Why your tap water tastes like a pool
Updated July 2026
If your water smells faintly of swimming pool, tastes flat and chemical in coffee, and leaves your skin tight after showers, your town's disinfectant is the reason. It is doing an important job. You just do not have to drink it.
Chlorine's stubborn cousin
Utilities disinfect water so it arrives safe, and around here many towns, including Covington, Mandeville, and Slidell, use chloramine: chlorine bonded with ammonia. The dose varies by town. Covington's 2025 report shows an average of 0.9 parts per million, while Mandeville runs about double that at 1.8, which is why the taste is a more common complaint there. It is more stable than plain chlorine, which is exactly why utilities like it, and exactly why it is harder to get rid of. It does not gas off if you let a pitcher sit out, and a basic fridge filter barely dents it.
What it does to you day to day
You taste it in anything made with tap water: coffee, tea, ice. Many customers also say showers feel different once it's gone, though honestly, hot water and soap cause much of that tight after-shower feeling on their own. What's well documented: chloramine is hard on rubber gaskets and washing machine hoses, and it is genuinely harmful to aquarium fish.
The right filter for the job
Ordinary carbon removes plain chlorine well. Chloramine needs catalytic carbon, a media processed specifically to break it down. This is the single most common spec mistake in this area: a standard carbon system installed on a chloramine town's water, and a homeowner wondering why the pool taste never left. Your neighborhood's report says which disinfectant your town uses, so the right media goes in the first time.