Don’t use unsterilized tap water to rinse your sinuses. It may carry brain-eating amoebas
Don’t use unsterilized tap water to rinse your sinuses. It may carry brain-eating amoebas

Don’t use unsterilized tap water to rinse your sinuses. It may carry brain-eating amoebas

One PPM of chlorine is enough to kill most amoeba in about 10 mins.
If amoeba can survive in tap water where you are at, you probably shouldn't drink the water without filtering and boiling it first anyway.
Also, get some multi-chemical water test strips as well. While those don't tell the full story, they can be useful if deciding to have your water tested at a lab. (Test strips a decent enough at detecting chlorine, some metals, salts, etc. I don't know if they exist, but detection of disolved gasses, like natural gas, would be a huge plus if you live in an area that has a lot of oil drilling.)
Everyone should spend at least a few bucks to know what they will be drinking at home on a regular basis, IMHO.
Lab testing is going to be a waste of money for most people not using well water, unless you have a strong reason to suspect something is up aside from test-strip reaults. Especially seeing as how the water chemistry is going to change at least twice per year when the water provider switches from chlorine to the chloramines and vice-versa. And pretty much all providers will give you a report of exactly what's in the water on a monthly basis if you ask for it.
Lab results would be useful if you're serious about homebrewing beer and don't want to build up the water profile from scratch or really into baking, though. Just don't do it in the early Spring/Fall, because that's when the treatment chemicals switch and the results aren't going to be representative of what the water is really like for that time of the year.
My stomach is super picky and I drink a ton of water. It doesn't take much to mess me up.
Even perfectly clean water will trigger my acid reflux, but that is more of a mechanical issue with my stomach, from what I understand. The bigger moral of the story here is not to be a raging alcoholic for many consecutive years...
I even get monthly water reports automatically due to the number of lawsuits my town has had because of water quality. Needless to say, my trust level is not set at maximum even for third-party reports paid for by the city.
You ain't wrong, but the redundancy makes me feel better.
I've heard, and read, that the test strip approach isn't very accurate.
Hah. I've been swimming in freshwater lakes, rivers, and reservoirs for about 65 years. Ain't nothin' takin' me down.
Also a former water treatment plant operator, so I should probably not be quite so complacent. :)
Some places are worse than others, from what I understand. Also, I haven't had an issue with my brain being eaten after years of swimming in freshwater sources.
The above paper was about a place in Pakistan, so who knows what their water is like..
What's PPM in this context? Like, one drop in a bucket?
"Parts-per-million"
PPM is an American way of saying mg/L because they're all allergic to SI units.