Question for those who drink bottles water or purify their own

Ive drunk water off and on my whole life, but usually flavor it with ice tea, lemonade, gatorage or some other mix. Its not uncommon to see a black spec at the bottom of a glass and I just try not to drink that and pour out the last bit.

Well, the bosses daughter came to me earlier last year when some morning show ran asegment about how bad cola is for you vs drinking water and how much weight you would loose. So, I started drinking raw water than mixing it with the calorie free lemonade mix I normally use.

While drinking I held the bottle up to my computer monitor and looked in the bottom and saw some small oblong things floating around in it that settled to the bottom. I poured it out and refilled the bottle, same thing. Later I went and looked at some other bottles in my fridge and found similar things. I further checked the bottles I refreeze on a regular bases to put on my lower back and neck. Man, when one o those bottles thawed out and I shook it to look at the bottom, it was full of those floating things.

What do you guys think those things are? Part of the bottle floating around in the water?

It might be mineral deposits that are flaking off in your water pipes. Have you had a water failure recently? Usually, those will show up after the pressure has returned and hammering it out of the pipes.

Make a funnel and put a paper towel in it, fill up the funnel slowly with water to the top and then drain it out. If you have floatie things, it is probably minerals flaking off inside the pipes.

I drink bottled water because I am located in Turkey at present. The water is OK for brushing your teeth, making ice and showers but does not taste too hot.

I purchased a brita filter pitcher years back when I got on a water drinking binge in the summer. I couldn't tell much difference between the taste of the water through it or the reverse osmosis filtered water you pay as much for as name brand colas. The price of the water is about 5 cents/gallon roughly. I usually buy filters in a 6 pack for more savings and a filter usually does about 100 gallons or about 2 months or so depending on season and I also use filtered water when cooking.

I've used a britta filter pitcher for years, mostly because 2-3 times a year my city "shocks" the water system. The first warining you get is when you turn on the tap and it suddenly smells like a swimming pool (chlorine). The Britta does a nice job of cutting that smell/taste out of the water.

Are the floaties some sort of leftover soap/dish detergent?
I also use a Brita pitcher, and the only thing from that is the black charcoal specks at the bottom of the pitcher.
My town water tastes funky if unfiltered.

We've had a PUR filter on our faucet for years. The water that comes through it tastes better than any bottled water we've ever tried.

I have also noticed stuff drifting around in sealed bottled water. Not very comforting.

It seems like two or three times a year I read about a study that claims that bottled water generally tests out about the same as tap water when it comes to bacteria content. That's kind of creepy as the water coming out of municipal water treatment plants in the States in general has been declining steadily in quality since at least the 1960s.

Mrs Umbra and I have been using a Katadyn drip filter for all of the tap water we drink every day for ~7 years. It does not require water pressure or electricity or hand pumping to function. It is the one Katadyn typically sells for use at base camps for Mt Everest expeditions, etc. Even with just the two of us it pays for itself twice a year (at a rough rate of $1 per gal for bottled water at the grocery store). The filters are good for 39,000 l of low particulate (tap) water.

Logistically it is a lifesaver for us, too, as we never have to lug bottled water home from the store.

Anyone who has any degenerative disease or is over 45 years old or who may have a partially compromized immune system for any reason should consider getting a good filter. If selected and maintained thoughtfully a well designed water filter will produce higher quality water than most municipalities and bottled water companies can consistantly deliver.

Aside from taking some of the stress off of your immune system every day, filtering your own water will help protect you from the inevitable 'burps' at your local water treatment plant that occasionally let through relatively small amounts of contaminated water in cases where the public is informed too late or not at all. These filters may also dovetail nicely with any emergency/disaster plan that you may have in place for your loved ones, since a supply of safe water will always be a very high priority in good times or bad.

I use something similar to the unit Sub has, mine is called a Big Berkey.

http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/cgi-bin/miva?/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=FSOS&Product_Code=FFBBBB&Category_Code=SG

The only problem with it is when someone (wife!) does not re-fill the top and the water runs dry. I keep telling her it is not a magic water machine, that she had to put water in to get water out

Sometimes I drink water out of the fridge dispenser. There is a pretty good filter system on the fridge.

Having grown up in the country and drank from ditches/etc, I drink water from any tap/well/etc that I want to.

If it's got floatie things, that's just extra stuff for free.

We have quite a problem with calcium buildup in our water heater. Don't know why. The calcium is little flakes that show up in the bottom of the glass and clog the shower massage.

You can tell it's calcium by dropping a flake in vinegar. It should fizz.

It's time to replace the heater and the galvanized pipes anyway.....


We buy the bottled water because glasses get knocked over too easily by our cats. We could use sealed cups and steralize them frequently, but we are lazy. The bottled water is no better than what we get from the Brita filter pitcher in the fridge. It is more conveinient, since I like mine at room temp and my wife likes cold, cold, cold!


Daniel

The first thing Iwould do is ask the bosses daughter what that stuff is. With an innocent look you might suggest they are parasites and that's why you loose so much weight...

However if they are a serious concern the only way you can find out what the stuff is, is by testing. Municipal water supplies rarely cause problems and when they do you read about it in the paper.

In the summer I drink a lot of water and put a few drops of peppermint oil in a gallon or so and like it better than the lemonade stuff.

My wife and I have used Pur filters on the faucet for a number of years. My wife is allergic to the chlorine family and we noticed after drinking the water at out last home that had city water she would often sneeze, we put on the filter and she noticed a huge differene in sneezing and congestion. We have used them ever since, and we fill water bottles from it all the time for ease of drinking and carry.

The bosses daughter is a seasonal worker, she works remotely while attending college and the office during holudays. I sure wished I discovered those floating things sooner to show her as she gave me a good lecture on empty calories and how cola and diet drinks rot your teeth.

I used a brita pitcher when I attended woodrow wilson rehab center in Fishersville where the water smelled like bleach. It worked wonders. Just got to make sure to cycle a few loads of water through it first.

I use a Brita filter and have for years. If I drink out of the tap now, I can taste the difference. My dogs drink filtered water also.

I have bought one of these water tester`s.

http://www.pure-pro.com/water_checker.htm

I got mine from maplin.co.uk for only £9.99.

my household tap water tests out at 64 parts per million, which is very good.

regards.

While I think our drinking water isn't too bad, I still use an attached "PUR" filter..

Where I live, you would need to replace the "PUR" filter everyday. It would just clog and no water would come out of it...

For drinking, we use water-bottles filled and filtered at a spring...
They get delivered at our door....

Tastes differently then tap-water...

Cheers !!

I use a Brita because of testing tap water with a pool kit. The chlorine level was like three times higher than the reccomended amount for pool water. In most cities you can smell it when you take a large glass and stick it under the faucet then sniff.

If you dispense tap water into a jug, (you then put into the fridge, )after a few hours the chlorine disperses.

Filters can remove objects like bacteria and some viruses from water, always a good thing; they can also sometimes remove chemicals. They can't in general remove dissolved minerals like calcium or sodium. If they could do that, they could remove salt (sodium chloride) and we'd be able to simply filter the salt out of sea water instead of needing more complex desalination processes.

If you really want to purify your home drinking water, reverse osmosis (RO) does a more through job than filtering. It's somewhat wasteful of water but for small quantities (drinking) it's not too bad, and you may be able to re-use the impure output (there's a name for that output which I'm forgetting). Basically RO systems have an inlet (impure water, say you put in 5 gallons) and two outlets (1 gallon of pure water comes out the "pure" outlet, and 4 gallons of "impure" water (even more impure than the input, since it contains the stuff removed from the "pure" outlet) comes out the other).