Chlorine Taste & Smell in Your Tap Water

Signs of chlorine in your water

• Pool-like taste or smell from the tap
• A strong chemical smell in a hot shower
• Coffee, tea and ice that taste off
• Family members who won’t drink the tap water, and a garage full of bottled water

Chlorine vs. chloramine

Public water systems that disinfect must keep chlorine or chloramine at or below a maximum residual disinfectant level of 4.0 mg/L [EPA: National Primary Drinking Water Regulations]. Levels in the corridor are well under that. Turlock’s chlorine runs steady at about 0.9 ppm [City of Turlock 2025 Water Quality Report], and Manteca’s averaged 0.97 ppm [City of Manteca 2025 Consumer Confidence Report]. Even at those levels, plenty of people can taste and smell it.

Some cities use chloramine, which is chlorine combined with ammonia. The City of Stockton converted from chlorine to chloramine in 2015 [City of Stockton report on its chloramine conversion]. Chloramine lasts longer in the pipes, and it takes a different kind of carbon to filter well. See Stockton water, Turlock water and Manteca water.

How we treat it

We use carbon filtration with several types of carbon, such as catalytic and coconut shell carbon, matched to your water. Catalytic carbon is what we use for chloramine; coconut shell carbon is excellent for chlorine taste and odor. A whole house water filter treats every faucet, shower and appliance, not just one sink.

If your test also shows hard water, a water softener or salt-free conditioner can pair with the carbon filter. For drinking water, many families add reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink.

What treatment gives you

• Water your family wants to drink, at every tap.
• Showers without the pool smell.
• Better coffee, tea, ice and cooking.
• No more bottled water runs just because the tap tastes bad.
• One install that covers the whole house, serviced by the same local team.

Chlorine is there for a reason

Your city adds chlorine or chloramine to protect the water during its trip from the treatment plant through miles of pipe to your street. That’s a good thing, and we’re not here to argue with it. A whole house carbon filter simply takes the taste and smell back out once the water arrives at your home, so you get both: water that was protected on the way, and water that tastes clean at the tap.

Whole house filter or one faucet?

A faucet or pitcher filter only covers the water you drink from that one spot. A whole house water filter covers every faucet, shower, bath, ice maker and appliance. For most families who notice chlorine in the shower, whole-house carbon is the better fit. Many add reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink for drinking and cooking water on top of that.

What a carbon system looks like and what it needs

A whole-house carbon system is a tank or a set of large Big Blue cartridge housings installed where water enters the house, usually in the garage or outside near the hose bib. We size it to your home’s flow so water pressure stays strong, choose the carbon types for your city’s disinfectant, and set up a service schedule so the carbon is changed before it wears out. Same team, start to finish.

Chlorine taste near you

We install whole house carbon filters across the corridor: Manteca · Lathrop · Stockton · Patterson · Hughson · Turlock · Modesto.