Cleaning tap water? Distill / Ionize (Kangen) / Reverse Osmosis?

cormie

Hey,
I've been meaning to invest in a solution to clean my tap water for some time now, but all the different options and claims they each make are throwing me off. Some appear to be scams and make all kinds of claims and some, while they can have some pro's can also have cons.

Has anyone looked into this before and decided between the different options out there?

I'd be prepared to spend a bit as I do consume a lot of tap water and although I'd happily pay for spring water, I'm not happy with the environmental impact continuous purchasing of bottled water has.

Just to be clear, although tap water and its added chemicals are argued to be safe by some, I'd rather not consume the likes of fluoride and given the choice between a glass of water with fluoride and without, I'm taking the one without so I'd be looking for a solution that would clean the water of whatever chemicals may have been put into it too.

Any feedback would be great

Dtp1979

Reverse osmosis will leave your water(or any water) as perfectly clean as it possibly can be. Aquaphor morion would be an excellent model I'd reccomend

cormie

Thanks for the suggestion. What do you think about the other methods I mention and how would they compare to reverse osmosis? Does RO get rid of fluoride, chlorine etc?

Zillah

Water naturally has minerals in it, including fluoride (these vary by location). Drinking distilled or reverse osmosis water is completely unnatural.

gctest50

You need a re-hardener after reverse osmosis

anyway it's a bit daft just throwing things at your water supply

get your water tested, decide what needs to be removed and suss what you are going to remove it with - then test it afterwards to make sure it's doing its job

cormie

Thanks for the replies. I understand water would have a lot of minerals in it naturally, but is the inclusion of these going to benefit the body more than the exclusion of whatever other **** goes into it before it comes out of the kitchen tap is the question? If I can get the same minerals elsewhere, through fruit, veg, nuts and seeds for example, then I'd rather lack some additional minerals I can absorb elsewhere than to ingest them, along with a lot of uncertainties, through my drinking water.

What's the purpose of the re-hardener after reverse osmosis out of interest?

Another point is that I'm not prepared to invest in a permanent fixture or anything that requires any building work (at least not for now while renting), so would rather something that can be moved from place to place easy enough.

Thanks for all the feedback so far

gctest50

cormie wrote: »

What's the purpose of the re-hardener after reverse osmosis out of interest?

......

Puts back in some of the minerals you need - we ain't designed to be drinking pure water

Zillah

cormie wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I understand water would have a lot of minerals in it naturally, but is the inclusion of these going to benefit the body more than the exclusion of whatever other **** goes into it before it comes out of the kitchen tap is the question?

There is nothing harmful to you in tap water. If your water supply has a bit of a chlorine smell that is because they use chlorine to disinfect it. The trace amounts that remain are completely harmless to you. Much better than the days when water might have carried dangerous bacteria.

Dtp1979

gctest50 wrote: »

You need a re-hardener after reverse osmosis

anyway it's a bit daft just throwing things at your water supply

get your water tested, decide what needs to be removed and suss what you are going to remove it with - then test it afterwards to make sure it's doing its job

You don't need a re hardner after the RO. That's just nonsense

Dtp1979

cormie wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I understand water would have a lot of minerals in it naturally, but is the inclusion of these going to benefit the body more than the exclusion of whatever other **** goes into it before it comes out of the kitchen tap is the question? If I can get the same minerals elsewhere, through fruit, veg, nuts and seeds for example, then I'd rather lack some additional minerals I can absorb elsewhere than to ingest them, along with a lot of uncertainties, through my drinking water.

What's the purpose of the re-hardener after reverse osmosis out of interest?

Another point is that I'm not prepared to invest in a permanent fixture or anything that requires any building work (at least not for now while renting), so would rather something that can be moved from place to place easy enough.

Thanks for all the feedback so far

You get all the minerals you need from food. You don't need minerals from water. If you want to drink water that is free from flouride, chlorine etc then RO is the perfect method to do that.

