Best Tap Water Filter On Demand System?

[LuxLuthor]

I have been having "spring" water delivered to the house for more years than I can remember in those 5 gal jugs. It works fine, and tastes great.

I just noticed this Zuvo add in this month's Popular Science which looked interesting, but wondered what people like to use.

Let me also say that for me to switch away from the bottle deliveries which averages about $58/month (5-6 jugs), my primary concern is wanting on demand, excellent tasting water with a minimum of hassle, and that doesn't take an hour to fill a coffee pot.

I know there are all those brands out there like Brita, Pur, etc. but I don't really know much about them. I don't give a crap about all the plastic bottle environmental nonsense or some gimmick catch phrase like being "sustainable." I just want something that is easy and works.

[gorn]

I switched from the delivered bottled water to a britta filter a few years ago. The water tastes the same and it is way cheaper. I live in an area that has real hard water and filtering it is the only way to go. I have never looked into the inline filters so I can't say how good or bad they are.

[McGizmo]

I have been using a simple PUR Faucet mount for a couple years now and it looks like I will have to replace it or figure out how to take it apart for cleaning and seal maintenance. It now has some spray coming from the outlet and I would guess due to a worn seal. I went this route because it was the easiest path and I have found it to be more than acceptable but I have no idea how effective it is?!?! Whether the built in indicator is legitimate or not, I don't know but it beats trying to estimate the volume of water that has passed through or replacing the filter based on time which may or may not be related to actual use?!?!

When it comes to drinking water, to a certain extent I figure the "If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" addage has some relevance. The system you linked with its multi step and UV treatment of the water sounds pretty cool but is it necessary or overkill?

[glockboy]

I used the Reverse Osmosis Systems, same like this one.
http://www.pure-aqua.com/ro-100.htm

[Lite_me]

I have been using the Brita pitchers like shown here for years now. It's just me and the little wife here, so it's not that inconvenient to add water from the faucet a few time a day. I bleach it every time I change the filter in it. Would a built-in be nice.... yes, but we're ok doing it this way. Our water is supposed to be pretty good here but it really does improve the taste. It removes the Chlorine taste, I've noticed.

[karlthev]

I have been using the Multi-Pure system for the past 10+ years.


Karl

[Rexlion]

I don't know about "best," but I think most of them will do a good job for most situations.

For many years we used a bottleless hot-cold water cooler that had an activated carbon filter with impregnated silver (to inhibit bacteria) hooked to the house water line. That cooler was tough to keep working, so 1.5 years ago we switched to the Pur filter/pitcher (Walmart, etc.) and it has been fine. We change the filter about every 4 to 6 months, it's just the 2 of us so we don't need to change every 3 months as mfr recommends. The water tastes fine.

I think just about any activated carbon filter will do well. Some now have stuff called KDF that does what the silver used to do, prevent bacteria from growing in the filter in the unlikely event it gets contaminated with something harmful.

[RA40]

We have one of those generic two stage filter systems in the kitchen and one hooked to the fridge. I dunno how excited I can be over a water filter . The main aspect I notice is the water doesn't smell like chlorine nor taste like it. I certainly am more aware when traveling and drinking tap water though. Each set of carts nails me about $50 and the fridge ~$10.

[Lee1959]

My wife is allergic to the Chlorine family of chemicals and she used to start to plug up and sneeze when she drank her morning coffee every day. We started using Pur filters and she has no trouble now. Not sure it is the "best", but it works very well from our experience.

[LuxLuthor]

This Aquasana unit claims to be the #1 rated system, and top rated by Consumer's Digest for the last 6 years. I've heard of Consumer's Report, but not Consumer's Digest. They list this comparison chart which does make it look good...and say up front that they have a "relationship" with Sun Water that makes Aquasana. Dubious.

Here is what appears to be a legit rating site: http://www.consumersearch.com/water-...-water-filters which seems to favor Culligan EZ-4.

Pitchers won't be enough for us.

Probably just stick with the bottled delivery.

[mendhammarsh]

You can have Culligan test your water for free. I am very pleased with the Culligan reverse osmosis system. I am no longer using bottled water on my Oasis water cooler.

[Sigman]

We've been using this model for years. Each unit is supposed to be good for 1000 gallons (I think they say that's a years worth of drinking water for a typical family of 4?).

I've considered trying one of these, but probably have enough filters stocked up for another 10 years! I like the idea of being able to see what's "inside" - then again maybe that's not exactly what I really "want" to see?!

I monitor the flow, taste, & check for chlorine removal effectiveness with a little pool kit (which are all reasons to replace the filter). Last time I ordered I got the larger model (green - I think it's at the bottom of the linked page) but haven't replaced the current filter as of yet.

