Does anyone have any info on those reverse osmosis units they sell at HD? I live in Southern Cal. and I’m trying to eliminate all the bottled water we buy every week so..do they actually work? Are they difficult to install? Any special equipment need to have? Any and all comments are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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I love my Waterwise water distiller. It not only removes the minerals but the volitile gases as well. The taste is so much better that guests ask for it when they return.
http://www.waterwise.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=24
I have been using RO water for 25 years, on my 3d unit. They are actually pretty trouble free but if you have dirty water, be sure to change the pre-filters fairly often.
When the diverter valve goes bad they waste more water than they usually do. This is the doodad with 3 tubes in it in the discharge line. It stops the bypass water when the tank is full and you are not filtering water.
The undercounter units install pretty easy, one tube to the cold water and a discharge line to the drain with the tap in a sink top hole.
If you want to get fancier you can make this as hard as you want. Mine is out in the pump room, feeding to ice makers and the kitchen sink tap. Once I got all the plumbing in hooking up the RO itself was still a 3 tube deal.
Edited 9/17/2008 11:38 pm ET by gfretwell
EXACTLY what are you trying to remove from the water?
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Here in Southern Ca. we pump water in from hundreds of miles away, so as you can probably imagine it can become contaminated along the way. Even though our city has a good record of delivering clean water, I want a bit more peace of mind I'm drinking the cleanest water possible.
Here in Southern Ca. we pump water in from hundreds of miles away, so as you can probably imagine it can become contaminated along the way. Even though our city has a good record of delivering clean water, I want a bit more peace of mind I'm drinking the cleanest water possible.
I just don't get it- how does it become contaminated in a pipe under pressure?
If there weren't so many other candidates, I'd say convincing folks to spend $0.99/gal (and up) on someone else's tap water is the biggest con of the past decade or two.
I get that there are a lot of areas in the SW that require softening, so if you need that, get it. But paying for bottled water (and all the waste and wasted energy in getting it to your door) when a simple carbon filter will make your tap water taste as good or better is silly. Then get a SS or Nalgene bottle for to-go use.
And your local utility is a lot more highly regulated than any bottled water plant. That's where real peace of mind lies.
I'm sure this comes off as ticked off, but I'm so used to the pragmatism of folks on the board that it seemed like the same would apply to water.
I just don't get it- how does it become contaminated in a pipe under pressure?
Most of SoCal's water travels in open aqueducts, for hundreds of miles, before being pumped over low mountains to resevoirs.
The two major water sources are the high Sierra snow pack and the Colorado river.
Here's SoCal's water picture: http://www.mwdh2o.com/mwdh2o/pages/yourwater/ywater01.html
Edited 9/18/2008 6:46 pm by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Good point. But I still think that the raw water delivery system and the safeguards in place in the treatment works can be trusted, unless your utility instructs you otherwise (i.e. there's some sort of emergency).
I'd bet that if you did a survey of folks with RO systems, you'd find a majority just didn't like the taste of the chlorine disinfectant in the water. All that expense and wasted water when a simple carbon filter would do.
I have good tasting water.But when I got a new refigerator it has a builtin filter and I like that taste better.But that filter was about $45 ever 6 months.Bypass that and got an under the cabinet unit with also feeds the instand hot water dispensor. It was about $35 and the replacement filters are $9. Just a basic taste and ordor filter..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Sounds like my fridge filter. We just use that and don't have another filter (except the housings I have sitting around for use when I eventually/ever brew beer again). I found a source online that gets the cost down into the $30 range when I buy 5-6 at once.
I weaned my office off bottled water a year ago. We bought point-of-use heater/chillers connected to the cold water line. These just have sediment and carbon filters. The cost was around $600 each, and we ditched $200/mo. in bottled water service.
... just didn't like the taste of the chlorine disinfectant in the water. All that expense and wasted water when a simple carbon filter would do.
It's not just the taste of chlorine that's objectionable. Chlorine kills bacteria in humans too, important digestive bacteria which we need to keep healthy and reproducing in order to avoid digestive problems.
One answer is to eat some yogurt every day. Another is to drink non-chlorinated water.
It's true that a carbon filter will remove a majority of contaminants, including chlorine. That's why I recommended a Brita water pitcher in my first post.
For about $30, plus extra filters, I've got a simple filtering system which provides me with cold, clean drinking water. It still doesn't taste quite as good as fresh spring water but it's better than the anything I've brought home in a plastic container.
I seriously doubt there's any chlorine in any water that you drink once it gets past your stomach. We agree that eating yogourt is good for your gut, but I doubt the chlorine's making it into your intenstines as chlorine- it'll be chloride long before then.
Chlorine is also a misnomer. Most disinfection plants use chloramine, not chlorine, for residual disinfection.
Distillation produces water that is quite pure, but also de-mineralized and de-aerated- at tremendous energy cost. Can't stand the taste of the stuff personally. RO cleans up most, but not all, of what might be in there, but wastes a lot of water (though less energy than distillation). Activated carbon filtration gets most of it, but doesn't get the organisms or cysts like cryptosporidium- and unless you change it frequently, even the silver germicide-coated carbon can become a breeding ground for bacteria. Carbon plus ion exchange resin (like Brita) but with UV post disinfection works against just about everything and preserves the taste.
