Which water for coffee machine? (house, refrigerator, buying)

[vamps2013]

We are relatively new in the Valley and one of the few things that I don't like here is the tap water. My dishes come out terrible from the dishwasher - all white from lime, regardless of the soap.

We just bought coffee machine and my first concern is which water to use when preparing the coffee. Tap water is not an option because it will be ruined in few weeks. For drinking, we use Arrowhead.

Which water do you use when preparing brewed coffee?

[Kimballette]

I just use a Brita pitcher and use that for making coffee, iced tea, etc.

[Jukesgrrl]

I have a contraption on my freezer door that dispenses cold, filtered water, ice cubes, and crushed ice. I NEVER drink water unless it comes from there. I take a big glass to bed with me at night. I use that filtered water to make coffee and tea and I use it for cooking, too. I don't have any trouble with my dishwasher (I use Cascade Platinum Action Pacs), although I do have white gunk on my faucets all the time. That's why I'd never get those dark bronze ones, even though they look nice new.

[stevek64]

Reverse Osmosis system under the kitchen sink for drinking water. The water is void of all the minerals and other funky stuff.

[SillyButtons]

Don't be drinking bottled water. That's just gross and expensive. There are many fine filters that hook directly to your faucet head to be had on the cheap. Reverse osmosis would be ideal but can cost a little more. Brita pitchers are slightly inconvenient but you'll have cold water on hand (nice in summer). All three options are less expensive than bottled.

[wit-nit]

Bottled water here. Our choice, we like it.

[pbenjamin]

I use the filtered water from the refrigerator for coffee. We found that a product called Lemi Shine resolved the dishwasher issue, although our new Miele dishwasher has a built-in water softener that takes care of things. I don't drink much water, but when I do, like filling a bottle to take to the gym, I use the filtered water from the fridge.

[Ponderosa]

A filter will help with the flavor maybe a little and it does get the chlorine compounds. But the taste is mostly from minerals like gypsum that are in abundance in our water supply. To eliminate them, get an undersink RO (reverse osmosis) setup. They cost about 200 bucks at HomeDepot or Lowes and are not a tough DIY project. You will have all the good water you ever will use and save a fortune buying bottled. Some of my neighbors have water delivered - Sparkletts or something on the truck. The get those big blue bottles that go on a cooler. RO is cheaper, but if you drink a lot of water in your family a delivery service might be good too.

A water softener will help with the dishes, clothes, and makes bath time fun too.

[MNSvenska]

We have an inline water filter under our sink. You can get them from HD. The water tastes good and our coffee maker has no residue or mineral build up.

Please don't use bottled water. It's bad for our invironment and so unnecessary.

[Zippyman]

I use a watts "zero waste" undersink reverse osmosis - it's a little different than your "standard" ro system, because it has a "permeate pump", and because any "waste" water gets pumped back into the "hot" water pipe under the sink, instead of down the drain. The permeate pump helps "flush" the membrane on the ro, which is supposed to make the membrane last longer. Mines been running without a hitch since 2009- i change the filters about every 6-9 months & a set of filters costs about $25 on amazon or ebay. We have one of those water coolers that has a five-gallon bottle on top, and I use the ro to fill that bottle (about halfway) a couple times a week, and to make a large pot of coffee in my bunn once or twice a day. I flush that pot with white vinegar every few months, and in the past five years, I've never seen any visible flakes of lime.

I've tested the water coming into the house with a "total dissolved solids" or "tds" meter, and I've consistently seen readings in the 450-480ppm range. The water out of the ro system tests at about 30 ppm, tds.

We also have a "whole house" 2 cubic foot carbon filter (which looks like a water softener, but works a little differently). The main function of that is to leach out the enormous amount of chlorine (& hopefully most of the other bad stuff) from our water. The coconut-shell carbon only lasts a few years, but when you're using one, it takes that "chemical" stank out of the shower & water from the tap has almost a "sweet" taste..the water still has 450ppm+ of dissolved minerals in it, but it tastes good.. after five years, I just recently changed out the carbon in ours & this time I added 10 pounds of "kdf-55" media to the carbon, which is *supposed* to do an even better job with the chlorine & things like heavy-metals (which arent supposed to be in municipal water in any quantity, but why take a chance?). The big whole-house carbon filters like mine run about $600 online, and the media change was due in five years on mine - which cost about $300 with the kdf-media added.

That said, even with the whole-house carbon filter, my water still *looks* like that stuff in the canals around town. Filling a spagetti-pot, you can see a brownish-greenish tinge to the water.. my next "experiment" is to try a second whole-house filter with "filter ag" material to try to improve the clarity of the water.

We ran a softener for several years & while it helped with the dishwasher turning white & the drippy faucets, i personally didn't like the taste of the water & had quite a few problems with the softener, the last straw was when the control head just spontaniously blew apart while we were on vacation & made a mess in the garage. Our softener is in the bed of my truck right now, soon to find some final peace in the city dump, where it belongs.