chloramine, not chlorine:
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission switched the Hetch Hetchy system from free chlorine to chloramine in February 2004, mainly to reduce disinfection byproducts, and Valley Water treats its imported supply the same way. Chloramine is chlorine combined with ammonia. It holds its disinfecting power much longer across a large distribution system, which is exactly why it is used here.
Adsorbed versus decomposed:
Ordinary activated carbon adsorbs free chlorine quickly and thoroughly. Chloramine does not work that way. It has to be catalytically decomposed, which takes catalytic carbon, a carbon processed specifically for the job. This is the single most common reason a filter that works on chlorine disappoints on chloramine.
Contact time matters:
Even the right carbon needs the water to stay in contact with it long enough to work. A small cartridge in a pitcher or a refrigerator door cannot provide that. A properly sized whole-house or under-sink system can.
Soft water is not untreated water:
This surprises people. Much of the Bay Area drinks soft imported water at 3.5 to 5.9 grains per gallon, so a water softener would have little to do. But that same soft water is the chloraminated water. If you have been told you do not need a softener here, that is usually true, and it does not mean there is nothing worth filtering.
Which Bay Area cities have chloraminated water?
It depends on your supply, not your city limits, and Valley Water publishes the answer per neighborhood. Palo Alto and Stanford are entirely on chloraminated Hetch Hetchy water. About 90 percent of Mountain View is, as is Sunnyvale north of El Camino and the whole of Milpitas. Cupertino, Campbell and Los Altos are primarily on chloraminated Valley Water. Santa Clara is split: north of Highway 101 is chloraminated Hetch Hetchy, while most of the city south of 101 is on city wells served with no disinfectant residual at all. San Jose is split too, and Curtner Avenue and Highway 101 are the dividing lines: south of Curtner and east of 101 is chloraminated imported water, as are Alviso and North San Jose, while much of the rest is on chlorinated well and creek water. Fremont is chloraminated across all four of its supplies. Morgan Hill, Los Gatos and Saratoga are chlorinated rather than chloraminated, which is the easier case, and ordinary carbon handles it well. We will tell you which one you are on.
Signs you are tasting chloramine
A chemical or swimming-pool taste in coffee, tea and ice. A smell you notice in the shower more than at the tap. Filtered water that still tastes treated. A taste that gets stronger at certain times of year as your utility shifts its blend. If you keep fish, chloramine matters more than taste: it is lethal to fish and, unlike free chlorine, it does not dissipate by letting water stand out overnight, so a dechlorinator rated only for chlorine will not protect a tank. What actually works is catalytic carbon, either under the sink or for the whole house, or a reverse osmosis system at the kitchen tap, which handles chloramine along with dissolved solids for drinking and cooking water. Our Exchanger Pro RCC and Exchanger Elite RCC systems include catalytic carbon filtration that reduces chlorine, chloramine and ammonia at every tap in the house.
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