Weird question about water (maybe)

bahamut88

Can you drink water directly from the tap in Ireland and in Galway in particular?
In Italy we can, but because water is very cheap almost everyone buy it from the stores.

pleasant Co.

bahamut88 wrote: »

Can you drink water directly from the tap in Ireland and in Galway in particular?
In Italy we can, but because water is very cheap almost everyone buy it from the stores.

Yes, and apparently we've the best water treatment in ireland....now.....after we had a cryptosporidium outbreak a few years back....

Bottled water is generally quite expensive over here, you can of course find places that sell it cheapishly (aldi/lidl for example).

One thing you will notice about Irish water is the abundance of Chlorine & Fluoride, not the nicest taste but you do get used to it

ben.schlomo

.49c for 2litre would be cheapest bottled water in most stores.

bahamut88

Not a bad price! I was expecting more

Slightly OT, do you think other prices would be much higher than in Italy? I've checked numbeo but I don't know if I can trust their data.

For example, does anybody know how much is the chicken breast? LOL, I basically eat it 8/9 times per week. According to numbeo is 9.50 for 1 kg.

ScumLord

You can drink from the tap but I would think many Irish people drink bottled water. Like pleasant Co. pointed out there have been some problems with tap water in the past. Irish tap water is also full of lime which isn't particularly bad for you, in fact it's apparently what makes Irish horses world famous because added lime in your diet gives you stronger bones.

I buy a 6 pack of 2 litre bottles of water in Lidl and drink that, for making tea or coffee I use the tap water.

Mrs OBumble

ben.schlomo wrote: »

.49c for 2litre would be cheapest bottled water in most stores.

That's the Dunnes Stores house price. Can be got cheaper in Lidl/Aldi sometimes.

They tell us it's drinkable, even though the taste is mehhh. But I'm just kinda sceptical. I drink a lot of water, and I found that my stomach just seemed more settled once I decreased the amount of tap water.



FWIW:

After the crypto, when they improved the treatment, I noticed that the saucepans were starting to get some mottled spots.

That stopped soon after they discovered lead pipes in some old houses.

There was a theory around that the better treatment introduced then was disrupting the plaque that had build up in the lead pipes over the years and had been protecting people from the lead.

I have no idea how true that theory is.

But the lead pipes have since been replaces (AFAIK) and I have noticed the mottling coming back lately.

ben.schlomo

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

That's the Dunnes Stores house price. Can be got cheaper in Lidl/Aldi sometimes.

They tell us it's drinkable, even though the taste is mehhh. But I'm just kinda sceptical. I drink a lot of water, and I found that my stomach just seemed more settled once I decreased the amount of tap water.



FWIW:

After the crypto, when they improved the treatment, I noticed that the saucepans were starting to get some mottled spots.

That stopped soon after they discovered lead pipes in some old houses.

There was a theory around that the better treatment introduced then was disrupting the plaque that had build up in the lead pipes over the years and had been protecting people from the lead.

I have no idea how true that theory is.

But the lead pipes have since been replaces (AFAIK) and I have noticed the mottling coming back lately.

In my experience its .49c across the board, Dunnes, Tesco, Lidl and Aldi.
@Bahamut you can get 9 chicken breasts for 9.99 in Asia Manila Store on Abbeygate St, they are a good size and they have full traceability too.

folbotcar

Galway City's water is probably now the safest in Ireland. I was a victim of the Cryptospiridium outbreak. Didn't realise what it was until later. They sorted that by upgrading the system. Later I was caught up in the lead problem but that was isolated to certain areas notably Mervue. That is sorted too. So yes the water is safe to drink. In fact that's true of the whole country.

As for drinking it. It's really just a question of taste. The reality is that bottled water is all too often merely tap water bottled.

As for chicken breast. I paid €6 for four the other day in Supervalu. I imagine Aldi or Lidl would be cheaper. But you can buy in bulk in a couple places for a lot less if you're that addicted to it.

On the other hand if you're a wine drinker you'll find the price of Italian wine here sobering.:eek:

Red Pepper

Wowser, I cannot get over the amount of people that primarily drink bottled water. I live near Moycullen and we get our water from some lake in the hills (Lough Buffy I think), it is absolutely delicious stuff! Never any problems with it and I drink a lot of it. Makes wonderful tea as well.
I hate bottled water!
It will be a sad day when I have to stop drinking tap water.

bahamut88

folbotcar wrote: »

Galway City's water is probably now the safest in Ireland. I was a victim of the Cryptospiridium outbreak. Didn't realise what it was until later. They sorted that by upgrading the system. Later I was caught up in the lead problem but that was isolated to certain areas notably Mervue. That is sorted too. So yes the water is safe to drink. In fact that's true of the whole country.

