Water safe to drink in HK?

the tap water is safe, it's the pipes that are often not safe. most people seem to boil the water first before drinking it or to filter it.

we boil before drinking with it, but use it straight from the tap for cooking/brushing teeth.
 
We filter and boil our tap water at home. I find the taste between filtered and unfiltered to make a big difference, but it might just be our pipes.
 
The water is basically as safe as the water you drink in other developed countries, but the buildings may have old pipes that might alter things. Buildings before 1995 were often built without galvanized pipes which led to rust developing in the pipes.

The HK government has a Quality Building Water program where buildings can be certified for clean water. You might want to check here too (though I think the program is voluntary not mandatory for building owners)

http://www.wsd.gov.hk/en/customer_s...r_recognition_scheme_for_buildings/index.html

http://www.wsd.gov.hk/filemanager/en/share/pdf/list.pdf
 
Yes, I think HK water is pretty safe--but it all depends on where you live. We live in an 800-year-old village and the pipes and general plumbing situation are less-than-ideal. We don't drink the tap water. I get stomach problems from drinking it but my husband can drink it without problems (he's from HK and I'm not). Also, the flavor of HK water, to me, tastes like soil. Most of HK's water comes from Guangdong Province and after living in ML China for awhile over the years, I'm not that confident in water that comes from there even though the water may be treated once it arrives in HK. However, having said that, most HK people still boil their water before they drink it--that's why most have a countertop water boiler. But, local people do drink the water with no problems--especially if its boiled. My main issue with water anywhere is chlorine and fluoride so we don't drink tap water at all. Right now we're drinking re-mineralized distilled water and are trying to decide whether to install reverse osmosis as a water filtration system or just go to full distilling.
 
We use filter, and not boil. I find that the water tastes better filtered, but boiling makes it tastes worse.
 
we have a great filter that makes sure we are drinking alkaline water...for safety sake (since we live in an old 40yr building) we boil it as well. they say acidic water, like distilled water is no good..who knows! we're supposedly doing the right thing according to my mom...
 
we rarely drink the tap water in our building b/c we are unsure of the pipes, but of course use the water for showering and brushing our teeth. so we drank all bottled and i always give my son for the first 12 months evian or baby water (three sixty sold it) which has the added fluoride that they need.
 
I don't drink the water from the taps at all apart from to brush teeth and cook with.. we boil to cook with

Drinking water we buy in bottles
 
We filter and boil. Use that for tea and stuff.. but we buy water to drink from the supermarket. Just because of the added minerals. It tastes so much better. But like everyone before me said: It's usually safe to drink the water if you filter. I wouldn't drink it straight out of the tap. No way!
 
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