Tap water in Thailand

[ravip]

Why is it considered unfit for human consumption? 

 

Is it really so? Even if boiled? 

 

Has anyone tested some samples in a reliable laboratory? 

 

What sort of contaminants does it contain? 

 

...after all, water is also a huge business today. 

 

[internationalism]

no, it's not considered unfit for consumption.

you can drink it from tap, after evaporating chlorin.

preferable filtered

[scubascuba3]

Depends on the source, my condo has water in tanks which get very dirty and are periodically cleaned by somchais with brushes, so never drink that without boiling

[racket]

You shower with it and brush your teeth with it, but you don't drink it. 

 

Most water bottles you're buying are tap water anyways, but filtered in some ways. You could boil the water and should eliminate most of the bacteria that goes through the pipes, and then it should be safer to drink.

 

But considering that you might need 2-6L per day, you'll need to factor in the electricity cost overtime. 

[Mickeymaus]

You can boil it and kill the bacteria. But other things like heavy metals and chemicals will be still there.

[Robin]

Depends on the source of the water from the tap. 

In my village, tap water is river water filtered through a column of sand.  Filtering is to remove mud and silt only, and often no very effective at that.  Tap water is often 'muddy' and cloudy.  Periodically, water i shut off and the filter tower reverse flushed to remove filtered sediment.  After water is cloudy, mucky for a day.  AFIK here is no treatment to remove bacteria or other nasties.  hence tap water is only considered fit for washing.  

I have always cleaned my teeth using tap water with no ill effects.

I have always assumed that all tap water is similarly obtained from filtered rive or ground water, so no guarantee that it is bacteria free.

I believe that bottled drinking water is tap water passed through a microfilter and this is assumed o remove bacteria.  Some local Thai tried to interest me in a business filtering tap/river water to get drinking water, but I was not convinced.  From experience with marine water makers, (reverse osmosis) I know that the filters are delicate and expensive, and i would not trust a local Thai business to maintain the correctly.  Also are the bottles that the water is sold in sterilised before use?

I have a large tank of rain-water for drinking, and the rain-water is filtered before it goes in the tank, and tank is cleaned out every year.  No ill effects from drinking this water.

Another point is that many users have a pump to get more water pressure, which can put a negative pressure, (suction) in the incoming water supply pipe, and suck in contaminates from any crack /leak in the pipe.

No, i would never drink Thailand's tap water

 

 

[KhunBENQ]

1 hour ago, scubascuba3 said:

Depends on the source,

And of location of course.

There is no "Thailand" tap water.

Here in the village we use it for laundry, dishwashing, shower, sink incl. clean teeth.

The water is not chlorinated.

Dogs survive on it

We don't drink it nor cook with it.

And as far as I know none of the villagers does.

 

[3NUMBAS]

rain water is said to be devoid of minerals

[ravip]

Yes. I posed this question,  because upto now, never seen any one drink or cook with tap water. 

Really,  Thailand doesn't have some sort of water treatment plant at least for the big cities? 

Interesting to see what would come up if random samples are tested. 

Would be more interesting if some bottled water too could be tested. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, 3NUMBAS said:

rain water is said to be devoid of minerals

There's a lot of pollution in the air, and AFAIK, when it rains, the rain comes down including elements of that pollution.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

22 minutes ago, ravip said:

Yes. I posed this question,  because upto now, never seen any one drink or cook with tap water. 

Really,  Thailand doesn't have some sort of water treatment plant at least for the big cities? 

Interesting to see what would come up if random samples are tested. 

Would be more interesting if some bottled water too could be tested. 

 

Thailand, specifically in BKK, does have water filtration plants, that begin to clean up water taken from natural sources like the very polluted Chao Phraya River and elsewhere.

 

The problem is what happens after that, as in order to get to you, the water must travel thru a network of old and sometimes leaky underground pipes that allow for comtamination, and then often go into rooftop storage tanks that may not be particularly clean, and then thru house/condo/apartment pipes before finally making it to your faucet.

 

The tap water in BKK is said to be safe to drink, unlike most other places in Thailand. But I don't think many people here do drink the tap water, and instead opt for bottled water or vending machine water, both of which can have their own problems here.

 

Specifically, the operators of the water vending machines have a documented history here of often not properly cleaning and maintaining them with changed filters, meaning the output can be substandard. And some of the refillable large-size bottle water sellers also have a history of putting tap water into their bottles and/or using dirty used bottles....

