What's actually in your city water. And which filtration system removes it.

Municipal water commonly contains six categories of contaminants that treatment plants either introduce, can't fully remove, or don't address at all: chlorine and chloramine disinfectants, disinfection byproducts (DBPs), PFAS, lead and heavy metals, hardness minerals, and microplastics. Your water starts at a treatment plant where it gets disinfected, filtered for sediment, and tested against EPA standards — and that treatment does a solid job of preventing waterborne disease. But it doesn't get everything out. This guide is part of our broader whole-home water filtration reference.

GoodFor is a consultation-first water company co-founded by Jane Emma and Boris Jabotinsky, a Licensed Master Plumber (CSLB #1102129) who leads our technical standards. Our team of licensed professionals reviews your local water quality and matches you to a WQA Gold Seal certified system. Here's what we actually see when we review municipal water reports with homeowners.

Chlorine and Chloramine

Your water utility adds disinfectants — either chlorine or chloramine — to kill bacteria in the distribution system. Chlorine is the one most people recognize by smell. It dissipates fairly quickly and is straightforward to filter. Chloramine is different. It's a chlorine-ammonia compound that's much more stable, which is exactly why utilities love it — and exactly why it's harder to remove at home.

This is where most whole-home systems fall short. Many filters you'll find online, including popular direct-to-consumer brands, use standard granular activated carbon (GAC) as their primary media. GAC handles chlorine reasonably well. It does not handle chloramine effectively. Chloramine requires catalytic carbon — a more advanced media with a different internal structure that breaks the chlorine-ammonia bond.

Even within catalytic carbon, performance varies. Most catalytic carbon systems on the market are rated for lower chloramine concentrations and shorter service lives, which means the media saturates faster than you'd expect — leading to residual chloramine leaking through to your taps, shower, and appliances. You might not taste it. You're still bathing in it.

This is where Clearess®, GoodFor's proprietary catalytic carbon media, stands apart. Some municipalities push chloramine concentrations higher during seasonal demand or after weather events, and a system rated for 4 ppm handles those spikes without breaking a sweat. If you're currently using a pitcher filter or a refrigerator cartridge, those use basic carbon that's even less effective than the GAC in most whole-home systems — so the gap between what you have now and what a Clearess® system delivers is substantial.

A whole-home chloramine filter with the right media addresses it at every tap, every shower, and every appliance — not just the kitchen faucet.

Disinfection Byproducts (DBPs)

When chlorine or chloramine reacts with natural organic matter already present in the source water, it creates a category of chemicals called disinfection byproducts — including trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). The disinfectant does its job killing bacteria, but the chemical reaction leaves behind new compounds that weren't in the water before treatment.

The EPA regulates these — but the gap between "legal" and "ideal" is enormous. The EPA's maximum contaminant level for total trihalomethanes is 80 parts per billion. The Environmental Working Group's health guideline, based on independent peer-reviewed research, is 0.15 ppb.

Most people think of water contamination as a drinking water problem. It's not — or at least, it's not only that. Your shower may actually be a bigger source of exposure than your kitchen faucet.

When you take a hot shower, three things happen at once.

An undersink filter or a pitcher does nothing for this exposure. Neither does a fridge filter. This is the single biggest reason whole-home filtration matters — it treats the water before it reaches your shower head, your bathtub, and every other outlet in the house.

The Cancer Research — What We Know and What's Still Building

Evidence: Strong A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Environmental Health Perspectives (Helte et al., 2025) found THM exposure associated with increased risk of bladder and colorectal cancer at levels below current US and EU regulatory limits. The EPA itself classifies several trihalomethanes as possible human carcinogens.

Evidence: Emerging A study in Hartford, Connecticut found that women diagnosed with breast cancer had 50–60% higher levels of organochlorines — a category that includes chlorination byproducts — in their breast tissue compared to women without breast cancer. A large Finnish cohort study of over 621,000 people found a modest but statistically significant association between chlorinated drinking water and breast cancer. Other major studies, including the Long Island Breast Cancer Study, found no significant link. The breast cancer connection is not settled science.

You don't need a definitive breast cancer link to justify reducing your family's exposure to chlorine disinfection byproducts. The bladder and colorectal cancer evidence is strong. The overall direction of the research is clear. And reducing exposure through whole-home filtration is a straightforward, well-supported step.

