By Jim Salmon
Chicago 1908 was when chlorine was first introduced to treat municipal water. It was great; it helped eliminate many bacterial diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever.
Since then, most municipalities still have chlorine as their agent of choice to treat the water. Even though there are other methods to the same end, chlorine is cheap and effective.
But is it completely safe? In preparation for this article, I read many reports on the effects of chlorine (consumption of, and showering in low level chlorinated water). Yeah! While showering, two things take place. Your skin absorbs chlorine and chlorine vapor is present, therefore you inhale it. The longer the shower, the more you take in. Most articles listed the negative effects from something simple like skin irritations to many forms of cancer. I only found one report that said they had no conclusive results on the long term effects of low level chlorine on your body.
Well, since I’m not a doctor or scientist, just Doug the Plumber, I drew my own conclusions. I don’t put a drop of chlorine on my cereal in the morning of remove the cap of the bleach and take a deep breath before starting my day. Let’s face it; chlorine even at low levels can’t be a great thing. So, lets get it out of you house. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this. You could purchase a filter for your shower and faucet. They’ll remove most chlorine and for a short period of time that’s okay. However, you should have one for every faucet or shower in your home. That’s just not practical or inexpensive when you take into consideration you have to purchase replacement cartridges on a regular basis.
I would recommend purchasing a whole house backwashing activated carbon filter. This is not a cartridge type filter. They’re not exactly cheap, but they work great. They’ll remove all the chlorine in the whole house, leaving all drinking and bath water completely safe.
How much? Depending on your family size and water consumption, professionally installed could run you from $1,500 to $2,500 or a little more. These filters last for years, only needing rebeding once every 12-18 months. This could translate to pennies a day!
My conclusion, remove the possible risk today, and you’ll have peace of mind for years.