Water filter service in Troy, NY

What is in the water in Troy

Troy is served by City of Troy Department of Public Utilities .

Source water: The Tomhannock Reservoir, six and a half miles north east of the city. It is five and a half miles long, holds 12.3 billion gallons when full, and delivers over 21 million gallons a day to 135,000 people across Troy and nine other communities in Albany, Rensselaer and Saratoga counties. The water arrives by gravity rather than by pumping, which is why a system this size can run on a comparatively simple hydraulic layout. Reported by City of Troy for 2024.

Potassium permanganate is dosed seasonally at the intake, chlorine dioxide provides pre-disinfection at the Melrose Chlorination Station, and the John P. Buckley plant then runs conventional coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, chlorination and fluoridation. The word seasonally is the useful one. Permanganate is dosed when algae are active, for the taste, odour and manganese that come with a bloom, and the Tomhannock has had persistent blooms. Bloom driven taste and odour compounds are detectable at concentrations far below any health limit, which is exactly the situation activated carbon at the tap is for: the water is compliant, it tastes wrong, and carbon fixes the part that is actually bothering you. Chlorine dioxide before the plant is worth a note of its own, because it is chosen partly to reduce the byproducts that free chlorine would otherwise form with the organic matter a bloom leaves behind.

These figures describe the distribution system. Your own tap can differ, and for lead it very likely does.

We do not yet hold a sourced figure for every field on this page. Where something is missing it is left blank rather than estimated, because an unsourced number here would look like information.

Buildings and plumbing in Troy

The age of the pipework tells the story. Troy has spent close to 40 million dollars on twin 36 inch transmission mains to replace a 33 inch riveted steel main dating from 1906 and a 30 inch cast iron main from 1914, with the first phase and 43,000 linear feet of pipe completed in spring 2023. A city still retiring pipe laid before the First World War has distribution and service line material from the same era in the ground beneath it. There is a chemistry point too: upland reservoir water is soft and low in alkalinity, and soft low alkalinity water is more aggressive towards metal plumbing than hard water is, so corrosion control on a supply like this one is doing harder work than the pleasant taste suggests.

What this means in practice

• Chlorine and chloramine taste. Confirm with free and total chlorine test strip, plus the utility report for the disinfectant type.
• Lead in drinking water. Confirm with certified laboratory analysis of a first-draw tap sample.

What these figures mean for filter choice

The disinfectant here is free chlorine, which standard activated carbon removes readily. That means a basic certified carbon filter at the drinking tap is usually the proportionate answer to a taste complaint, and there is no need for the catalytic carbon that chloraminated supplies require.

Lead is a plumbing question rather than a supply question in Troy, as it is everywhere. What that means practically is that a filter certified under NSF/ANSI 53 for lead at the tap you drink from sits downstream of the entire problem, whereas a whole-house filter at the point of entry sits upstream of nearly all of it and costs several times more.

Filters that apply here

• Lead reduction filters. Point-of-use filters certified for lead under NSF/ANSI 53.
• Under-sink carbon filters. A carbon block cartridge on the cold line under the sink.
• Reverse osmosis, tank. A membrane system under the sink that produces treated water to a dedicated tap and stores it in a small pressure tank.
• Whole-house filtration. A filter plumbed into the main line where water enters the building, so every tap, shower, and appliance downstream is fed treated water.
• Sediment filters. A mechanical filter that captures sand, silt, rust flakes, and other particles.

Installation in Troy

• Free water testing. Typically 45 to 60 minutes.
• Whole-house filter installation. Typically 3 to 5 hours.
• Under-sink reverse osmosis installation. Typically 2 to 4 hours.
• Repair, any brand. Typically 1 to 3 hours.

Renters, co-ops, and businesses

• Options for renters
• Co-ops and condos
• Offices and commercial sites

Nearby areas

• Colonie, NY , Albany County
• Albany, NY , Albany County
• Schenectady, NY , Schenectady County
• Utica, NY , Oneida County

Sources

• City of Troy, 2024.
• Population: US Census Bureau sub-county population estimates, Vintage 2024 (POPESTIMATE2024).