Alleluluja!
It is written*: “In the same way, I tell you that there is more joy in heaven over one bottle-guzzler who repents and turns to the Tap, than ninety-nine others…etc”.
A votre santé, messieurs! 
*Adapted loosely from Luke 15:7
try descaling more often… the calcium is harmless… possibly even beneficial for those with calcium deficiencies?
Tastes quite good too, crunchy bits at the bottom of the mug.
could those be bits of undissolved ginger nut biscuit Peter?
That’s it, Graham! You’re every dunker’s guru, and an old fart’s pal. Have to sort out my tongue-scraper to rebore my taste buds, it’s somewhere in my cutlery drawer…
What your tap water tastes like depends where you are - ours is quite unpleasant so we have a built in filter system and use a Sodastream to add some fizz. A massive difference.
Me too. Have been on this bank wagon for ages. We have a fridge that filters, also a Brita jug which we can use but don’t. Been stumped on fizzy stuff, but Carrefour came to the rescue with a half price Sodastream. Hey presto fizzy stuff.
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We have a water softener connected to our water-in. We also have a salt reservoir.
As far as I understand it , all water is passes through the filter & unit (not the salt). The filter, filters out some impurities & the unit itself filters others. The impurities (ions ?) are retained in the unit and are flushed out ( to waste) periodically by using salt water from the salt resevoir. Hence there should be no salt in the drinking water . That’s how i understand it , but could be wrong.
Now in 2020… are we really no further forward with Drinking Water Supplies.
what are the impurities which folk currently feel the need to filter out ??? unless it is from well-water supplies ??? and even then… 
We had a merkur filter system installed when we bought the house, and have continued to maintain it. One filtre is anti-calcaire as our water is very hard, and the other filters out particles. We get the analysis of the water here, and yes it is within norms in terms of faecal matter, bacteria etc. However inert particles like sand aren’t included in the analysis. All I know is that when I change the filter every six months or so the cartridge is dark brown and very grubby looking, when it starts out bright white and sparkling.
We have a well under our property and access it through a pump. We know this is also used by just about all residents through different access holes. The water is seemingly pure, but oddly to me at least, sometimes comes out warm, and initially with a whiff of sulphur. Yeah made me think as well about that! Mind you it’s good when washing the car using it! We do use it for watering the garden and even providing water for the stray cats, and nothing seems any the worse for it, but I haven’t yet tried drinking it.
We even had a large well in the lounge room of our former house in Burgundy where we were assured the water was drinkable, but we also never did that. We did use Spring water in the Lot until we learned the pesticides used by farmers had polluted the source.
Made me think even harder when I read the novel ‘Pompeii’ when it stated that the first sign of Vesuvius about to blow was the smell of sulphur in the water. Plus that in the appendix to the book it stated that the most likely volcanoes to blow are ancient ones. We aren’t a millions miles from the so-called dead volcanoes in the Auvergne, which is an uncomfortable thought as to what might be bubbling away merrily beneath my feet!
Are you allergic to tap water? I have heard that much of bottled water would be illegal to supply through domestic taps and would be totally unsuitable for making up baby milk.
Thanks for link but our commune is not covered either. It advises us to contact the Mairie. The cynic in me raises the thought that perhaps as we are surrounded by farmland SAUR are not willing to stick their necks out?
I don’t think there exist any norms for ‘faecal matter’ in drinking water, Jane, though I’m not an environmental engineer.
Coliform bacteria, such as Escherichia Coli or Bacillus Coli, which are not an actual cause of disease if ingested, are commonly used as a bacterial indicator of water pollution, and are normal inhabitants of the large intestine, where in fact they protect us against the proliferation of other serious pathogens, and are present in faeces, but don’t constitute in themselves constitute faecal matter.
I only mention this because it is often stated that water containing traces of these normal intestinal flora are ‘polluted with raw sewage’. This is alarmist and could be seen as ‘fake news’.
I don’t in any way think you are alarmist or spreading false news, but I thought it worth mentioning that Coliform bacteria present in drinking water does not mean that the water contains faecal material.
It is beyond dispute that in some parts of the world without any kind of sanitary provision, or provision of a very primitive or poorly maintained kind, drinking water from Wells or streams may be polluted by untreated sewage.
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Maybe its because our water comes from a source above the village that is surrounded by pasture for cows… our analysis covers bacteria but there is a separate category for “organic matter and other undesirable substances”, which we have been led to believe means the cows. A couple of times in the last 12 years we have been told not to drink the water without boiling it first, most recently when a trailer full of slurry overturned.
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Veolia is international and involved in all sorts of stuff…
It doesn’t cover all of France… not for water, anyway… in fact I haven’t managed to make the link give me any other answer than… check with your Mairie.
which makes sense, since the Mairie will have all the information about the water supplied to its citizens…
Entrancing, the country life! 
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Interesting point Kenneth. Ours does “regenerate” every week so that could be what the salt is for, not filtering the water. We’ve also got ultra violet and filter in the line as well so it’s a pity not to drink it.
I have an inline water filter and softener unit, The cotton wrap filter gets very brown after a year in service, the softener crystals seem to last a long time, this unit only feeds the hot water in the kitchen, but another unit works for all bathroom and toilet water, it does keep the calcium at bay. The shower doesn’t leave deposits on the glass and the loo stays cleaner… The water tastes fine from the kitchen cold tap, untreated…
Good to know the drinking water is OK…
Was the system in place… or did you make the decision… ??