Brussels

The tap water in Brussels is at the high end of the hardness scale which shortens the life of Brita filters. The water also seems dicey in terms of cleanliness. On a couple occasions I’ve seen something floating in the tap water in two different apartments. So I switched to bottled water.

It’s half-tempting to switch to Brita filtered tap but hard to say if the price is justified.

One Brita filter is ~€9. That would normally be good for 120 liters of water at low or avg hardness. But what if the water is very hard.. how much does that change the replacement calculus? If I figure the filter life is ½, then we’re paying €18 to filter 120 liters not counting the city water cost.

Cheap bottled water is €1.20/5 liters. So 120 liters is €28.80. Thus AFAICT bottled water is ~60% pricier than filtered. Seems worth it considering that horror story where someone found cockroach eggs in their Brita filter (not sure where that was, and some would praise the filter for doing its job.. but still..)