We wrote a full breakdown of the chlorine and cancer research, including the specific studies and their limitations, in our guide: Chlorine in Water and Cancer Risk.

The EPA sets Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) — the legal limits for what's allowed in your drinking water. Your utility is required to meet them, and they're enforceable. That matters.

But MCLs aren't purely health-based numbers. They factor in what's technically feasible to treat, what it costs, and what current technology can achieve at scale. That means the legal limit is often significantly higher than what independent health organizations consider ideal for long-term exposure.

The Environmental Working Group maintains a public tap water database where you can search your specific utility and compare its results against both EPA MCLs and stricter health-based guidelines. In many cases, a contaminant that's "within EPA limits" exceeds the level at which researchers have observed health effects. The trihalomethane example above — 80 ppb legal limit vs. 0.15 ppb health guideline — is one of the starkest, but it's not the only one.

None of this means your water is dangerous. It means the gap between "passes regulatory testing" and "optimized for your family's health" is real — and closing that gap is exactly what whole-home water filtration does.

You can look up your own utility's results at EWG's Tap Water Database or find your Consumer Confidence Report at EPA.gov.

A whole-home system — also called a point-of-entry (POE) system — connects directly to your main water line before the water heater and before any branch lines split off to individual fixtures. Every drop of water that enters your house passes through it. That means filtered, treated water at every faucet, every shower, every appliance, every hose bib. Not just the one outlet where you installed a pitcher.

This is a fundamentally different approach from the point-of-use (POU) filters most people start with — pitcher filters, faucet attachments, fridge cartridges. Those protect a single outlet. They do nothing for the water you shower in, wash your clothes with, or run through your dishwasher and water heater.

What a whole-home system handles in city water

Chlorine and chloramine — Advanced catalytic carbon media (like Clearess®, GoodFor's proprietary catalytic carbon) reduces both chlorine and chloramine at every water outlet. Standard granular activated carbon handles chlorine but struggles with chloramine. The media type matters more than most people realize.

Taste, odor, and aesthetic issues — The same media that handles disinfectants also takes care of the chemical taste and smell many city water homeowners have simply gotten used to.

Hardness — Ion exchange resin removes calcium and magnesium, preventing scale and delivering true soft water. Salt-free systems take a different approach — using Template Assisted Crystallization (TAC) to inhibit scale without removing the minerals. If you're deciding between the two, our salt-free vs. salt-based comparison breaks down the tradeoffs.

Select heavy metals and organic compounds — Ion exchange resin can, by design, also help address dissolved metals including lead and barium. Advanced carbon media reduces many disinfection byproducts (THMs, HAAs) by design as well.

What a whole-home system won't do

No single whole-home system replaces everything. Be clear about what requires a different solution:

PFAS and pharmaceuticals — Certified removal of PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and emerging contaminants at the drinking tap requires an undersink reverse osmosis system rated to NSF/ANSI 53 and 401. No whole-home system from any manufacturer currently holds these certifications at the point of entry.

Bacterial disinfection — Your municipal treatment plant handles this. Whole-home carbon systems are filtration devices, not disinfection devices.

The filter media inside the tank is where the actual work happens. And how long that media lasts determines whether you're buying a system that works for your home — or signing up for a recurring service plan.

Most traditional service-model water treatment companies use systems designed around regular filter replacements — typically every 6 to 12 months. That's not a flaw in the product; it's the business model. Recurring filter sales and annual service contracts are how those companies generate ongoing revenue. The system is priced to get you in the door. The filters are priced to keep you paying.

GoodFor's approach is different. Our whole-home Clearess® systems are built around media that lasts. The Hydronex C, for example, uses Clearess® catalytic carbon rated for approximately 2.6 million gallons at 0.5 ppm chlorine — that's approximately 18–20 years for a typical residential home. No scheduled filter replacements during that lifespan. No annual service contracts. No subscription.

The only ongoing maintenance on a salt-based system like the Hydronex C is replenishing the salt — nugget or pellet, added as needed. That's it. The media, the resin, the tank — all covered under a Limited Lifetime Warranty for the original purchaser.

When you're evaluating systems, ask this question: is this company making money when my system works, or when it needs service? The answer tells you a lot about how the system was designed.