Certainly makes a noticeable difference in taste!!! I can taste chlorine in a microsecond! Makes better coffee for sure...

[Saaby]

Pretty much if you're on a municipal water system, your tap water should already be clean of microbes and things like that. The 2 things you generally pick up are maybe some rust taste from the pipes, and chlorine that they put in your water to kill the bacteria.

I don't know exactly where, as I've never bothered to do it, but there's a place online I believe that you can look up the water company in your area, and see what kind of 'stuff' is in your water.

Assuming you're on a municipal system with "clean" water that just doesn't taste great, than you don't really need a high end filter system. You don't need to filter out .003 micron stuff if there's already none in your water!


Reverse Osmosis systems, in particular, are very wasteful for home use. From Wikipedia:

Household Reverse osmosis units use a lot of water because they have low back pressure. As a result, they recover only 5 to 15 percent of the water entering the system. The remainder is discharged as waste water. Because waste water carries with it the rejected contaminants, methods to re-cover this water are not practical for household systems. Waste water is typically connected to the house drains and will add to the load on the household septic system. An RO unit delivering 5 gallons of treated water per day may discharge 40 to 90 gallons of waste water per day to the septic system.

We wanted to improve the taste of our water, and wanted the convenience of having the filter at the tap, not having to refill a pitcher, etc. -- but we didn't want to put out the $$$ to install or maintain a Reverse Osmosis system.

We put in this Filtrete Advanced Water Filtration System from Lowes. It's basically like a big Brita filter that just attaches directly to the faucet. You could use it with a filter faucet as well, but for now we are not.

So the way it works is just to filter 100% of the cold water coming to whatever faucet you attach it to -- generally the kitchen faucet. We have not noticed a significant reduction in the water-flow through that faucet, but it's only been about a month -- so time will tell.

Wanted to improve the taste of the Ice in the freezer, so we installed an inline ice-maker filter as well.

For the one under the sink, you just twist in a new cartridge every 6 months for $20. The one behind the fridge says it can go for a year, and it's about $11 to replace. So for about $101 the first year, and $51 every year after that, we are able to filter all our culinary water.

I know Flashaholics tend to be gadget-a-holics, but it's worth figuring out what you need to filter out from your water, and then buying the right tool for the job (As opposed to buying more filter than you really need). The filter we are using goes down to 9 microns, I believe. Ours is the "Advanced" model, and there's one called "Professional" that goes down to 5 microns. Well we don't need to filter down to 5 microns, so we skipped that model...a savings of about $10 every time we need to replace the cartridge. Both the "professional" and "advanced" models use the same "docking station" however, to connect to the faucet. So if we wanted to upgrade our filtration at some point...we could by simply upgrading the filter.

[MarNav1]

Lux we just put one in from a box store (Menards) under the sink. Taps into the cold water pipe and the outlet mounts above the sink. Filter is under the sink mounted to the wall. Water and coffee TASTE much better. Will fill coffee pot in a minute or so. About $80, $11 or so for a new filter.

[LuxLuthor]

Those are some excellent suggestions. Just to see the effect, and living with high quality city water that does give a link to their analysis report like Saaby says, maybe I will try out Sigman's suggestion which looks pretty affordable, and see how it compares to our bottled water.

Then if that solution turns out to be a nuisance under the faucet nozzle, but makes tap water good enough to use, then I could follow it up with an under the sink install.

Saaby, that is exactly the one I put inline on my Frig icemaker....about 10 years ago. LOL! I figured I would get this model from Amazon because at least it says good for 5 years. Trying to remember to replace something in 5 years that hides behind the Frig is hopeless, but maybe I'll put a big magic marker on the hidden wall behind it saying: "Hey dumbass, replace this water filter in July 2014!" That should get my attention. LOL!

Thanks very much.

[BB]

The biggest issue with bottled water is the cooler/bowl + valve to deliver the water and bacteria/etc. transfer to the "clean" water.

How many people wash their hands, sterilize the top of the bottle when a new one is put on, and clean/sterilize the cooler every so often.

-Bill

[springnr]

Pure Water site, their model 77 filter is good for city water and they have a good selection of cartridge types and media.

I use the Black & white reverse osmosis.

[m16a]

Wait, do you guys mean to tell me that their is a better way than drawing a bucket from the limestone well outside my house?

[LuxLuthor]

The biggest issue with bottled water is the cooler/bowl + valve to deliver the water and bacteria/etc. transfer to the "clean" water.

How many people wash their hands, sterilize the top of the bottle when a new one is put on, and clean/sterilize the cooler every so often.

-Bill

Very good point.