I take my chances with the tap at present- at least someone is analyzing it periodically- and ours locally is filtered through activated carbon for taste and odour removal which also gets rid of some of the nastier stuff like pharmaceuticals from other people's ####...
"Activated carbon filtration gets most of it, but doesn't get the organisms or cysts like cryptosporidium-"I don't know what the difference is in the construction, but some do.They are like was was in my refigerator. And include lead, crypto and some pestiicides. ANd that is by NSF certification.Those type run about $30-40 per replacement while the taste and oder ones run about $9..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
To me it is strange how household filtration systems are so confusing.
Hiking filters are so clear-
Size of particals filtered.
And if you want total protection a post filter iodine treatment. Seams like smoke and mirrors when it is in the basement.
sludge'I worked around large RO systems for years,,,,, never thought of the water as being very tastey. It's stripped of all minerals and pretty much everything else. Gasses go through membranes,,, so if your water stinks (like, for instance, H2S), membrane won't help you. Although bugs won't pass through a completly intact membrane, you never know if they have a bit of a leak (most do), thus the need for chlorine anyway.I'm on a good well now, and I use one of those Brita pitchers.Low tech, simple, cheap. It I had a bigger family, I'de probably go w some type of cartridge filter.Dow chemical makes a fortune on under sink RO membranes.Harry
Remember that for every gallon of water produced by a RO filter, you get ?4? gallons of waste water. If you're in a water-restricted area, it's definitely not the smartest way to go. I would maybe consider other types of filters instead. Steam distillation is good, but it uses up a lot of energy. Ceramic filters, IMO, are the way to go. Completely passive, and you could even remove them and use them in an emergency, since camping filters are basically mini versions of them with a pump attached. The only con I think is that it'll cut the downstream water pressure, and if you've not got good pressure to begin with, it might be necessary to put an inline pump into the system.
Z
Thank you for that info. Any suggestions on good quality ceramic filters?
I've not used a whole house one, but I'm planning on it, and I've been looking at the Doulton filters. Z
bono70
Most bottled water is inferior to the bottled water I can get from my system.
(three filters prior to the reverse osmosis plus the water softner)
The water straight out of my tap is OK, better tasting than most cities water systems, but I wanted better than bottled water. Hence the three filters and reverse osmosis system.
I still buy two or three gallons of bottled water a week though. Buhl water from Northern Minnesota is the cleanest clearest tasting water you can imagine. It's only $.99 a gallon at local grocery stores and the bottles are recycleable..
I use it to fill the smaller water bottles in my truck and keep a bottle on the bedside stand plus a bottle near the coach. at room temp the water still tastes clean and crisp even when it's been sitting there for as long as two weeks.
I have a Whirlpool RO that I bought a blowes. Aside from the tank capacity being a bit on the small side, no problems and easy to install. Tastes good too.
After years of paying $$ and lugging water home from the supermarket, I recently bought a Brita filtering water pitcher. The water tastes better than any that comes in plastic containers.
Very simple to fill and to pour, it's narrow shape fits nicely in the fridge. Did some research on the net before deciding. Turns out that Brita's replaceable filters provide cleaner water than the bottled "spring" water I've been drinking.
Got mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
http://www.brita.com
Hudson Valley Carpenter
I would agree with your statement with one exception.. There is a city in Northern Minnesota Called Buhl which if you ever get a chance to drink their water it will surprise you.. First it's not from a well or any other ground water source. It comes from deep deep underground.. To an aquafier that took an extimated 200,000 years to fill.
The water is so clear crisp and clean it is superior to the water from my towns own deep water supply after three fiters and a reverse osmosis filter.. (ps the city has their own filtration plus a water softner)
On top of that it's only $.99 a gallon at the local grocery store.
I have had both carbon filters and the osmosis system marketed by GE. Our water in Colorado is OK, but not as good as the water I drank in upstate NY. For those in the East, I drink a lot more water in the arid western climate here and you become a bit of a water snob.
The carbon filter did well and is a good bit cheaper and replacement filters are also cheaper. If you go osmosis, they come with a resovoir that stores the filtered water so you have it when you need it. The carbon filters on demand. Get the size according to how much you use the filtered water i.e., just drinking or cooking too and make sure that you look at the stored water VS the tank size. My system is a 4 gallon but really only holds about 2 1/2 gallons in the tank. The other thing to consider is that they "reject" a lot of water. That means for every gallon of filtered water, there is a lot more water that goes down the drain. Look for the efficiency rating. The system I have rejects about 93% of the water which is about 15 gallons down the drain for every gallon I drink. Also, you have the constant noise of water running down the sink. If I had it to do over again, I would get the simple carbon filter.
I use a whole house two stage filter unit. It does two things: gets the grit out so that my plumbing fixtures last longer and improves the taste by getting the chlorine out.
The WWHC
http://www.plumbingworld.com/water-filters-and-housings.html
It is just a spun cotton and charcoal system. A set of filters is about $90, and lasts anywhere from one to two years, depending on your water quality.