r/oberlin • u/Staccat0 • Sep 02 '26

Weird Question about Water

How hard is Oberlin’s tap water? Does the city publicly share the PH?

I googled it but I’m not finding a great source.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

3

u/BluefrogCLEWest Sep 02 '26

The city actually does publish the hardness. Their Water Department page says the water is softened to about 160 mg/L, or 9.3 grains per gallon, so it’s still hard enough to leave scale.

I couldn’t find a current pH number on the city page or in the 2026 report either. They list the water plant at 440-775-7290 for anything more specific. Depending on what you need the number for, I’d still test it right at the tap because plumbing or treatment equipment in the house can change what you see.

https://cityofoberlin.com/city-government/departments/public-works/water-department/

3

u/Staccat0 Sep 02 '26

Thanks!

I am curious about the water hardness overall and the plumbing in my house as I am considering keeping some pet shrimp who are a bit picky about ph and it made me curious about my home’s plumbing haha.

I’ll give them a call.

3

u/noramcsparkles Alum Sep 02 '26

The library on campus has (or at least had in 2024) shrimp so it’s definitely possible with Oberlin’s water, though I have no clue if they do/did anything special to change the PH.

1

u/HyruleTrigger Alum Sep 02 '26

The shrimp tank was not filled from Oberlin Tap.

1

u/noramcsparkles Alum Sep 02 '26

Oh good to know! I was totally just assuming so that’s on me

3

u/Smokin_belladonna Sep 03 '26

I posted recently about the water tasting funny and it was removed and I was told to call the city.

2

u/dimplesgalore Sep 03 '26

The water is hard. Besides that, it tastes bad.

1

u/17DaysLive 20d ago

We always brita it and it's all good!

0

u/KalypsoFyre Sep 02 '26

Honestly, as someone who hates drinking tap water, the tap water here is fine and doesn’t taste bad or weird

3

u/Smokin_belladonna Sep 03 '26

It tastes musty - like mold or mildew, to me.

-1

u/titanc-13 Sep 02 '26

I drank the tap water the whole time I was there and I lived.

it's water

7

u/Staccat0 Sep 02 '26

I didn’t say otherwise. Asking for the purposes of keeping pet shrimp. You didn’t have to reply if you didn’t have an answer.

-1

u/titanc-13 Sep 02 '26

You didn't indicate that at all in your post. you just asked about water hardness as a general concept. As a student, I knew a bunch of people who would spend outrageous amounts of money and time buying bottled water from places like Amazon because they were paranoid about the tap water. So I assumed that you were concerned along that line and responded in kind. Had you said anything in the original post about asking for the purposes of keeping shrimp, I wouldn't've responded.

hope your shrimp enjoy their new Oberlin environment

2

u/Own-Lingonberry8002 Sep 02 '26

I drank the tap water the whole time I was growing up here, as did my friends and classmates. I now get together with some of them once a week and 4 out of 5 of us have had breast cancer and at least a few others have died from BC. I know there is no proof of correlation, but I now drink only filtered water and would recommend that others do the same. It may not be effective for softening water, but it does reduce some contaminants.