Canberra's water is genuinely good. We won't pretend otherwise.
Icon Water adds chlorine on purpose, and it does its job all the way from the Cotter to your street. By the time it reaches your house, that job is done. One filter at the water main takes it back out — so the shower, the bath, the kettle and the laundry all run filtered, not just the tap your jug sits next to. Fitted by a licensed Canberra plumber.
The problem
So here is what we are not going to do. We are not going to show you a jar of brown water, tell you there are forever chemicals in your kids' bath, or talk about limescale in a city with water this soft. Canberra's water comes out of protected catchments at the Cotter, Bendora, Corin and Googong, and by the time Icon Water has finished with it, it is genuinely good water. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either not from here or is hoping you won't check.
There is one thing left, and it's the reason people call us. To keep the water safe all the way from the dam to your street, Icon Water adds chlorine — around 0.69 mg/L of free chlorine. It's deliberate, it's doing its job, and it is completely normal. It is also the thing you smell when you turn on a hot shower in July, and the thing you taste in a cup of tea. By the time the water is through your front wall, the chlorine has finished the job it was added to do. From that point on it's just the taste and the smell, sitting in every tap in the house.
One problem, and only one: the water still smells and tastes like a pool.
Why it grates
Most Canberra homes have already had a crack at this — a jug in the fridge, or a filter under the kitchen sink. It's the right instinct, pointed at one tap out of the whole house. Here's everywhere it isn't pointed.
Chlorine comes out of solution fastest in hot water, which is why a closed bathroom on a winter morning smells the way it does and a cold glass from the fridge doesn't. You're standing in it twice a day, for ten minutes, in a room with the door shut. It's the one place the smell is unavoidable and the one place nothing you've bought so far reaches.
"Showers don't stink like chlorine."
A jug covers the water you drink and nothing else. Not the bath the kids sit in for twenty minutes, not the machine your clothes and sheets go through every week, not the tap you fill the dog's bowl from. It's the same water in all of them, and right now it's the unfiltered version.
Twenty minutes in the bath is longer than anyone spends drinking.
Chlorine is the flavour underneath a lot of Canberra kitchens. It turns up in tea more than coffee, in ice cubes more than either, and in the pot you boiled the pasta in. And it's in the fridge line your ice and cold water come out of, which is plumbed straight off the mains and has never seen your jug.
"It doesn't smell and doesn't taste like chemicals."
There's a jug taking up a fridge shelf, a spare cartridge in the drawer, and a low-level argument about whose turn it is to refill it. You're already paying for filtered water in money and admin every month — you're just paying it for one tap, forever, and doing the labour yourself.
The bench gets its space back. So does the fridge shelf.
Most people we quote have bought a jug, then a better jug, then an under-sink unit, and they still get a face full of chlorine in the shower every morning. Each one was a reasonable call on its own. Stacked up over a few years, they cost real money and solved the smallest version of the problem.
Half-measures aren't cheap. They're just cheap each time.
Nothing here is dangerous, and we're not going to pretend it is. It's just the thing you notice every single morning — and it's fixable in a day.
The fix
The water gets filtered where it enters the property, so there is no tap left over to remember. Here's exactly how it goes.
Twenty minutes at your place. One person, checking the water, the main and the bathrooms. No presentation, no both-of-you-must-be-home.
Install price and ongoing cartridge cost on the same page, within 48 hours. Read it in your own time. Take it to another plumber if you want.
A licensed plumber cuts into the main, fits the unit, tests it and leaves the site tidy. Every tap runs filtered from that afternoon.
Every tap runs filtered from the moment the water enters the house — showers, baths, the kitchen, the laundry and the fridge line. This is the one for families, and for anyone who's tired of the jug being empty.
Quoted in writing after the water test, with the cartridge interval and the annual cost on the same page. No in-home close. No price that expires tonight.
It won't do the bath down the hall, the kitchen tap or the laundry. For one person in one shower, it does the job, and we'll say so if that's all you need.
Quoted in writing, same as the big one.
It filters sediment, chlorine, taste and odour. It does not disinfect — there's no UV in it — so it is the wrong system for tank or bore water. Ring us anyway and we'll give you the name of someone who does that side of it properly.
It won't fix scale, because Canberra's water is soft and there's very little to fix. And it isn't a health product. It makes the water in your house nicer to drink, wash in and cook with. That's the whole claim.
Not sure which one you need? That's exactly what the water test is for. Book it →
Proof
"Got rid of most of the chlorine smell from my shower."
Verified customer · Canberra ACT
"Showers don't stink like chlorine. It doesn't smell and doesn't taste like chemicals."
Verified customer · Canberra ACT
Real customer feedback, trimmed for length. Everyone's water and everyone's house is different, so what you notice may not be what they noticed. We don't make health claims about any of this.
Who turns up
Brett is a licensed Canberra plumber and Fresh Flow is a Canberra plumbing business, which means we cannot afford to sell you something you didn't need. He tests the water at your tap, has a look at where the main comes in and how the house is plumbed, and tells you what the honest answer is. Sometimes that's a whole-home system. Sometimes it's one shower head. Occasionally it's "your water's fine, save your money", and we'd rather say that than talk you into a system you'll resent in a year.
Here's what won't happen. Nobody sits at your kitchen table for two hours. You won't be told both of you have to be home. There's no discount that disappears at 5pm, and no one rings you back four times after you've said no. The quote comes by email so you can read it on your own time and compare it with anyone else's. If you want a hand doing that, we'll tell you what to look for on their quote too.
The sceptical questions
Free on-site water test
Twenty minutes at your place, a written quote by email within 48 hours, and nothing else. No pitch in your lounge room, no price that expires tonight. If the answer is that you don't need us, we'll say so and you'll have lost twenty minutes.