 

AFAIK, the supermarket sold 1.5 liter filtered water bottles sold from established major suppliers like Singha, Nestle, Chang, etc are generally clean and safe to drink.

 

 

 

[Mark Nothing]

I have been drinking distilled water for years with excellent health results with a home water distiller.  A distiller heats the water and the steam recondenses to pure distilled water removing both bacteria and hard minerals.

 

Bottled mineral water has the most concrete like sediment remaining at the bottom of my distiller. Bottled water has less but still plenty.  Tap water has the least.  So I use that.

 

This concrete like mineral sediment built up in my body over the decades creating multiple health ailments.  Drinking pure water was one important aspect I used to reverse the health ailments caused by the accumulation of mineral buildup.

 

When your young it probably doesn't matter what water you drink.  As the decades pass, your body accumulates the minerals  which lead to ailments.  Luckily the human body immune system can handle it by stopping to add excessive inorganic minerals.  Plus there are other ways too.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

35 minutes ago, Mark Nothing said:

I have been drinking distilled water for years with excellent health results with a home water distiller.  A distiller heats the water and the steam recondenses to pure distilled water removing both bacteria and hard minerals.

 

 In general, I believe doctors and such generally advise against exclusively drinking distilled water, because as you noted, all minerals are removed in the distilling process... And to the contrary, the human body is used to and expects some mineral level in its water.

 

I boil bottles of Singha brand water in my electric water boiler at home, because I need it boiled/sterilized for a medical purpose, and the Singha water brand -- unlike others here -- leaves no noticeable mineral residue in my water boiler... so presumably its very low on <deleted> (total dissolved solids).

 

[Damrongsak]

3 hours ago, 3NUMBAS said:

rain water is said to be devoid of minerals

Other than the minerals in the bird <deleted> on the roof.

[Sheryl]

There are 2 issues:

 

(1) the safety of the source water, which of course varies greatly by location. Problems can include both pathogens and, in some cases with well water, arsenic. (the latter will not be in quantities that are immediately dangerous but can cause a problem over time if consumed regularly).

 

(2) the condition of all the pipes between the source and your taps -- this can vary across buildings even close together. Here the issue is heavy metals from corroding pipes.

 

Boiling will take care only of pathogens, not heavy metals.

 

I actually do cook and brush my teeth with my tap water but do not drink it -- and I have whole house water filters.

 

 

 

 

 

[scubascuba3]

9 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

And of location of course.

There is no "Thailand" tap water.

Here in the village we use it for laundry, dishwashing, shower, sink incl. clean teeth.

The water is not chlorinated.

Dogs survive on it

We don't drink it nor cook with it.

And as far as I know none of the villagers does.

 

Yeah doesn't sound good, but people die from the food they eat and alcohol rather than water

[Pappap]

I've installed a 5 stage filter for the tap water, TDS has stayed the same as the tap water, about 350, TDS in most bottled water ranges from 90 to as low as 9, seemed strange the TDS didn't change with the filtered water, so tested for metals in both, Tap and filtered, none showed up in either, tested the PH in all, tap filtered and bottled. Tap and filtered both 7.5 all the rest slightly below, some as low as 5.5. Rechecked the filtered TDS result by putting in rusty nails overnight, yep TDS way high and showed up on metal test. Tests used were litmus strips for PH different ones for metals, chlorine, nitrates etc. So is there something that doesn't show on these tests to make the tap water undrinkable and why hasn't the filter changed the TDS? Am in Krabi town if this makes any relevance. Obviously I don't know enough about the science of water and would appreciate advice before I screw up my body totally!! Thanks.

[Sheryl]

17 minutes ago, Pappap said:

I've installed a 5 stage filter for the tap water, TDS has stayed the same as the tap water, about 350, TDS in most bottled water ranges from 90 to as low as 9, seemed strange the TDS didn't change with the filtered water, so tested for metals in both, Tap and filtered, none showed up in either, tested the PH in all, tap filtered and bottled. Tap and filtered both 7.5 all the rest slightly below, some as low as 5.5. Rechecked the filtered TDS result by putting in rusty nails overnight, yep TDS way high and showed up on metal test. Tests used were litmus strips for PH different ones for metals, chlorine, nitrates etc. So is there something that doesn't show on these tests to make the tap water undrinkable and why hasn't the filter changed the TDS? Am in Krabi town if this makes any relevance. Obviously I don't know enough about the science of water and would appreciate advice before I screw up my body totally!! Thanks.

