There are a number products designed to filter the chlorine out of the water in your shower. These products warn that chlorine is relatively insoluble in water and that a warm shower causes the release of chlorine, which combines with ‘organics in the air’ to form chloroform.
Even if the ‘chemistry’ is accurate, is there enough chloroform created in your shower to present a risk? Anyone aware of any studies?
Perhaps I’m drugging myself each morning. This may explain why I find a hot shower so relaxing…
If that’s what you are worried about, skip the shower altogether. You are about 1,000,000 times more likely to die from a fall than exposure to CHCl3.
There are trace amounts of CHCl3 in treated (and untreated for that matter) water, along with food, soil and air.
In other words, you are being exposed to it all the time already.
The EPA states that “measurements of chloroform in drinking water during the 1970s and 1980s ranged from 0.022 to 0.068 ppm” (note that it takes 1500-30,000 ppm for sedation). They also state that “EPA has determined that although chloroform is likely to be carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure under high-exposure conditions that lead to cell death and regrowth in susceptible tissues, chloroform is not likely to cause cancer in humans by any route of exposure under exposure conditions that do not cause cell death and regrowth. Therefore, EPA has not derived either an oral carcinogenic potency slope or an inhalation unit risk for chloroform.”
In other words, in order to be dosed enough to cause cancer, you would need to drink or inhale a glass of it (actually 10 mls).
In which case you’d have other problems.
There are legit reasons to buy water filters. Chloroform risk is not one of them (unless of course, you happen to live in an area that has highly contaminated groundwater).