Bottled water alternatives

[teeej]

Originally Posted by DougStark

You've all seen the ads on TV: Brita filters, Pur and the others don't remove dissolved minerals (very abundant in our tap water) that Zero Water and R/O units do. IMO, reverse osmosis is the way to go. Using Zero Water would get too costly.

I use the purified water not only for drinking, but also for cleaning, washing windows, etc. The salty "waste water" gets drained to my yard for my shade tree to use.

Never heard of ZeroWater. Have you used it? Why would it be more costly than Brita or Pur ?

[DougStark]

Originally Posted by teeej

Never heard of ZeroWater. Have you used it? Why would it be more costly than Brita or Pur ?

You haven't seen the frequent ads on TV for Zero Water? surprising. Zero Water removes all of the dissolved minerals (and contaminants) in the water by using a technology called de-ionization. It produces ultra-pure water with no minerals remaining. The downside is that it's a relatively expensive way to remove the minerals from the water. And with our highly mineralized tap water, the Zero Water filters won't last as long as they would using tap water with less minerals.

Reverse osmosis is MUCH more economical than deionization and removes about 90-95% of the minerals, not 100%.

Some purists (and chemists) use both technologies to clean up the water. They use the RO unit to reduce 90% of the minerals. Then they put the RO purified water through a de-ionizer membrane to remove the remaining 10% of minerals left.

Here's a link if you want to be totally overwhelmed on the subject:

What's the difference between RO and DI water purification? Reverse osmosis vs. deionized water - Labconco

[Voebe]

I have a friend raving about Zero Water as the best for health/safety.

[Bungle]

I tried Zero Water and at the rate I had to change filters it was cheaper to buy bottled.

[DougStark]

^^^^ Exactly. That's why it's more economical to first run the water through a reverse osmosis unit, then pour that clean water through the Zero Water unit (assuming you want ultra-pure water with zero minerals in it.) But then again, you could forgo all these steps and simply buy gallon bottles of distilled water for the same result