The Better Half thinks the municipal water gives him a rash on the tops of his feet in the summer. (I think it’s just the heat and the humidity coupled with carrying mail in 90 degree weather, but…) Anyway, we’ve been buying spring water from Polar Ice for 50 cents a gallon, which you non-Decaturites won’t know is a local institution–they’ve got a well down to the aquifer, and you bring your jug to their little covered patio, insert two quarters in the slots, and roughly a gallon of water comes gushing out.
But their dispenser had an “Out Of Service” sign on it this morning, and there was in addition what I thought was a coyly worded sign saying, “Come up to the office and talk to Donna about free water”, which sounds to me, the perennial cynic, like they’re deciding they can make more money from their home water delivery service (like Culligan, only local), and planning on shutting down the DIY water. Or maybe, not quite so cynically, the dispenser just broke, and instead of fixing it, they’d rather sign people up for home delivery.
My grandpa, back in the early 1970s, had a home distilling unit that he got from Sears Roebuck IIRC. It gave him about a gallon a day that he collected in big glass bottles, and seemed to please him inordinately (he was heavily into Rodale, and juicers). So I have happy memories of water distillers, and always had in the back of my mind that I’d like to get one, especially given that Decatur city water is always ripely fragrant with the enormous amount of lime they habitually add to it, and I don’t like to think about the agricultural runoff that’s in there.
Also, we live in an old house with lead pipes, and although we customarily run the water for a few minutes in the morning as per the EPA, still, you wonder. But a simple Brita-type carbon filter unit isn’t going to “get the lead out”.
So. We’re looking at home water distillers this morning. Any recommendations?