I need some info. on the reverse osmosis filters. The one I'm looking for is a below sink style. Most of them have a 3.5 to 4.5 gal tank and a 4 filter system. Any advice will help.
I need some info. on the reverse osmosis filters. The one I'm looking for is a below sink style. Most of them have a 3.5 to 4.5 gal tank and a 4 filter system. Any advice will help.
The reverse osmosis system will only work on fairly clean water. Iron or high TDS may quickly clog the filter.
Have your water checked for suitability prior to purchase. This will indicate if you need prior treatment , water is not suitable or water is okay.
If you have chlorinated water an activated charcoal filter is okay. Non chlorinated water use a charcoal filter.
The supplier should explain all this.
We have a culligan system. I am quite sure there are many other makes available.
Check on the size and replacement cost of the reverse filter of the different types.
Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Thanks, It looks like your a early riser. I forgot to say that I have a large green sand filter. It was serviced just early this year. It should take care of the Iron. I just wanted the extra protection for drinking and cooking.
I bought a RO filter system off of ebay a few weeks ago.... Egon is right... They are very sensitive to water pressure and quality. Call your water supplier and find out what the TDS number is (Total Disolved Solids) What I ended up finding out if the TDS is over 200 the water is bad and home RO systems won't do too well. Also, unless you have great pressure, it won't work either. Another thing to be aware of is that for every gallon of water produced, about four will be discharged to the drain. I ended up disconnecting the RO and going just with the charcoal filter and it improved the flavor.
I threw out my RO system because with my water and water pressure it never did work right. When I went to replace the RO filter it was $100.00. I changed over to a dual filter GE with carbon, and media filters, and am quite satisfied with the water.
If your RO did work you would be removing a lot of minerals that are beneficial to your health.
I don't understand the mentality of people wanting to drink distilled water these days.
Carbon (charcoal) is good because it can remove chlorine and many other known bad things that could be in your water. But it leaves the calcium and magnesium that we all need.
Can you say Osteoperosis?
bob...
Can you say cysts, virus, and other pathogens? A proper RO system removes those. Sometimes you have to pretreat such as with a softener to get TDS down to where the RO works well and lasts a good time.
Sea water is a fair challenge to RO units. Because of the osmotic pressure of the concentration of salt and minerals in sea water you need a thousand pounds or greater per square inch to force the source water through the membrane. These systems have gained in popularity over the last several decades. Small hand operated units are carried for emergency use and at least one manufacturer has a unit that can be operated manually if the motor fails or no electrical power is available.
You can get all the minerals you need without drinking them in your water. Removing pathogens and undesireable and dangerous chemicals is of much more importance (if they are present in your water supply) than losing some calcium which can be had through other sources. There are other filtration systems including UV, silver, etc for killing biologics but removing disolved chemicals known to be hazardous to your health has merit.
Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
How many of those things do you have coming out of your kitchen faucet Pat?
bob...
speedbump, A better question may have been how many of those things would I have had coming out of my kitchen faucet had it not been for proper filtration, especially RO.
Sorry, I couldn't resist... Actually, although I have installed several RO units in the past, I haven't installed RO in the new house (yet.) Our well water is HARD and has detectable levels of contaminates including traces of salt and nitrates but at levels well below EPA guidelines with no detected coliform bacteria.
Although the well is plumbed to the new house, rural water is also plumbed to the house and is in use with the well water in reserve as a backup, just in case. The rural water source is a large lake south of here which is of course filled with rainwater (once in a while.) As the rain water is soft enough for us, we did not install a softener. I have a location reserved next to the whole house sediment filters for booster pump and softener should we elect to add either or both.
At any given moment I do not know what is coming out of an unfiltered faucet. I can recall twice in the last few years where a notice was mailed out to customers informing then of the fact (well after the event had been ameliorated) that certain health effects that they may have recently experienced could have in fact been caused by improperly treated water where certain organisms known to cause intestinal distress were present in the water supplied to customers. (Lots more indirect muttering and tables of EPA standards and such) Then a notice that the operator of the system had been sent to a school to prevent such things in the future. Apparently the schooling wore off because it happened again within a couple years. There may have been a third event, I don't recall for sure. The last one was a couple years ago. the rural water district has been in operation for less than 5 years so 2 or 3 "poisonings" of their customers in that period of time is a bit excessive in my opinion and prudent folks might be motivated to do something to prevent being adversely effected. We have two sources of filtered water (refrigerator dispensors) and will be adding filtration systems to feed separate faucets in some locations such as both kitchen sinks and maybe the master bath.
Sorry if I didn't give an exact answer to your question but I don't recall the names of the varioius organisms that passed through untreated. Probably just about anything that could live in a lake smaller than fish. LOts of that stuff that looks like Paisley.
Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Cysts, and other pathogens are removed by regular filtration, depending on the type of media. Just read the labels to see what they do. I certainly have no RO on the drinking water on my refridgerator, but the filter traps cysts, and other pathogens, making a clean refreshing glass of water. Yes RO is great, but you can do the same filtration for a lot less money.
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