Santa Barbara City water tastes awful (not on a well). I have a Brita pitcher with a replaceable charcoal filter that makes the water taste good. Mostly it removes the chlorine but not particulates or any other bad things that could lurk in water.
A friend of mine is upgrading his kitchen to a very fancy under the counter RO system and he offered my his less fancy but still very nice countertop system. My research says that this is the best one you can buy and it retails for $400.
It has a particulate filter that removes grit, a charcoal filter akin to what I already have, a RO filter that removes elements like lead, fluoride (I know) and plastics, a UV light gizmo that kills microorganisms and a thingie that puts good minerals back in that the RO removes so it doesn’t taste terrible like regular RO water. All of this is what is alleged by the manufacturer.
It’s about the size of a big coffee maker and I have plenty of counter space. The filters last for a couple of years and aren’t expensive. It plugs into a regular electric socket.
I believe that it does what it claims to do. The question is, do I really need this contraption? Does anyone have experience with these things?
Have you had your water tested for lead, plastics and microorganisms? Maybe you don’t need that. And does your current Brita pitcher make your water taste “good” or even just nonoffensive? Have you ever visited your friend’s home and come away wondering, “Why does his water taste so much better than mine?”
In other words, what do you really think you’ll be getting with the new contraption?
If you don’t have particularly weak enamel (your dentist can tell you), see a dentist 2x/year, brush with a flouride toothpaste 2x/day and maybe add a flouride mouthwash on top of that to be extra safe, you should be perfectly fine on that front.
That said I don’t see the point unless your water genuinely sucks in ways other than taste or you can’t otherwise mitigate the taste. That is to say serious contaminants, something I sincerely doubt is the case in a prosperous city like Santa Barbara. Otherwise you’re just burning power to make it taste better, when a Brita filter is apparently doing a perfectly adequate job without the electricity use or taking up as much counter-space.
The main thing that an RO system handles that other water filter types don’t is total dissolved solids (TDS). Back in the distant past, I lived in Concord when the main water source was the Sacramento\San Joaquin delta. The tap water tasted noticeably salty, and an RO system was a totally worthwhile investment to make it drinkable.
According to the City of Santa Barbara Annual Water Quality Report TDS in surface water sources there averages 666 mg/l. Over 500 is considered high enough to impact water quality.
So, yes, I predict that you will appreciate having RO filtered water.
If he’s giving it away, it’s worth using it for a trial period. If it doesn’t beat the Brita, you can always pass it on to someone else that would appreciate it. Either way it will keep it out of a landfill.
As a fellow Santa Barbarian subject to the same miserable gravel tasting water: unequivocally yes. And the element that tips the balance for me is that remineralization cartridge. I have one as part of my under sink system that I installed and it takes the produced water from that kind of strange, flat taste of RO to something that’s a good approximation of spring water.
Not as good as Seattle still, but I no longer feel like I’m licking a damp rock. Even a Britta didn’t remove all of that taste for me.
If you were considering buying this system, I would definitely recommend an under the counter reverse osmosis system. You can get a reasonable five stage filtration system for around $200, and I believe it will work better than the pitcher type system. I have one that I’ve been using for over 10 years and it works great. However, since you’re being offered it for free, why not take it and try it out?
While I can’t answer your specific question, I agree with you about the horrible taste of tap water, which has never tasted good to me anywhere I’ve lived. Chlorine is probably part of the problem.
While my personal preference is bottled spring water – which is really cheap around here because we have, like, lots of springs! – I have no problem with filtered water that’s passed through a good filtration system.
It’s all about the source water. In the SF Bay Area, the two largest water agencies (SFPUC and EBMUD) have large-scale legacy access to distant pristine snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada that requires fairly minimal treatment relative to some. Both can get TDS down into the 30’s and even at its most heavily blended and local below 150. Even with chloramination (which is worth it for the sterilization), tap water in the areas they serve is excellent. I use a Brita purely because I like my water chilled in the fridge, but flavor-wise it is entirely unnecessary most of the time. Exceptions can occur when the blend switches much more heavily to local supplemental reservoirs because there is maintenance being done on the lines to those long-distance sources.
It’s worth having as back-up for emergencies even if you don’t end up using it every day. In an extreme situation you could take seawater and boil, then run through the brita, and then run through the RO system and have potable water. You’d go through filters quickly, but it would get you through a few days.
I do not have direct experience with this problem, but I did reach out to a childhood friend who lives in that area and he graciously shared that he used a countertop RO unit for a while but found it inconvenient. He then had an under sink unit installed (using the power cable for his old garbage disposal). This gave him a convenient water dispenser next to his kitchen faucet. He started having some technical problems (unspecified) with that installation and switched to a Brondell Coral UC300 3-stage passive filter system. That is what he uses now and he says he’s pleased with it…except for a replacement cartridge kit costing $90. But he says the cartridges last for 6 to 8 months of normal usage. He has never had the water (pre or post filter) tested for TDS.
I personally DO have a countertop distiller because my wife uses distilled water for her CPAP. It works great and I often use distilled water for other purposes, but I live in an area of NC that has pretty good water to start with. And I can see why a countertop RO unit might be inconvenient.
I have an under counter RO system and I love it. But the main reason I got it is because we have well water with very high mineral content. I chose an under counter system because the countertop ones take up a lot of space and have minimal storage. The storage tank under my sink ensures that we always have plenty of filtered water. Now the downside of any RO system is that it produces a lot of waste water. On the order of 5 to 8 gallons of waste for every gallon of filtered water it produces. That’s not a problem for me because we have a well and don’t pay for water, but if you are on a municipal water supply and pay for water you might want to reconsider based on how much you intend to use it.
Increasing the incoming pressure reduces the ration of waste water to drinking water. You can do that with a powered system, but mine uses a permeate pump driven by water pressure. I’ve heard can also route the waste water to a catchbasin and use it for plants and such.
I’ve heard that too, but considering that my waste water is very high pH because of the mineral content I don’t think it’s practical to use for plants. I have it tapped into the sink drain.
I heard that you couldn’t use the water for indoor plants, but it’s fine for non-delicate outdoor plants that also get ‘regular’ or rainwater periodically. A site I saw also says to consider using that water to wash dishes or flush toilets manually, but that seems like… a lot.
The biggest challenge to me seems to be storing it. You’d probably need to pipe it outside to a large storage barrel with some kind of overflow when it’s full. As I said earlier, I have well water so the waste isn’t a problem, but I’m not sure it’s practical if you pay for water.
My wife just bought a countertop RO machine about three weeks ago. She had me set it up for her which was easy enough. She’s not the type to read the manual though, so I had to point out that the thing requires frequent (but simple) maintenance. I don’t use it so it’s her machine, her maintenance. So far so good.
Not saying it’s a bad thing, but be aware of the maintenance requirements.
Yeah, my undercounter system has all the bells and whistles (minus the UV sterilization) and was in the mid-$200s on sale. Much nicer having it out of the way and having that 5 gallon tank of reserve.
My system manufacturer claims that with the permeate pump, the waste ratio is ‘only’ 3 to 4 gallons per gallon of drinking water. It’s not great, but we only use that water for our drinking water and our plumbed-in ice maker. Our overall usage is not high enough where the waste is a concern.
Exactly why I have not bothered. I can’t imagine that I’m producing more than 6 to 8 gallons of waste a day.
Higher quality water systems also have analytical lab testing that tests the water coming into the purification plant, as well as the water coming out, as both a quality control check, and as a sort of feedback loop. They’re testing for microorganisms, particulates, as well as a whole raft of other contaminants. The report you linked shows the results.
It’s almost certainly safe to drink, and any filtration that may be needed is purely for aesthetic reasons, i.e. taste and aroma. And a Brita pitcher or any activated carbon one is likely to be perfectly good for accomplishing that.