Can You Boil Out Lead in Water?

Can You Boil Out Lead in Water?

No, unfortunately. You can’t boil lead out of water.

The temperature of the water will not change lead concentrations.

In fact, according to the CDC:

“Water that comes out of the tap warm or hot can have higher levels of lead.” (cdc.gov)

The increased temperature running through contaminated pipes can loosen more lead particles.

This doesn’t mean that boiling it after it has come out of the tap will increase lead.

But boiling lead contaminated water won’t remove it either.

How to Remove Lead from Water

Your fastest option is to run your water through a “point-of-use” filter.

Berkey filters, Brita, and PUR can help reduce and remove lead in water.

The filter you choose should be certified by an independent testing organization.

It should meet these standards:

• NSF/ANSI Standard 53 for lead removal
• NSF/ANSI Standard 42 for particulate removal

Remove the most contaminants with a Berkey filter or Whole House System.

We prefer Berkey filters for their ability to remove more contaminants than standard pitchers.

They also don’t add more plastic to the environment. (They’re made of stainless steel.)

Take a look at our recommendations here: WaterBadge Filters.

Learn More About Water Quality

There’s more you should know about the water quality in your city and home.

Many contaminants are similar to lead in that:

• They are odorless.
• They are colorless.
• No odd flavor is detectable.

To make finding this information easier, we’ve studied over 750 U.S. cities with populations over 50,000.

We look specifically at water quality, water sources, and ways to reduce harmful chemicals.

Here are a few examples of total contaminants in major U.S. cities:

• Austin has 22 contaminants in its water supply.
• Chicago has 20 contaminants.
• Columbus, Ohio has 22 contaminants.
• Denver has 31 contaminants.
• Seattle has 20 contaminants.

These numbers fluctuate as water supplies degrade or improve over time.

Search City Water Supplies

We created a simple search bar you can use to look at a range of U.S. city water supplies: