Uncategorized
What Is in Australian Tap Water
Mar
If you moved to Australia recently and your shower has felt different ever since, the water is one of the things that changed. Australia has no single tap water. Each city is supplied by its own utility, and the two things that differ most between them are hardness and the disinfectant. Sydney and northern Perth sit at opposite ends on both.
Moved to Australia? The water changes from city to city
Hardness is the calcium and magnesium water picks up from the ground it runs through, measured in milligrams per litre. The disinfectant is what the utility adds at the treatment plant so the water is still disinfected when it reaches the far end of the network. Here is how the capitals compare, from each utility’s own figures:
- Sydney: about 57 mg/L, soft. Chlorine with ammonia, which forms chloramine (Sydney Water).
- Brisbane and Ipswich: about 100 mg/L. Chloramine (Seqwater).
- Perth: about 29 to 228 mg/L, depending on the suburb. Chlorine, with chloramine on the Goldfields and Agricultural Supply Scheme (Water Corporation).
- Adelaide: about 97 mg/L. Chlorine or chloramine, depending on the supply (SA Water).
- Canberra: about 43 mg/L. Chlorine (Icon Water).
- Melbourne: chlorinated at the main treatment plants (Melbourne Water).
- Hobart: chlorine (TasWater).
The full table, with a lookup by postcode, is on your water by postcode.
Why Sydney’s water and northern Perth’s feel so different
Sydney Water puts its supply at about 57 mg/L and classifies anything under 60 as soft. Water Corporation’s locality tables run from about 29 mg/L in Perth’s south to about 228 in the north. The top of that range is four times Sydney’s figure.
Hardness is the part you can see. Where the number is high it collects as a white film on the shower screen and a crust across the face of the shower head, and it comes back a few weeks after you clean it off. The suburb-by-suburb picture is in Perth hard water.
The disinfectant differs as well. Sydney Water adds ammonia with the chlorine to form chloramine. Perth’s metropolitan supply is chlorinated. Move from one to the other and both the water on the glass and the chemistry coming out of the shower head change.
Chlorine or chloramine, depending on where you land
Free chlorine leaves water readily, and you notice it most as a smell in a hot shower with the door shut. Icon Water says chlorine may be more noticeable when water is heated, such as when you run a shower or bath.
Chloramine is chlorine bonded with ammonia. Utilities use it because it lasts longer in a long pipe network, and Seqwater adds it to hold disinfection across South East Queensland. SA Water says chloramine lessens the distinct smell some people notice with chlorine, so a chloraminated city can smell milder while still carrying its disinfectant all the way to the tap.
How the two behave, and why it matters for a filter, is on chloramine and vitamin C.
What to check in your first week
- Who supplies your water. The postcode lookup on your water page names the utility for your address.
- Which disinfectant it uses. In Adelaide it depends on the supply, and SA Water’s suburb search gives your answer.
- The smell. Run the shower hot with the door shut for a minute and you will know whether chlorine is noticeable at your address.
- The glass. A white film on the screen after a few weeks means hardness is on the high side where you live.
Whichever disinfectant your new city uses, a Suhae shower filter takes it out. The cartridge holds 25,000mg of vitamin C, which turns free chlorine and chloramine into chloride. KEWI certificate IW-230133 records 99.9% chlorine removal, and no chlorine detected all the way to 6,000 litres.
Radiance holds the cartridge inside the shower head, fits a standard shower fitting and installs in about 2 minutes with no tools. If you are renting, it comes off just as quickly when you move on, and shower filters for renters covers the rest. Vita Refills are AUD $29.90 in ten scents, and each one lasts two to three months depending on how much the household showers.
A new city brings new water. Put a Suhae shower filter on in your first week and the chlorine or chloramine it carries stops at the shower head.
