Recommendation for Whole House Humidifier, Soft Water System, and Reverse Osmosis System (Tucson: new house)

[shpitz]

Hi everyone,

we're moving into our new house in March, and I would like to get the following systems installed:

1. Whole House Humidifier
2. Soft Water
3. Reverse Osmosis (RO)

I would love to get some recommendations for systems as well as installers that service 85755.

Thanks,

Maor

[shpitz]

Since I got overwhelming responses, NOT!

I'll update what I've done:

I brought 10 companies to the house, the more we talked about the whole-house humidifier, the more we realized that it's not feasible here in Tucson. The fact that I also have a 3-zone A/C system makes it even worse.

We've decided to go with a console-style humidifier:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Works well, a bit noisy, but not too bad at fan speed 1 (out of 4). It increased humidity from ~33% to ~45% without trying too hard. Of course it works quite a bit since it's a large house and the A/C doesn't help and outside air is so dry, but that's the price we need to pay going with a $115 humidifier vs installing a while house humidifier that may or may not work for $3500!

As for the softener and RO, I decided that every company selling those wants nothing but to rip you off. I was quoted $1500 - $5000 for a softener, while the RO was quoted $500 - $750.

After doing tons of research I came to the conclusion that the best route would be to get the systems myself and have them installed.

I bought the following systems:

Softener: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

RO: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is an amazing feeling having the softener for the whole house (except cold water in kitchen faucet).

As for the RO, I went with a BEAST, 500 GPD. All the water companies here in town sell you pathetic systems for the same or more money (many quoted a 25 and 50 GPD systems, which is a drip a minute, unbelieveable!).

It doesn't perform to it's capacity though since I'm only getting 50psi of water pressure from the street, but I'm not losing much flow...

Also, when I had the RO installed, it turned out there was a leak from one of the filter housings. I talked to iSpring (from GA), they sent me replacement parts for free, and even sent me a 3-gal tank for free for compensation, unbelievable customer service!

I hooked up with a plumber, got his number from the builder (Lennar), he is AMAZING! Not only he did an amazing job, he also charged me less than 1/2 of what quotes I got from other plumbers.

The RO dropped the water TDS (measure of dirty-ness of the water) from 144 to 5, so now I'm getting almost distilled-level water, AMAZING!

I use the RO water in all the humidifiers (2 in the boys' room, one floor unit for the whole house). No filters needed, no nothing!

Happy camper here

[SpringsF6B]

Based on information in citi data the afternoon humidity in May and June gets down to around 10%. How does your humidifier do when the outside humidity gets so low?

[shpitz]

We ended up not installing a whole house unit and used individual humidifiers in the kids' rooms. Used to run them in the summer and kept the rooms at night around 40% humidity and they were much better.

But now it's all irrelevant since we moved to Acworth GA

[sickofIL]

The RO dropped the water TDS (measure of dirty-ness of the water) from 144 to 5, so now I'm getting almost distilled-level water, AMAZING!

TDS = Total Dissolved Solids It is a measure of minerals, salts and organic matter. When water evaporates it leaves the solids. This is what you see in faucets, sinks toilets, etc.

There are other measures that are also used for water. There is conductivity, (the measure of how well it conducts electricity) Resistivity, (how well it resists electric current flow) PH, (the measure of acidity or alkaline) CFU/ml or Colony-forming units/milliliter--used to determine the amount of bacteria is in the water, and others.

Many will tell you that if your water is too pure it will leach minerals from your body but this is what you would call an old wives tale. Water that is very pure it is used to clean Lab glassware and prepare cultures. You wouldn't ike the taste anyway.

Mostly you need to look at PH and TDS. The PH should be between 6.5 and 8.5. Outside of this range it starts to taste unpleasant. Low PH water tastes bitter and metallic where high PH water tastes a little like baking soda. The EPS states that you should keep your TDS under 500 mg/L. Then there is hardness. This can be listed as PPM (parts er million) or grains/gal. Tucson water is around 15-25 grains which is pretty hard. I'm from the Chicago area and the water there is around 8 grains--I thought that was hard.

The PH here is around 8 which is good. If the PH is too low it starts to erode metal--like pipes and fixtures so you don't want that.

There are 4 common ways to remove the dissolved solids in water. Softener, RO distillation and DI. All of these work well and are available but all need constant maintenance. Softeners are the most common. They work well and pretty much everyone knows these. RO is a system where water is forced through a membrane to remove the solids, distillation-you probably know about and DI is another way of replacing the solids with salts like softeners do.

Where I work we use small DI filters and carbon filters for our ice makers. They work quite well removing minerals as compared to just Tucson water. They are compact. (look like any other filter) However, without anything to remove taste you wouldn't want to use this. That is why we also use the carbon filters. I feel the same about softener water.

The best and cost effective solution in my opinion is a whole house softener and small RO systems under the sinks you use to drink from. I had this in my last house in Chicago. However that house had a well and Chicago area well water is disgusting. It has Very Very high levels of particulate and dissolved iron. The water there came out of the pump brown. But the combination of softener and RO made it very drinkable. Because of the iron I had to use an additive to the salt brine that helps the iron wash away from the pellets in the softener.

I am looking to install a softener and RO at my house here. I would say the water tastes like bottled water with this. Another benefit of the softener is it cuts down on the soap and detergent you use along with it makes your cloths and linens last longer.

[TexasRedneck]

Actually, DI water puts nothing back in but water (H and OH ions, which reform to H20 (water). Properly designed, a deionization system produces water in the part per billion range. It's also VERY aggressive, and will leach any available mineral - every more when heated.

99% of the time, a simple softener will do the job. I strongly dislike the sxt control valve - solid state controls tend to be problematic for a simple residential softener, in my experience. The valve itself IS a workhorse - just avoid the SS control version. And having a local company that sells and services them can be a good thing. Yeah - you're going to pay more to the local guy - but when you're having a problem, he'll be there to resolve it, usually with the first trip if you bought a good system (and it doesn't have to be a budget-buster). I just replaced a mail-order system a few weeks back - the customer returned it after 3 tries of having them "troubleshoot" it over the phone. As it turns out, they missed the obvious - the controller itself was defective. I told my customer I could replace the controller if they'd send it - he decided he'd had enough of it.

Home RO's.....again, not a fan. I've seen too many of them leak and destroy cabinets. What I've done is have customers plumb their homes so the RO itself is in the garage, so any leaks won't do real damage. It also makes it easier to do the annual sanitization of the system (and storage tank), which most homeowners NEVER do.