The distinction most companies get wrong
Chlorine taste and smell
Most of North Carolina disinfects with free chlorine. Charlotte uses chloramine, which needs a completely different filter. Here's the difference.
If your water smells like a swimming pool, you are smelling the disinfectant your utility is legally required to maintain all the way to your tap. The disinfectant itself is not the health concern — the byproducts it forms when it reacts with organic matter in the source water are.
There is a distinction here that most water treatment companies get wrong, and it determines whether the filter you buy will actually work: some North Carolina utilities use free chlorine, and some use chloramine. They are not interchangeable.
Free chlorine is comparatively easy to remove. A quality carbon block handles it. Chloramine — chlorine bonded with ammonia — is far more stable, passes straight through standard carbon, and requires catalytic carbon with genuine contact time. A standard under-sink cartridge sold as a 'chlorine filter' will not remove it.
Which disinfectant does your city use?
Charlotte Water uses chloramine. Every other system in our service area — Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Apex, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest and Wilmington — uses free chlorine. Wilmington's Sweeney plant also runs ozone and UV. If you are in Charlotte and shopping for filtration, the word you need to see on the spec sheet is catalytic.
| City | Hardness | Disinfectant | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wake Forest | 8–12 GPG | chlorine | Neuse River |
| Apex | 7–9 GPG | chlorine | Jordan Lake (Cary system) |
| Cary | 7–9 GPG | chlorine | Jordan Lake |
| Raleigh | 7–10 GPG | chlorine | Neuse River / Falls Lake |
| Chapel Hill | 6–9 GPG | chlorine | University Lake / Cane Creek |
| Durham | 6–9 GPG | chlorine | Lake Michie / Little River |
| Wilmington | 2.9 GPG | chlorine | Cape Fear River — CFPUA Sweeney plant (deep-bed GAC) |
| Charlotte | 1–4 GPG | chloramine | Catawba chain — Mountain Island Lake / Lake Norman |
What actually fixes it
For free chlorine, a whole-home carbon filter or a quality point-of-use carbon block removes taste and odour and reduces the disinfection byproducts that form downstream. For chloramine, it has to be catalytic carbon sized for adequate empty-bed contact time — undersize the tank and the water moves through too fast to react. Reverse osmosis handles both at the tap, and is the right answer where you also want the byproducts gone from drinking water.
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Common questions
- Why does my water smell like a swimming pool?
- That is the residual disinfectant your utility maintains through the distribution system, which is required by law. The smell is normal and means the system is working. Whether you want it at your tap is a separate question.
- Will a regular carbon filter remove chloramine?
- Not reliably. Chloramine is far more stable than free chlorine and passes through standard carbon. It needs catalytic carbon with enough contact time. This matters specifically in Charlotte, which chloraminates.
- Are disinfection byproducts actually dangerous?
- They are the most consistently elevated contaminant class in North Carolina tap water relative to health guidelines — Durham's HAA9 runs 540 times EWG's guideline, though still within the legal limit. The legal limits and the health-based guidelines are very different numbers, and both are worth understanding.
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