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poor quality tap water in D15 causing extremely dry skin?
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keep an eye on ebay and you'll probably pick the same thing up for £100 or so and you can fit it yourself in around an hour or so if you have some basic DIY experience.
all the systems use 1/4" plastic pipes which you can cut with a kitchen knife and hand tighten (some even have quick push connections) and aside from the drain valve for the dirty water and the saddle valve to get your water from the mains (which are also very easy to install, you just screw them in) they're very simple to put together and you can build it all before you even put it under the sink.
i'm actually starting to think i could make a fortune buying them in cheap in bulk and installing them myself in my local area.
EDIT: did a little experiment last night and froze 2 water samples, one straight from the tap, the other from the RO system and it gives a pretty good example of why the ice you buy in bags is nice and clear, but the ice you make at home is (normally) cloudy.
slightly blurry though as my battery was low so the flash wasn't working on my phone. tap water on the left, RO water on the right, obviously.
from my basic understanding of it, pure water is totally clear, even when frozen BUT any impurities in the water don't freeze, so they end up pooling in the centre of the cube as the water freezes from the outside in. the more impurities in the water, the cloudier the ice will be.0 -
sorry to dig up the thread, but for anyone that might be interested, there's been a bit of a development.
i never did get any further with plumbing in the whole houe so that the shower and bath etc. had filtered water, but it's a good job as our landlord's ex-wife decided she wanted to move back in and we got booted out last weekend after he failed to keep her out of the place in court.
anyway, long story short, we're now living in a (quite frankly, pretty sh1tty gaff) in castlefield, just down the road about halfway between the spar and clonsilla station (where the parky green thing is) and the difference in the water is like night and day.:)
it's actually pleasant to drink straight from the tap, no chlorine or heavy mineral taste at all and it's crystal clear.
my hands are already starting to clear up and all in all it's pretty great, at least as far as the water goes. just a shame the new house isn't up to much and we might be moving on. still, it's a little more vindication on the cause of my sore hands.
i reckon that the estate is a bit older than portersgate and as a result it's likely to be using the older water supply which i think comes from the liffey if i remember rightly, as opposed to the newer supply which comes from a reservoir in meath?0 -
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keep an eye on ebay and you'll probably pick the same thing up for £100 or so and you can fit it yourself in around an hour or so if you have some basic DIY experience.
all the systems use 1/4" plastic pipes which you can cut with a kitchen knife and hand tighten (some even have quick push connections) and aside from the drain valve for the dirty water and the saddle valve to get your water from the mains (which are also very easy to install, you just screw them in) they're very simple to put together and you can build it all before you even put it under the sink.
i'm actually starting to think i could make a fortune buying them in cheap in bulk and installing them myself in my local area.
EDIT: did a little experiment last night and froze 2 water samples, one straight from the tap, the other from the RO system and it gives a pretty good example of why the ice you buy in bags is nice and clear, but the ice you make at home is (normally) cloudy.
slightly blurry though as my battery was low so the flash wasn't working on my phone. tap water on the left, RO water on the right, obviously.
from my basic understanding of it, pure water is totally clear, even when frozen BUT any impurities in the water don't freeze, so they end up pooling in the centre of the cube as the water freezes from the outside in. the more impurities in the water, the cloudier the ice will be.
Actually, you're not quite right there.
What's happening is your freezer is too good to produce clear ice.
There's a considerable amount of dissolved gasses (air) in water. So, when you freeze it those gasses are released as tiny bubbles.
If you've pretty useless freezer, or if you see ice forming outside on a winter's day, the ice has formed quite slowly or layer-by-layer in the case of icicles This allows time for the water to release the gasses.
When you rapidly freeze water in an ice cube tray in your freezer at about -20ºC to -24ºC it traps all those gasses as tiny bubbles in the cube.
If your water was contaminated enough to make cloudy ice due to suspended solids or other problems, if you poured a glass of water it would be cloudy too.
The blob in the middle is where the gasses were trapped in a more concentrated way.
As the water cools, the gas-free pure water freezes more quickly than the water that contains gas so you end up getting a layer of pure frozen water around a bubble of gassy watery in the centre.
There are some other dissolved minerals etc in the water, but the majority of what you are seeing there is dissolved gasses.
If you want to prove it, just leave a jug of water standing for several hours to allow gasses to escape from it.
Then fill some cubes with the 'rested water' and the others from the tap.
You should notice the ones from the jug will be much clearer than the ones straight from the tap.
What's annoying me at the moment in Cork City is the water's extremely chlorinated.
Its seems to have been that way for several years (since the floods that wiped out the water treatment plant)
There's a strong smell of bleach from it most of the time.
I'm actually gone back to drinking bottled water as I just find the tap water around here absolutely vile.0 -
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the RO system only took about 10 minutes to remove and everything is back the way it was, aside from the saddle fitting on the mains pipe that was used to get the water into the system and the (also saddle fitting) drain hole leading into the sink waste pipe which was plugged and sealed.Saw your post over in Accom re: LL, sounds like a total nightmare, I hope he sorts the place out for you. Just saw the pics of the frozen water there ot the first time, thats interesting (and would make sense) about cloudy ice cubes.
As a matter of interest, was your RO system transportable?
Hope things get less stressful for you soon...
it's still sitting in the car waiting to be plumbed back in, but i'm not 100% sure we're staying where we are, so i haven't installed it again (i actually need to get a new fitting for the water pipe for the inlet), so i guess we'll see what happens.
the water quality is great though, it's one of the few things i'm genuinely happy about in the new place. 0 -
but...the only difference between those two cubes is that one was directly from the tap and the other was via the RO filter system. they both went into identical containers right next to each other at the same time in the same (decent american style sde by side) freezer at -20ºC.Actually, you're not quite right there.
What's happening is your freezer is too good to produce clear ice.
There's a considerable amount of dissolved gasses (air) in water. So, when you freeze it those gasses are released as tiny bubbles.
If you've pretty useless freezer, or if you see ice forming outside on a winter's day, the ice has formed quite slowly or layer-by-layer in the case of icicles This allows time for the water to release the gasses.
When you rapidly freeze water in an ice cube tray in your freezer at about -20ºC to -24ºC it traps all those gasses as tiny bubbles in the cube.
unless the filter has removed the gasses as well? i don't actually know obviously, i'm just guessing, but i am curious. 0 -
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