[smokinbasser]

my house has Omnis whole house activated carbon filtration system and there are two identical systems in parallel on the water supply from the street so all my water, sinks, toilets, outside faucets are filtered water and friendsvisitors from all over N,America say that the water is the best tasting ( not sure if there is a taste at all or if it's the total lack of "flavors" that make it so good "tasting"

[seaside]

Honestly I do believe the best way to get "PURE" water is to get Reverse Osmosis Systems. I have used it for years for my salt water aquarium tank.

But for drinking water.... RO system is too slow, sort of expensive, and it produces almost completely "pure" water that does not have any flavor or taste or smell, which I think most people don't want/need.

So, for drinking water, I bypassed RO membrane and ion exchanging rasin parts. Water only flows thrugh two filters. segment filter and carbon filter. By doing that, I still can get the some flaver with no unnecessary particles and nitrogens at acceptable speed.

If I were you, I would add two filters at faucet, and use the faucet soley for drinking water. It does the same thing with what brita and pure does, only in big scale.

[Sub_Umbra]

The biggest issue with bottled water is the cooler/bowl + valve to deliver the water and bacteria/etc....

That and the fact that bottled water is held to a lessor standard than even tap water. The standard for bottled water states that a certain amount of fecal contamination is acceptable. No fecal contamination is allowed in the standard for tap water.

Many muni water plants are sixty years old, based on older still technology and designed to serve their cities when they were at much lower population levels. Of course, they should protect the users but they burp quite often. (Perhaps another bodily function would be more discriptive. ) It may take years in court just to find out what you and your family drank during any given 'burp'.

Check out Report Cards for America's Infrastructure produced by American Society of Civil Engineers. Year after year they've been taking the religion out of muni water quality.

We've been using a Katadyn Drip filter every day for ten years. It's the same model used for base camps on Mount Everest climbing expeditions. It requires no pumping, no electricity, no water pressure and with low particulate source water (like tap water) a set of filters lasts three years.

Aside from the obvious advantages to a filter like this one in a crisis (or one of the Berkeys, for that matter) it has the advantage of protecting us every day. Because we use it every day we are very familiar with it and it will not be part of the steep learning curve a family must face to get all of their emergency gear working in a crisis. I wouldn't want to learn how to make clean water in the midst of a crisis.

I also like it for The Geezer Factor. I don't have to carry big water bottles anywhere. The filter is a few feet from the tap and filling it is not much of a stressor.

I did the math on it a while back and was blown away. It has payed for itself over and over each year and we've used it for ten years.

Think about it. It costs less than bottled water and yet it will still work in emergencies where other systems won't. You also won't hurt your back lugging big jugs of water.

[springnr]

I have been thinking about buying a emergency siphon setup.

Not sure about hygenyics of the gravity suck start though.

[Sub_Umbra]

Cool stuff on that page. I've thought about using some of them as a backup. It's also a cheap, simple way to add a charcoal filter to an existing filter setup for a temporary problem with a particular chemical contaminant.

Nice prices.

[TedTheLed]

I'm an Aquarain man. It's just like the Katadyn drip unit but made in USA and less expensive..

The AquaRain® Natural Water Filter is manufactured to meet stringent NSF standards and fully achieves the USEPA requirements of a Cyst and Bacteria Water Purifier.*

http://www.aquarain.com/index.htm

only 2 cents a gallon and will process thousands of gallons (depending on how dirty it is of course)..and no pumping..
keep it on a high shelf and have a tube with a clip dangling over the kitchen sink; convenient.

[Sub_Umbra]

Thanks for the link. I've never seen the Aqua Rain before. We find drip filters very easy to live with.

[bltkmt]

This Aquasana unit claims to be the #1 rated system, and top rated by Consumer's Digest for the last 6 years. I've heard of Consumer's Report, but not Consumer's Digest. They list this comparison chart which does make it look good...and say up front that they have a "relationship" with Sun Water that makes Aquasana. Dubious.

Here is what appears to be a legit rating site: http://www.consumersearch.com/water-...-water-filters which seems to favor Culligan EZ-4.

Pitchers won't be enough for us.

Probably just stick with the bottled delivery.

We use that exact Aquasana system, and have for about a year. It works very well, but you need to change the filters periodically. Also, the spigot is fairly small so it does take a bit to fill up a coffee pot.

[LuxLuthor]

I could see using a drip filter for an emergency backup but with flow rates of 1/2 to 1 gallon per hour, or a quart in 15 mins....that won't work fast enough for our needs.

[bltkmt]

Not sure if you were replying to me, but I wouldn't classify the Aquasana as a drip filter. The issue is the size of the spigot hole.

[TedTheLed]

Lux, you keep the upper tank full, it drips into the lower tank which also holds a few galllons, if you drain off and bottle the excess from the bottom tank, and keep the uppper tank drippin' you have alot of gallons per day..
now if you could devise an auto feed for the top, and put a drain hose to a big holding tank from the bottom, you got a producer..