Please explain what you mean by a 5 stage filter.

[brewsterbudgen]

While I don't drink the water straight from the tap, I've always used it for cooking.  Very surprised to see that some don't!

[Woof999]

Boiling water takes a lot of energy. Cooling it down again (unless you're prepared to wait) the same.

 

We buy the 20 litre bottles and have them in a cooler / heater (which of course also takes energy, but nothing like above). Each 20 litre bottle costs 40 baht and we use 3 or 4 per week. ~500 baht per month for all the chilled or hot potable water we need (a house of 6) is peanuts.

 

One bad bout of the trots would cost more than a year's worth of water.

 

EDIT: To give you a rough idea of the cost to boil water - raising 20 litres of water from 20 degrees celsius to 100 degrees uses almost 2 kwh of electrical energy (or equivalent). If using an electric hob, your tap water costs 50% of the price of my filtered water just in the cost of the boiling, taking into account some inefficiencies.

[Pappap]

9 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

Please explain what you mean by a 5 stage filter.

[Pappap]

Just now, Pappap said:

One like this

 

[Seppius]

The other issue is plastic bottled water we all nearly use.

 

"Plastic contamination is rampant in bottled water. That was the unsettling conclusion of a study published last year in Frontiers in Chemistry that analyzed samples taken from 259 bottled waters sold in several countries and found that 93% of them contained “microplastic” synthetic polymer particles"

 

https://time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-water/

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 2/16/2023 at 8:48 PM, ravip said:

Thailand doesn't have some sort of water treatment plant at least for the big cities? 

 

Of course they do...including in Bangkok... How well they function is a matter for some debate.

 

But it doesn't much matter, because where the bigger problems occur is with all the often old and leaky water lines running under the city that ultimately connect to buildings that, as noted above, often rely on old and often dirty water storage tanks, that then deliver the water thru often old and dirty lines within buildings.

 

Lots of opportunities for contamination on the long path from the water treatment plant to the end user.

 

At least the major brand 1.5 liter bottled waters are directly treated via reverse osmosis, UV and other means prior to bottling, where they remain clean and secure until use.

 

 

[Sheryl]

2 hours ago, Pappap said:

One like this

 

I am not familiar with the brand and seems like hype/overkill. Also looks rather small in size, do you have it only one tap?

 

Basically you need a sediment  filter  followed by a carbon filter. Among these 5 units you seem to have both (the PP is a sediment filter, though pleated types are better IMO). Note that these filters need regular cleaning and periodic replacement.

 

This should be lowering the TDS, I am not sure why it is not in your case. However your before and after TDS is already quite good.

 

You'll never reach the low levels of bottled water as those are usually done with reverse osmosis. (It is possible to get home reverse osmosis too but it is quite wasteful of water and I think unnecessary.).

[VocalNeal]

Forget all the BS. Can you, like Bangkok, smell the chorine???? If not then go for all the hi-tech filtration.

 

If you are not going to drink it, just buy bottles and shower in whatever you have.

[jaideedave]

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

Please explain what you mean by a 5 stage filter.

Give this a go.Hold your left hand up fingers extended palm facing you.

Your thumb is # 1,next finger #2 until you get to the last finger #5. Water enters your thumb...

The thumb is the 1st stage ...got it?

Sorry I couldn't help myself..no harm intended.

I love your advice Sheryl please don't hate me..

[Celsius]

If you think there's nothing wrong with tap water in Thailand you must also think that Thai street food is the epitome of cleanliness and so much healthier than western food.

 

GoFundMe me for cancer coming up

[Pappap]

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

I am not familiar with the brand and seems like hype/overkill. Also looks rather small in size, do you have it only one tap?

 

Basically you need a sediment  filter  followed by a carbon filter. Among these 5 units you seem to have both (the PP is a sediment filter, though pleated types are better IMO). Note that these filters need regular cleaning and periodic replacement.

 

This should be lowering the TDS, I am not sure why it is not in your case. However your before and after TDS is already quite good.

 

You'll never reach the low levels of bottled water as those are usually done with reverse osmosis. (It is possible to get home reverse osmosis too but it is quite wasteful of water and I think unnecessary.).

Much appreciated, thank you.

 

[norbra]

My eyes "burn" showering in Bangkok tap water.supply.

Sometimes get smell of chlorine. 

The sediment filter on the ro water system stays surprisingly clean,but still change it frequently