Think you are turning the faucet, and your tap water smells like chemicals or bleach. It will be quite frightening, right? Don’t worry. If your water smells like bleach, there is no chance that the problem can connect to harmful contaminants. Then you may ask, “Why does my water smell like bleach?”
Well, it can happen with the excess chlorine addition rather than actual bleach. People manually add chlorine to the water system. It is because chlorine is a disinfectant. It removes waterborne diseases. However, there have some solutions for your bleach smelling water. There have some actions that can remove or reduce the smell of bleach in your water. So, let’s know about the causes and solutions.
Table of Contents
Types of odors
You may face different types of smells in your tap water. So, to solve the problem, you must be familiar with all the odors. There have many types of fragrances, and these are below-
- Bleach or Chemical Odor: For using over-chlorine in the water.
- Earthy or Fishy Odor: For decaying organic matter in the drain.
- Rotten Eggs or Sewage-Like Odor: This type of odor occurs for sulfur bacteria or hydrogen sulfide.
- Gasoline or Fuel-Like Odor: For an under-ground fuel storage tank or leaky fuel tank near your well.
About chlorine and bleach
Before knowing the reasons, it would help if you know the differences between chlorine and bleach. Bleach is a vast term, including from germicidal to whitening your laundry and paper. Several bleach types don’t use chlorine, and some types use chlorine.
On the contrary, elemental chlorine remains in gas form. Though chlorine is toxic by itself, as a disinfectant, it’s a popular choice. Because of its inexpensiveness and superb quality to kill any germs in the water, Water treatment plants use chlorine often in their system. As the chlorine travels from the plant to your home, it is explicitly measured to remain in your water. Subsequently, when you turn on the tap, the water may smell like chlorine bleach.
Why does your water smell like bleach?
The best answer to why your water smells like bleach is that your water contains high chlorine levels. A little bit of chlorine should be placed in the water because the EPA requires it. It helps to eliminate waterborne diseases. To prevent bacterial growth, Public Water Suppliers (PWS) chlorinate the water.
The EPA recommends chlorine levels in public water systems be kept in a recognizable range and less than 4 mg/L. But if the chlorine level is close to 1 mg / L, most people can detect the bleach smell. But according to the CDC, it is safe drinking at this level, and there is no risk to your health.
You will notice the smell of bleach when your tap water becomes over-chlorinated. Even your filtered water tastes like chlorine because of this reason. You may be familiar with the smell if you have a pool or one that you know. It may be because the local water has to travel more. So, to ensure the water stays clean longer, extra chlorine is added.
Side effects for bleach smelling chlorine water
There has some chlorine in tap water side effects of showering and consuming chlorinated tap water. These are your stomach, eye, and skin irritations.
How do you fix it? When your Water Smells like Bleach?
There has no option in your hand to stop add of chlorine by the Water supply authority. Then how to remove chlorine taste from water?
You can follow some alternative methods. These methods can help you to remove or minimize your tap water that smells like bleach.
4 water solutions that effectively remove chlorine:
Use water filter
Authority uses chlorine throughout the year. They want to keep water safe because it goes through pipes; the city’s water treatment relies on chlorination. That doesn’t mean that you require to use it almost everywhere in the house. And you don’t want to drink chlorinated water. So, a water filter is the best option for you to reduce bleach smelling chlorinated water uses. But not the regular filters. This filtered water tastes like chlorine.
Water filters also come in all sorts. Filters Company makes faucet water filters attached to your sink faucet directly. There are also under sink filters, filters built-in water pitchers. Even to ensure your shower with clean water, there have shower water filters.
Consider the Cleanwater4Less Countertop Filter If you want something cheaper. The advantage is that you don’t require any replacement filters. The more important thing is that it will filter thousands of gallons of water.
Use Water refiner
If you want to get every tap water in your house chlorine-free, you can use a water refiner. It will be a great solution. It will help to purify your water as well as eliminate the side effects of chlorine. Water refiner is perfect for any home setup, and it is an upgraded method. Using a water refiner, you will be able to ensure clean and pure water for your family.
Refrigerating or boiling the water
You may not afford the water filter. That’s why there has another option for you. You can try boiling or refrigerating that bleach smelling tap water.
In the refrigerating process, you have to fill a pitcher with tap water and cover it. Then put the pitcher in the refrigerator. While cooling in the fridge, the smell of bleach in the water will disappear naturally. Then you can drink the bleach smell free water.
You can try boiling your water for about five minutes to remove the smell. And then you can store it in your fridge.
Water distiller
It is a handy device to remove up to 97% of the material from your tap water. Suppose you add a carbon filter to it. Then it will undoubtedly remove 99 % of the material from your water. It removes chlorine and other substances like iodine, bromine, astatine, and Florin from the distillation water. So you can use a water distiller as a purifier in your home.
Use de-chlorination tablets
Some tablets can help to remove the bleach odor. One de-chlorination tablet can remove chlorine from 100 gallons of water. With vitamin C tablets, this also works.
Water disinfectants
Removing biological contaminants, various chemical harmful substances, and suspended nets in water is called water purification. Man cannot drink impure water. The water purifying process is also essential for various applications in medicine, different industrial plants.
There are some practical ways to eliminate the odor, like bleach in tap water. Chlorine is beneficial as a disinfectant. If the level of chlorine in the water is so high, then such closure is found. People used Chlorine as a disinfectant in the ’90s. Chlorine works very well to eliminate waterborne diseases.
It is recommended to keep less than 4 mg/L of chlorine in the water. But you can be able to smell less than 1 mg/According to the CDC, “it is very safe for you and doesn’t harm your health.”
Find sanctuary with the Indiana Forest Alliance
Water is an essential issue for everyone in the world. Without it, human life is useless. All our daily work is dependent on water. So we should ensure the purity of water first of all. If there are black spots in the water, then water is utterly incapable of cleaning. You can use a booster with iron removal to remove black spots on the water. It works by filtration. It will remove iron from the water before it reaches your tap. This booster will keep your laundry, shower water, and everything in the house stain-free and give you fresh and clean water. This process is potent. It also eliminates water’s odor.
Related Post: Is Boiling Tap Water the Same as Filtered Water?
FAQs:
1. Is it safe to drink water that smells like bleach?
The scent of bleach in your liquid is probably resulting from excessive ranges of chlorine. Short lines of chlorine for your water aren’t harmful.
2. Can you taste bleach in the water?
In real fact, bleach tastes because it smells and could affect your mouth experience like synthetic. It feels like an exceptionally focused swimming tarn water. It’s genuinely sour and has an actual flavor to it. When you make strive it, do not ever drink, wash your mouth with this type of water or liquid, as quickly as possible.
3. Is drinking tap water healthy?
It is proper that water in a few towns carries a maximum number of pollutants, maximum adults can safely take from the top area’s faucet. Faucet water stays the utmost cost-effective, handy manner of living hydrated.
Conclusion
Why does my water smell like bleach? It is so disgusting if your tap water smell like bleach. Using a high level of chlorine generates this problem. The use of chlorine is significant, but over-used is not okay. So, solving the problem is essential badly. A water filter that reduces bleach smelling is the best option. But those who can’t afford it can follow the mentioned methods.
It can also happen that you may be unsure of what your water smells like, but it still doesn’t smell right. Then you need to contact immediately to the country health department or your water supply authority.
