Discussion on:

Taking the guesswork out of home water filtration

I had no idea that my old Reverse Osmosis filter was so wasteful! Thanks for the info.

I send my RO waste water to the garden. It is chlorine-free. My plants love it!

If you're on a municipal water supply, they are required by law to test for contaminants using independently certified labs, and annually report that infomation to you the consumer. If there is a significant violation, they have to report that at the time of violation. So unless there's an identified problem (which they will have to fix anyway), you could find yourself spending a lot of money on additonal water treatment for peace of mind with no real result. If you're on a well, it won't hurt to have your water tested, but unless you have a reason to suspect contamination, you're most likely fine there too. Personally, I maintain the carbon filter on our home refrig icemaker/water dispenser and keep a Brita filter at work. Not for health concerns, but simply because I think chlorine, particularly chloroamines, taste like crap. For just about everyone reading this, there's only a couple of reasons for spending your hard earned money on point of use devices. That would be for either taste, or for non-health related issues such as high levels of hardness, or things such as high iron or sulfur levels. Written by someone with 35 years experience in water treatment.

I completely agree. In addition, there are much tighter standards for tap water than bottled water (for which regulation is very young yet). As for RO units, the wash and waste also has a very negative effect on your waste treatment plant as it concentrates minerals and wastes that a waste treatment plant is NOT designed to remove and ends up dumping more contamination into the waterway the plant discharges to. There's no free lunch as they say. Hysteria in the news media is the main marketer of most devices in my opinion. Simply look at the required annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) for your water system.

(7 years public health chemist/microbiologist, 33 years municipal water treatment and QC laboratory).

The amount of water a typical home drinks and thus sends through a filtration system is a tiny percentage of overall use. How much water does a typical person use for drinking and cooking each day? I'd be surprised if it's even five gallons. When compared to the water used for toilets, bathing, and washing clothes, it's a tiny percentage (outside water used for watering -- the bulk of most home use -- mostly stays in the ground though there's still runoff that winds up at the water treatment plant).

And RO doesn't add any pollutants that weren't there already. The water a RO filtration system sends down the sewage line is a little more concentrated than before filtration, but it gets diluted at the water treatment plant. The alternative is that people consume unfiltered water with all the trace contaminants. Either they absorb contaminants (e.g., lead) or they excrete them and they get passed to the water treatment plant anyway. I guess I'm selfish, but I do care about this stuff getting into my body especially when it will be in the general water supply anyway if I don't treat what I drink. It comes down to either using a RO system to filter contaminants, or essentially using your body.

The big question whether or not all the trace contaminants such as lead, arsenic, urine salts, soaps and detergents, excreted human medications, fertilizers and pesticides accumulated from farmland runoff, etc. are a factor. Clearly they're not on a day-to-day basis, but the unknown question is how much they affect us over a lifetime.

The final evidence is not in about the long term effects of trace contaminants, but I don't think anybody should feel guilty about the affects on the general water supply of installing a RO system.

...And if you want to spend it that way, more power to you. But just realize whatever incremental health risk reduction you've realized by purchasing and installing that unit, you probably negated it the next time you exceeded the speed limit, crossed a street midblock, or any of a hundred other ways you place yourself at risk on a daily basis.

I bought my counter top distiller in 1982 when I first learned i was expecting a baby.
I have turned it on every single night since July of 1982 to have 4 gallons of fresh distilled water by morning to cook/drink. The workhorse of a machine is American made, all stainless parts and has never failed -- not once.
The water has been tested by a certified 3rd party and it is incredibly clean and sweet tasting. And while it does use energy...it doesn't waste water.
I recommend distillation and wonder why this consideration was not included in your review.
jtk

The problem with your average "open" distillers is that whatever "volatile organic compounds" (jet fuel?) (just kidding...) that are present in the feedwater will be released into your ambient air...so you have to guard against that...

I have used an American made distiller for the last year and it is a great option. I was purchasing gallon bottles of distilled water as well as cases of bottled water for home use, so I bought it partially for a financial reason (it's now paid for itself) as well as having total control over the process to assure their has been no tampering with the water my family drinks.

Whatever it takes to produce water of known water quality is not "waste"...Many parts of the country have mysterious "cancer clusters" that the bureaucrats overlook...In my mind at least, drinking water quality is a logical suspect. My recommendation for drinking water is to run RO water through a Zerowater Pitcher, and you will end up with demonstrably purified water to drink.

Good Article on home water filtration.

Do the Water Filters which neither use UV or heating kill Microorganisms?
Thermal or UV and both are needed to kill the microorganisms.
Microorganisms are heat sensitive. Temperatures required to eliminate microorganisms within 60 minutes:
Salmonelle 58 Degrees Celsius
Shigella 54 Degrees Celsius
Vibrio Cholera 45 Degrees Celsius
Entamoeba Histolytica Cysts 50 Degrees Celsius
Giardia Cysts 59 Degrees Celsius
Hookworm Eggs and Larvae 51 Degrees Celsius
Ascaris Eggs 57 Degrees Celsius
Schistosomas 50 Degrees Celsius
Taenia Eggs 51 Degrees Celsius
(Source: SODIS Technical Note# 9,published by EAWAG and SANDEC).

In our Solar Disinfection Unit even in 30 Degrees Celsius Ambient Temperature(February) in South India we are getting around 60 degrees Celsius water temperatures inside bottles.

It can be seen that it is not required to boil the water in order to kill 99.9% of the microorganisms. Heating up water to 50-60 Degrees Celsius for one hour has the same effect.

Our system(6 litres) capacity costs just Rs 1200(About US 25) in South India and it can be manufactured locally Community systems of 50 or 100 litres capacity can be fabricated. What all it requires is exposure to sunlight for 5 to 6 hours(with ambient temperatures around 25 degrees Celsius..

Our Solar Disinfection system is expected to be a boon for developing countries.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com

"Picking a new sink for my kitchen was easy. The faucet was pretty straightforward. But when it came time to select a water filter???or decide if I even wanted one???I felt paralyzed."

Yeah right, this is my problem. I am currently looking for a great water filter for my kitchen,i found this water filter (http://waterfilters.mercola.com/drinking-water-filter.aspx) and i don't have any idea about it, any idea about this?