Concerned about my tap water - any recommendations for water filters?

[stayo22]

I've been reading online and just can't seem to make heads or tails out of all the information out there. I know our tap water is terrible for us but what are my alternatives? I've heard good and bad things about Reverse Osmosis....just hoping one of you has some real world experience to share!

Thanks!

[GreenKnitPocket]

What exactly are you most concerned about? I would contact or research your local water authority and see what kind of information they can offer. I've had no problems drinking tap water at my house-- though I mostly use a Brita filter now. I've heard good and bad things about tap water. In some places, it has nutrients and fluoride in it that you wouldn't get in filtered water.

I personally like to filter my water and keep it refrigerated because it tastes better that way to me. Every once in a while I add in some Crystal Light because it has vitamins and antioxidants and is pretty delicious too

[MyLilPwny]

What bad things did you hear about reverse osmosis? I've used reverse osmosis all my life. My parents always had one. If you're concerned about minerals being removed, you can add a pinch of Celtic sea salt to your water. It has over 80 minerals in it. I personally don't want any fluoride in my life at all, especially not in my drinking water (and not in my toothpaste).

[sbgrace]

We do reverse osmosis. I want the artificial flouride out. We have a chlorine filter on the whole house as well.
My biggest concern w/reverse osmosis is the removal of trace minerals (particularly lithium). You can add them in pretty easily if that is a concern of yours.
No other filter gets rid of flouride.

If you're worried about lead or the like brita should work for that. Your water dept. can give you information re: the heavy metals and bacteria and the like in your tap water. You may be pleasantly surprised. If it weren't for the flouride (and chlorine) I'd be fine with our city water.

[KimPM]

Originally Posted by sbgrace

No other filter gets rid of flouride.

There is one other filter....an activated aluminum filter adsorbs fluoride, but these filters also can excrete small amounts of aluminum into the water. You'd need something to filter the aluminum out after the fluoride filter. It can be done without reverse osmosis.

As far as the Brita, it's hard to find real data on their performance, but apparently an analysis was performed by some college students for a chemistry class. It's a limited study, but here's what they came up with...

http://www.holycross.edu/departments...er_Project.ppt

Summary: The Brita filter is not all that useful. Very short actual filter life, with degrading performance over time - much shorter than the time Brita actually specifies. We're talking in the neighborhood of 8-10 liters being the limit for filtering out lead. That's all. And what I found is that it doesn't remove a lot of the things that are in your water that you really don't want in your water. And even worse, they found that it actually can introduce copper into the water where it wasn't there in the input water. There are other, much better filters and systems out there, especially for the money you are paying for Brita.

I've been researching RO alternatives lately. A multiple filter combination of activated aluminum in one housing, followed by a hybrid (Doulton) ceramic/carbon block filter is looking pretty interesting. I'd also consider adding a sub-micron filter in another housing. There are a number of places you can get either under-sink or countertop units that support 2 and 3 filter housings.

BTW, there is another water filtration thread on there that may be interesting to the OP: "Toxic Water": http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1139875

[WuWei]

We use an R.O. filter. However, I've also heard about concerns regarding the osmotic filter plugging up if not changed religiously, and causing a big (heavy metal/mineral dump into the R.O water. There seems to also be some concern regarding bacterial build up in the filter. I haven't seen enough research to make me stop using our R.O. filter, though.


Pat

[AllyRae]

We were using a ZeroWater pitcher to get ride of the chlorine and fluoride (just a temporary solution...we moved from well water to city water and we're still researching....)

Unfortunately it gets rid of all trace minerals, so it has the same problems as RO and distilled water in that the WHO says you can get some pretty serious health problems by drinking demineralized water.

So, what can be done to fix that? Does anyone know how to add trace minerals back in?

[AllyRae]

Does anyone know about this stuff?

http://www.radiantlifecatalog.com/pr...salts-minerals