Dtp1979

gctest50 wrote: »

You need a re-hardener after reverse osmosis

anyway it's a bit daft just throwing things at your water supply

get your water tested, decide what needs to be removed and suss what you are going to remove it with - then test it afterwards to make sure it's doing its job

You don't need a re hardner after the RO. That's just nonsense

gctest50

Zillah wrote: »

There is nothing harmful to you in tap water. If your water supply has a bit of a chlorine smell that is because they usechlorine to disinfect it. The trace amounts that remain are completely harmless to you. Much better than the days when water might have carried dangerous bacteria.

Too much organic matter in the water not treated first and then dosed to death with chlorine = THMs (trihalomethanes) and friends

This study of 141,081 newborns indicated an increased risk of any birth defect related to the use of chlorinated water with a high content of natural organic matter compared with nonchlorinated water with a low amount of organic matter. In particular, an association was found for neural tube defects and for urinary tract defects.

cormie

Thanks for the input again folks, but I'd rather this not turn into a debate on the safety of fluoride as there's so many varying studies and opinions on it. My personal viewpoint is that I'd much rather they didn't put this stuff into the general public supply and we can choose ourselves if we want to dose ourselves with these things. So if I was given a choice between two glasses of water, one with chemicals added and one that was just pure water, I'd choose the pure water. Like non organic farming methods, I don't believe these practices have been around long enough to allow adequate research and to determine the long term affects on humans and environment and my gut instinct says keep away from added chemicals and pesticides etc

Dtp1979

cormie wrote: »

Thanks for the input again folks, but I'd rather this not turn into a debate on the safety of fluoride as there's so many varying studies and opinions on it. My personal viewpoint is that I'd much rather they didn't put this stuff into the general public supply and we can choose ourselves if we want to dose ourselves with these things. So if I was given a choice between two glasses of water, one with chemicals added and one that was just pure water, I'd choose the pure water. Like non organic farming methods, I don't believe these practices have been around long enough to allow adequate research and to determine the long term affects on humans and environment and my gut instinct says keep away from added chemicals and pesticides etc

I'm a plumbing/heating contractor by trade and like to look after my health too. I have a reverse osmosis unit in my own home and I wouldn't be without it tbh. There is no harm whatsoever in drinkibg RO water. As said already, you get all the minerals you need from food. Water is purely for hydration and RO water is the best example of clean water that you can take in

Zillah

gctest50 wrote: »

Too much organic matter in the water not treated first and then dosed to death with chlorine = THMs (trihalomethanes) and friends

You realise in that study when they refer to natural organic matter they are talking about levels that are visibly apparent due to the colour of the water? Unless you have noticeably murky water coming out of your tap I'm not sure any of this applies. I also have no idea how their stated levels of chlorination (low, medium, high) compare to our supply. Maybe we're ultra-low by their standards.

cormie

So why is RO water better than distilled and what about the ionized water then too, how does it compare to RO and Distilled?

On the chlorine levels, my tap water has had a pretty strong smell of chlorine at times, I didn't even know they put chlorine into tap water so it wasn't like I was imagining it. I specifically looked into it after getting a smell from the tap water. Definitely don't like the idea of drinking that!

cormie

Back to bump the last post again here as I never did anything about this and the water has a strong smell of chlorine off it again

rubadub

They can add more chlorine if there is a problem in the area, like a burst pipe, to kill off any conaminantes getting in. In summer if reservoirs are running low and it is warm outside they can add a lot more too.

If brewing beer chlorine can add lots of off tastes, so homebrewers just fill a barrel and leave it sit overnight with a loose lid. The chlorine will dissipate off. You can leave a jug of water in the fridge and it will do the same. You want a large surface area on top of the water so it can easily escape, i.e. not a 2L bottle filled to the narrow neck. But a 2L bottle semi full might work. Some just get brita jug filters and leave it in the fridge. If you are boiling the water the chlorine will be driven off.

I know this post was old, but the OP said they were concerned about the environment, some RO filters can use use very large amounts of water to create 1L of drinking water.