So ive been obsessing over this for quite some time and its way beyond me still
Is tap water bad for you? Fluoride, chlorine and all that junk in the pipe system?
Ive read some really horrible things about these chemicals
Do i need a water filter? the basic filters don’t seem to take out fluoride or chlorine…
You need to spend a substantial amount $$$ to get something that works
Im using bottle water at the moment
what are your thoughts?? 
In hopes that this isn’t a rhetorical question…
Bottled water is actually less safe that tap water.
Chlorine is in there to keep you safe from the nasties that will make you sick and possibly kill you.
Fluoride is in there to help strengthen your teeth. True, it’s poisonous in it’s elemental form, and fluoride salts they use are poisonous at large dosages, but it’s not the dosages in municipal water supplies. This may run contrary to what dickhead scare mongers like Alex Jones tell you while trying to sell you water filters, but it isn’t true. BTW, municipal water supplies take fluoride out if the concentration is too high.
You do realize that bottled water only became trendy relatively recently and people before that didn’t seem to have much in the way of ill effects from the water, right?
You can manage to get bad effects if you drink way way too much water at one time, like the woman who was in a water drinking contest and died a few years ago. Unless you’re doing some sort of foolish stunt, it’s quite unlikely to cause yourself health problems by drinking water.
Similarly, you can manage to get bad effects from flouride if you manage to imbibe way way to much of it, but that’s also very unlikely from tap water. If you have well water from one of the rare areas with too much naturally occurring flouride, you might get a discoloration of the teeth, which you’d have noticed long ago and would be cosmetic unless you kept it up for a long time. Similar to water itself, unless you’re doing something fairly ridiculous, you’re unlikely to get non-psychosomatic problems from flouride in tap water.
Chlorine isn’t going to be excess in naturally occurring sources, and a municipality wouldn’t add too much.
Millions of people drink tap water every day. Those people are still perfectly healthy.
The amount of fluoride (not fluorine) is small: just enough to use as a nutrient. In that respect, it’s better for you than untreated water.
Chlorine is also only present in infinitesimal amounts. While there is some possibility of potentially dangerous chlorine compounds, water treatment makes sure that the chemicals that might cause it are not in the system.
Note that bottled water is often just the local water supply run though charcoal filters – the same type that you think aren’t good enough.
There are many people out there who will point out potential “problems.” Many are out to sell you various filters and other junk whose primary purpose is to give them a nice little nest egg.
As a general rule, no, tap water is NOT bad for your health.
Chlorine, in the amounts added to municipal water, is a great deal BETTER for you than ingesting the microorganisms that the chlorine was added to kill. And, if it’s really concern to you, put your drinking water into a pitcher on the kitchen counter for a day, and the chlorine will go away.
Fluoride, in the amounts added to municipal water supplies is actually GOOD for you, in that it strengthens your tooth enamel, making you less susceptible to tooth decay.
Now here are a few questions for you:
How old are you?
Where do you live?
What kind of bottled water are you using at the moment?
What are the really horrible things you’ve heard about fluoride and chlorine?
What’s in your tap water, versus what’s in your bottled water? (It is very very unlikely that your bottled water contains nothing but H20–the Dasani brand, e.g., adds magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and salt.) Many bottled-water brands such as Dasani come from a tap anyway; it’s water straight out of a municipal supply that has been run through a filtration or purification process such as reverse osmosis.
Also remember that chlorine is added to drinking water as a disinfectant. What process is your bottled-water supplier using to remove pathogens from the water? There have been several outbreaks of disease associated with contaminated bottled water, including one in Portugal in the 1970s in which bottled mineral water was implicated in a cholera outbreak and several more recent cases where E. coli, Salmonella, and other nasties were present in dangerous quantities in bottled drinking water.
No. Bottled water is pure marketing and a waste of money.
Unless you have lead in the pipes in your house, in which case, it’s bad for babies and children, but probably even not dangerous for adults. If you have an old house, and children, get your water tested. Otherwise, you can probably not worry about that.
