Drinking water shouldn’t taste salty. If it does, it signals a problem with your water quality or filtration equipment. Don’t panic — it usually isn’t serious. But if an unpleasant salty taste in your water isn’t what you bargained for, we’ll help you diagnose the problem and find a water treatment solution.
Key Takeaways:
- It may be due to high levels of sodium, chloride, or other minerals in the water supply.
- The salty taste can come from seawater intrusion into underground aquifers.
- If your home is connected to a well, the salty taste could be caused by naturally occurring dissolved mineral deposits.
- Certain industrial facilities and agricultural operations may contaminate groundwater with salt or other substances, leading to salty-tasting water.
- Certain bacteria can cause a salty flavor in tap water.
- Water softener systems can add sodium to drinking water.
Why Does My Tap Water Taste Salty?
Water tastes salty if it contains some form of mineral salts. Most water does. Naturally occurring in the environment, they help give water flavor, and they’re beneficial for the body but only in the right amounts. High concentrations of mineral salts give water a strong salty taste. Sodium, chloride, and sulfates are usually to blame.
How Do Mineral Salts Get into Drinking Water?
Sodium, chloride, and sulfates enter your water supply from natural and man-made sources.
#1 Chloride
The Environmental Protection Agency regulates chloride as a secondary drinking water contaminant. The legal limit is 250 mg/L, but it’s rarely enforced because elevated levels are uncommon in municipal water supplies and secondary contaminants aren’t considered harmful.
A high concentration of chloride ions is more common in well water. Natural sources include:
#2 Salt Deposits
Rain flowing over salt deposits in the soil carries chloride ions into groundwater. New York, Kansas, Colorado and Michigan are home to large salt mines.
#3 Seawater
If you live near the coast, seawater entering your well or public water supply could be responsible for a high concentration of chloride ions in your tap water. Corrosive, it eats through pipes. If your water tastes salty and your stainless steel sinks are discolored, chloride ions could be the culprit.
Man-made sources of chloride ions include:
#4 Road Salt Runoff
Road salt, or halite, is the raw mineral form of table salt. Melting snow can carry chloride ions into public water sources or the soil surrounding wells.
#5 Agricultural and Industrial Waste
Chloride ions are common in industrial and agricultural waste. If you live near farms, factories, or other sites where chemical discharge is common, irrigation drainage can carry it into your local water supply.
#6 Sulfates
Magnesium and sodium sulfate seep into groundwater from sulfide ores. Also used in industry and agriculture, these contaminants can give water a bitter or salty taste.
#7 Water Softener Issue
Water softeners rely on brine solution to get rid of hard water particles during the regeneration process. Softened water naturally has a high sodium content, so a salty aftertaste after a regeneration cycle isn’t unusual. But it should be mild and short-lived.
If you have a sodium-based water softener, a clogged drain line, a cracked water line, or sticky flapper valves could allow salty water to seep from the brine tank into the resin tank outside of the regeneration process, resulting in an intense salty taste. Repairing or replacing your water softener may be all you need to do.
Further reading: Is my water softener using too much salt?
Is Salty Tasting Water Safe to Drink?
Unless it’s seawater, drinking salty water isn’t associated with significant health problems. But it’s no picnic either. Magnesium sulfate, for example, can have a laxative effect while chloride can exacerbate high blood pressure. They’re not contaminants you want in your water.
Water softeners already add 100 mg of sodium daily to the average diet — enough to throw off recipes. More salt only adds fuel to the fire.
Salty water is also a problem for gardens and aquariums, killing delicate plants and sensitive fish.
How to Get Rid of Salty Water Taste
How to get rid of a salty water problem depends on the cause.
If you have a private well, have it evaluated. The problem could be as simple as broken pipes near a source of salty water.
If you own a water softener, review the settings. Water softeners are only as efficient as their programming. Does your water taste salty only after regeneration? If so, the hardness setting may be too high, prompting the softener to increase salt use during the regeneration process.
Does water taste salty all the time? If it does, then rule out mechanical issues. Leaky valves between the brine and resin tanks could allow the brine solution to mix with fresh water. A clogged valve can increase the concentration of brine, resulting in a persistent salty taste.
If your water softener is more than 15 years old, replacing it with a newer, salt-efficient model could reduce the saline taste while producing equally soft water.
If you drink from a public water source, your local water supplier can tell you if chloride or sulfate levels are high. If your municipal or private water source is naturally high in chloride or sulfates, investing in a water filtration system is a simple solution for salty water.
Testing Salty Water
Don’t wonder “why does my water taste salty?” Find out for sure by doing a water test. You can check for sodium, chloride and sulfates exclusively, but we recommend comprehensive testing. The presence of these contaminants can signal broader water quality issues.
The testing process couldn’t be easier. Bring a cold water sample to a local lab or purchase a test kit online. We like SimpleLab’s Tap Score test kit because it’s accurate, affordable and straightforward to use — they partner with the best laboratories nationwide.
Within weeks of mailing in a sample, you’ll get the results plus guidance on choosing a water filtration system. It’s like having a friend in the business.
Recommended Water Filters for Reducing Salty Taste
The best water treatment option for salty-tasting water is reverse osmosis. Activated carbon filters are excellent for removing chlorine but not chloride.
A reverse osmosis filter virtually eliminates sodium, chloride, sulfates and other potentially harmful contaminants. Installed in the countertop or under the kitchen sink, it purifies water for drinking and cooking.
It’s the same advanced, budget-friendly technology water treatment plants use to remove 99 percent or more of hazardous substances from chemicals to heavy metals. Combine it with a whole-house carbon filter or a water softener to meet all of your water treatment needs.
Final Thoughts
Drinking clean water is essential for your health, so don’t compromise on safety. If your water tastes salty, you owe it to yourself to find out why.
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