Reducing Chlorine in Your Water: Why and How

Last Updated on April 12, 2021

Who wants to drink water that smells and tastes like a swimming pool? That’s just one reason to get rid of the chlorine in the water that you use in your home. Chlorine or chloramine (a mixture of chlorine and ammonia) is added to most municipal water supplies to kill bacteria and microbes. While it’s an inexpensive and effective method to disinfect water, chlorine can cause damage to your body and to items in your home that come into contact with the chlorinated water.

Reasons to Reduce Chlorine in Your Water

Exposure to chlorine in the shower or bath. When chlorinated water is heated, the chlorine returns to its gas form and can be inhaled, which can aggravate asthma. Chlorine is also absorbed through the skin.

Chlorine byproducts. When chlorine comes into contact with organic material, it can form dangerous disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). With excess exposure over time, these disinfection byproducts can cause health problems such as cancer.

Chlorine dries out rubber parts on appliances. Water-using appliances may need to be repaired or replaced more frequently because of this.

Bad taste and smell. Not only will your drinking water taste bad, but this also affects any drinks or food prepared with your water.

Dry skin and hair. Chlorine can cause dry skin and hair, and it can aggravate skin issues like eczema and acne.

Wearing and fading of clothes and linens. Chlorine can wear out fabric and cause dyes to fade. You’ll have to replace your clothing and linens sooner because of washing them in chlorinated water.

How to Reduce Chlorine in Your Water

Activated carbon is the best way to reduce chlorine in water. It can also remove a variety of other contaminants at the same time. Activated carbon treats water through adsorption and catalytic reactions. Most Puronics water treatment systems contain activated carbon.

You can treat the water throughout your home with a point-of-entry system. If you are only concerned about chlorine or chloramine, the BrightClear™ is a great water treatment system. If there are other contaminants you would like to remove, a different residential water treatment system would be a good choice. For help deciding what type of treatment is best for your home, contact us to schedule a free water treatment consultation.

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