Flouride won’t hurt you at all, at levels in drinking water.
Chlorine does react and form some compounds that aren’t great, but cholera and all the other things that chlorine gets rid of aren’t great either. Drinking water suppliers work hard to get the minimum necessary amount of chlorine (or other compounds) to keep out nasty bugs.
Tap water is far more closely regulated and monitored than bottled water.
Well, except for all the bottled water that is just whatever tap water comes to the bottling plant. Check closely the label on the bottled water your drinking; I’d bet it’s just tap water put into a bottle (there will be some marketing blather about super filtration blah blah blah, of course. But in the end, it’s tap water).
Also, they’ve done studies on the taste of bottled water. In blind taste tests, most people prefer the taste of tap water 
In most cases Tap water is quite safe, depending on your supply of cos.
At the lever that fluoride is in tap water, you’d have to consume a crazy amount of tab water before it becomes anywhere near dangerous.
Regarding Chlorine you can read up here.
If you are still worried to drink the tab water or for peace of mind, get yourself a water filter, the usual carbon filter will do just fine.
Aww man, u guys just made me feel real ignorant haha
im in my 30’s
Live in new york
Using Trader Joes artesian gallons
Chlorine i heard is bad in general (no specific reason)
Fluoride i heard makes you stupid, not saying im smart because obviously i havent figured this out lolol
i really just wanted to buy a $20 filter and have this done with but wasnt sure guys. thats why im asking
Myself, I spent that $20.00 on beer long, long ago.
If by New York, you mean New York City, you are wasting your money buying your water at TJ’s. NYC has some of the BEST tap water in the country.
Welcome to the Dope. I’m sure that there will be days that you get to make us feel ignorant. 
Municipal tap water is more frequently tested, more strictly regulated, orders of magnitude cheaper, and is better for the planet than bottled water. Not to mention, most bottled water comes straight out of a tap somewhere.
Here is a CDC site with some information on drinking water treatment, regulations, history and safety. At the bottom of the page there are links for more detailed information about public drinking water- and well water-related issues.
You can look up your local water provider’s most recent Consumer Confidence Report to learn about your local tap water quality.
The level of fluoride present in tap water (assuming the system is fluoridated; some aren’t) won’t harm your health. (“The dose makes the poison.”) Most local water systems use chlorine or chloramine to disinfect their distribution system. If you let chlorinated water sit in open air, the chlorine will dissipate. Carbon filters can remove chlorine and chloramines.
Yes.
Keep the empty bottles and refill from the tap as required.
From the Master: Is fluoride in water a good thing or a danger
But if you really want to buy bottled water, you can buy bottled NYC tap water easy.
Yes, indeed! NYC has mountain water from the Catskills delivered right to your tap!
Compared to some tap water.
OK, Tap water is safe (except during some contamination issue, which they will announce). To some chlorine tastes nasty, and you can use a simple filter carafe to get rid of it. Fluorine is good for your teeth, and is not dangerous in the amounts in your water.
Some tap water is so hard that the taste is off to some- again, a simple filtering carafe will fix that.
If you live in a really old home, one that might have lead pipes or pipes soldered with lead, then you should test your water. Tests are cheap and easy.
Sometimes the municipal pipes are so old they add rust, etc. San Francisco water should be among the best in the nation, but the pipes are so old and poorly maintained due to the usual SF corruption and mismanagement - that the water comes out rusty looking and tasting nasty. If so, test yours, but the problem could again be likely solved with a carafe filter.
So, yes- if you dont like* the taste* of your particular tap water- just use one of those filtering pitchers.
thanks guys! oh and i think im addicted to this forum now
On the radio the other day they said that topical (dental) fluoride from toothpaste was beneficial for dental health, but that there were no studies that showed that fluoride in drinking water had any effect on dental health, however, it is a possible factor in hyperthyroidism, which is another problem.
Any of this information could be right or wrong.