Boiling Tap Water for Drinking: Benefits & Risks

[Herbascious J]

TL;DR

Recently I have been boiling tap water, for about 30 minutes, everyday for drinking water.

Recently I have been boiling tap water, for about 30 minutes, everyday for drinking water. The reason I do it is because I don't like the taste of chlorimines and chlorine and this is the only way I know to get rid of them without also losing minerals. It works great, and in fact, the water tastes slightly 'harder' if that makes sense, I'm guessing due to the concentrating of the minerals as the water loses H2O to steam. Because I boil for 30 mintues, I lose approximately 15-20% of the volume of water. My question is; does this present any issues for daily drinking water? I live in the California East Bay Area and we have outstanding water from the Mokulumne water shed in the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Yosemite and south of Lake Tahoe. Some concerns I have is if I'm concentrating minerals too much, metals too much, or even concentrating pH buffers and raising alkalinity. I'm curious to hear any angle people would like to discuss about this topic no matter how eccentric. Cheers and thank you.

 

[Borek]

I doubt changes in the concentrations you are introducing make the water harder/contain more minerals than water from other safe sources.

 

[hutchphd]

Assuming your boiling container is free from possible contamination, this process should provide no adverse effects. It should mildly elevate concentrations of minerals and might cause precipitation of anything saturated.
Also makes it easier to make tea or coffee...

 

[hmmm27]

Boiling water is for the purpose of killing off/rendering inert bacteria and viruses. 25-30min sounds unnecessary.

 

[chemisttree]

Boiling water usually makes water softer. The solubility of alkaline Earth carbonates is less in hot water than cold. That is, unless you are drinking the slurry of precipitated minerals without decanting.

I also looked at the 2019 Annual Water Quality Report and the only contaminant you need to watch is the fluoride. It is currently controlled to a max level of 0.8 ppm. Concentrating that by 20% brings it to ~1 ppm which is 1 ppm away from the max recommended level of 2 ppm. Not a big problem, though.