As for drinking it. It's really just a question of taste. The reality is that bottled water is all too often merely tap water bottled.

As for chicken breast. I paid €6 for four the other day in Supervalu. I imagine Aldi or Lidl would be cheaper. But you can buy in bulk in a couple places for a lot less if you're that addicted to it.

On the other hand if you're a wine drinker you'll find the price of Italian wine here sobering.:eek:

I know! I've read this somewhere. Luckily I'm more into beers!!:D

ScumLord

bahamut88 wrote: »

I know! I've read this somewhere. Luckily I'm more into beers!!:D

The price of beer isn't any better. Irish pubs have pretty large mark ups, I think it's higher than on wine. They also don't stock much outside of the main big brands like guinness, heineken, budweiser, bulmers.

Any beer outside of the top brands will be horribly expensive to buy in a pub. The guinness is worth it though, guinness put a lot of work into maintaining the equipment pubs use so that the pint of guinness is up to a standard across the country.

There are some nice Irish ales but it will be hard to find them in most pubs, so you have to go to supermarkets to find them. You'll also find they're the most expensive beers on the shelf.

Ireland as a whole likes to think of itself as a world class tourist destination and charges accordingly, there's almost as much tourist fleecing as you'd find in Rome. It's been stepped back a bit since the economic crisis but we're still a pretty expensive place to visit.

With planning you can avoid the tourist traps and you'll have a much better visit if you avoid them.

Eeden

This thread is starting to be about more than water! :D

Iwannahurl

Eeden wrote: »

This thread is starting to be about more than water! :D

Water is always about more than water.

By the way, OP, you may be used to a system in Italy where you can drink the tap water in any room, of a house or hotel for example.

Not the case in Ireland. The only drinkable water in most Irish houses come from the cold tap in the kitchen. The water in every other tap comes from a tank in the attic, which is not designed for storing potable water and may even contain unspeakable horrors. I heard of one tank that was contaminated with the rotting corpses of dead bats.

bahamut88

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Water is always about more than water.

By the way, OP, you may be used to a system in Italy where you can drink the tap water in any room, of a house or hotel for example.

Not the case in Ireland. The only drinkable water in most Irish houses come from the cold tap in the kitchen. The water in every other tap comes from a tank in the attic, which is not designed for storing potable water and may even contain unspeakable horrors. I heard of one tank that was contaminated with the rotting corpses of dead bats.

What the hell!!!!
Thanks for the clarification. Now I'll feel uncomfortable even taking showers. XD

folbotcar

Bloody hell bats in the tank. Now I'm off to check mine. Although I think mine's covered.

Galwayguy35

I would have thought everyone would have their tank covered anyway.

Iwannahurl

Tanks should be covered, but occasionally are not.

Even if covered, the tank is not for drinking water. I often wonder whether visitors from other countries are unaware of this, and are drinking from taps in bedrooms and bathrooms. I guess it's not necessarily risky, but it's not particularly wholesome either.

The people with the dead bats in their tank were using the water when brushing their teeth, and had been wondering about the bad taste for a while...

Mrs OBumble

Indeed, it's not an urban legend, Mr O'B dealt with one house where there were dead rats in the tank.

ronnie3585

We've got a little rule around here; "if it's brown drink it down, if it's black sent it back".

Eeden

I'm pretty sure that most of the tank stuff is myths. If it's actually dangerous to drink out of any tap in your house the whole country would explode with indignation. Or we'd all be dead.

Iwannahurl

Eeden wrote: »

we'd all be dead.

Not at all. Even deadly water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid are fatal only for a minority of people infected.

Galway's notorious Cryptosporium outbreak in 2007, which iirc affected the city's entire water supply, resulted in no more than 250 confirmed cases of Cryptosporidiosis.

The tank in your attic is not meant for the storage of drinking water, that is all. By way of analogy, would you drink water from a toilet bowl, or buy water in a shop if it was served from a builder's bucket?

ScumLord

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Not at all. Even deadly water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid are fatal only for a minority of people infected.

Indeed, sure most the deadly bacterias are living inside us as we speak. In fact we're all made up of more bacterial DNA than our own DNA.

