Asklemmy

México. NO. Do not drink the tap water. Boiling does not help. It has a bunch of heavy metals and other contaminants in it. It sucks because mechanical filtering is incapable of removing them effectively. Reverse osmosis does but it is a challenging and expensive process to properly keep in your house. We always buy bottled water. Trucks deliver twice a week.

Important:

Despite the overall quality of the water in the region, the water pipes can ruin it. If you got lead pipes you should avoid drinking the water or using it for cooking. Boiling won't change it.

In Germany, landlords are legally required to tell you if there are lead pipes in your house, don't know about other countries. Typically, the risk of having lead pipes is higher if the house is older.

TL;DR: lead pipes are very bad

In this US, yes, we generally trust our tap water (although there have been notable incidents of water infrastructure failures, such as major lead contamination in Flint, MI), to the extent that if you get a drink in a restaurant here, 99% of the time it's going to be mixed or made using tap water, with ice made from tap water.

Some folks will use a filter (Brita brand filter pitchers used to be popular at one time, with TV ads and everything) but that's more for filtering out chemicals/toxins/minerals than anything else.

In rural places, every now and then the local government or water company (yes, a lot of places here have privatized water infrastructure which is not super great) will put out a 'Boil Water Notice' but this is generally considered outside of the norm, and you usually expect to see that kind of stuff resolve within a couple of days unless it's a result of a major disaster (we were under a Boil Water notice for 2 weeks after hurricane Katrina in my area, the longest stretch I ever remember). Boil Water notices are usually a result of either a breach of the infrascture (a pipe collapsing and the water supply getting dirty), or a water supply failing its regular quality/safety tests. Our water (can't speak for everywhere in the US, and don't really know the specifics of how they do it) is chemically treated and filtered before it goes into the tap, and the supply mechanisms are usually regularly tested to make sure they're within safe standards.

All of that being said, I know people who refuse to drink tap water, mostly because it tends to have a distinct taste from treatment and from having minerals in it, but also because they've heard horror stories like in Flint. Two things: those folks normally drink bottled water, which is usually just bottled-up tap water from some other place; and I usually see those folks gladly drinking fountain drinks/tea/etc at a restaurant, which is made with un-boiled tap water and served on tap-ice.

TL;DR - the tap water in the US is generally considered safe to drink, in most places, with notable exceptions, and for now (our mostly-privatized infrastructure is getting worse and worse, and very public failures have started to appear in not only water infrastructure, but everywhere)

At home I exclusively drink tap water. I only boil it for tea sometimes :) I‘m from Germany.

I'm from Germany and I always drink Tap water without boiling it first. Well to be fair, I turn my tap water into sparkling water with my beloved SodaStream.

I think almost everywhere in Europe you can drink tap water (my 2 cents from France)

Absolutely. We have outstanding tap water here in the PNW. It tastes better than bottled water and is crystal clear.

Berlin, Germany: we drink water straight from the tap. It's free and delicious. If you don't feel like drinking tap, just drink a "Berliner Rohrperle". It's the same thing with a fancier name, because our tap water is awesome.

Nowadays we even have public drinking fountains dotted around the city.

In Germany: tap water is drinkable without boiling, if you go to a restaurant you can even ask for a glass of tap water with your meal

One thing to consider: While tab water in most of the developed world is potable,any water safety guarantees usually end where the house water pipes begin. Depending on the state of the piping, tap water might not be safe, even if the water supplyer says it's safe.

You can get a water test (especially bacteria is important) for relatively cheap. Last time I did such a test it was ~€60. It's not wrong to do one.

Also, the definition of potable water is that the water is potable after the tap has been running for 10(!) minutes.

Bacteria contaminated pipes are pretty common and if the water has been sitting in these biofilm-covered pipes over night or even longer, the water can become pretty harmful. Especially after you get home from a vacation, letting the water run for a decent amount of time might be a good thing.

Also: the worst thing that can happen to your water pipe system are blind pipes, so pipes that are connected only on one end. That could be e.g. left-over plumbing after remodeling or pipes that lead to unused taps. If at all possible, these ahould be removed or flushed at best daily.

In Germany tap water is considered "one of the most strictly controlled food products"

German here. Yes, constantly. The only reason to not do it would be taste (personal preference) or sometimes due to pollutants entering the system, which is explicitly communicated by the city.

Germany, yes we do drink water without boiling it directly from the tap. Tap water must in general have drinking water quality across the country. However, even it may not be a health risk, some people don't like the taste. Where I live, it tastes very good.