People have no idea what they're eating half the time, if it comes wrapped in plastic we assume it's hygienic, that's all it takes for food to earn the trust of most people, wrap it in plastic.

Tokyo

I've been following this thread for a few days now, for the simple reason that I've spent quite a bit of time in the water treatment plants around Galway County, I thought I'd post up some information that I've come across first hand.

The water in Ireland is some of the safest in Europe. Standard treatment usually consists of sedimentation (alum is added to the water to make particulate matter clump together and fall to the bottom), filtration through a sand bed, and chlorination. The water is also fluoridated before it leaves the treatment plant. So it's a pretty reasonable setup. Some of the treatment plants now have ozone treatment as part of the cycle to kill off water borne organisms, which I think was one of the big improvements made after the crypto scare a few years back.

Part of the problem with taste is due to the fact that a lot of the smaller water schemes are being closed down, and the area linked into a bigger scheme. For example, Clarenbridge used to have its own spring and treatment plant in Kilcornan woods - that's been shut down now and instead it's hooked up to the main Galway water supply. Making the system bigger has consequences though - one of the chlorine measurements is taken at the end of the line, and there has to be a certain level of residual chlorine present. But people closer to the treatment plant will have higher levels of chlorine in their water.

The chlorine levels can fluctuate quite a bit - all within safe tolerances - if there is a sudden high demand on the system it can drop, conversely if the water in one of the water towers becomes agitated chlorine can be released from the bottom and abck into the water. Water samples are taken at least once a day and the chlorine is regulated accordingly. Additionally, most pump houses are now also monitored remotely, including realtime monitoring of chlorine levels, and will send out a text message to the person in charge if something goes wrong (abmormal readings, pump down, etc). Many of the bigger water schemes now also have chlorine booster pumps along the line, which means that the water doesn't need to be chlorinated as highly at the start of the line. Ironically, if the chlorine was actually too high you wouldn't taste it (unless it was at swimming pool levels) - your tastebuds become desensitised to it above a certain point. So if the taste of chlorine is perceptible, then the levels are safe.

Regarding the Cryptosporium outbreak in 2007 - I can tell you firsthand that there were very few actual confirmed cases - in the low hundreds as somebody pointed out. Every cold, tummy bug, case of food poisoning and hangover got blamed on crypto for a long time before and after the water was confirmed to be at safe levels. But it was used as a vehicle for politicians and councillors to make a name for themselves. Short of your tap water tasting like a swimming pool, there's always going to be *something* in your drinking water.

Naux

Good info mike ie

Anyone notice that the limescale disappeared from their kettles/shower heads when they got connected to the city supply(Luimnagh)??

For OP I'd drink the tap water before I'd drink the stuff they put in bottles and sell for 49cents.

Eeden

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Not at all. Even deadly water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid are fatal only for a minority of people infected.

Galway's notorious Cryptosporium outbreak in 2007, which iirc affected the city's entire water supply, resulted in no more than 250 confirmed cases of Cryptosporidiosis.

The tank in your attic is not meant for the storage of drinking water, that is all. By way of analogy, would you drink water from a toilet bowl, or buy water in a shop if it was served from a builder's bucket?

Thanks for that. I was wondering, because recently when the water was turned off in my area, nothing came out of the cold tap in the bathroom. I thought that might mean it was coming from the mains.

Birroc

Naux wrote: »

For OP I'd drink the tap water before I'd drink the stuff they put in bottles and sell for 49cents.

Absolutely! Bottled water cannot be good for you. How long is it in there? And how clean is the plastic?

Tsipras

When I lived in Italy my housemates thought I was weird drinking pints of tap water all the time, there was always about 20 litres of bottled war in the flat but mostly sparkling which we always had with dinner

Ludikrus

Birroc wrote: »

Absolutely! Bottled water cannot be good for you. How long is it in there? And how clean is the plastic?

A lot cleaner than the stuff coming out of Galway taps.

bahamut88

Tsipras wrote: »

When I lived in Italy my housemates thought I was weird drinking pints of tap water all the time, there was always about 20 litres of bottled war in the flat but mostly sparkling which we always had with dinner

True, as I said on the first message. You can drink on the tap but nobody does... :rolleyes:

ScumLord

Tsipras wrote: »

there was always about 20 litres of bottled war in the flat but mostly sparkling which we always had with dinner

Sparkling water is wrong, I think the bubbles are made out of cancer.

Birroc

Ludikrus wrote: »

A lot cleaner than the stuff coming out of Galway taps.

Proof?