I was considering buying a soda siphon to make my own sparkling water. I have two important questions in this regard: First, how does the fizziness compare with that of store-bought stuff like Poland Spring sparkling water? Second, as the tank gets emptied, does the remaining water tend to go flat as it finishes up? Thanks

Glad you got your problem sorted out. If'n when you're looking for a "new" machine check out a Habitat for Humanity Restore if you have one around. They often have nearly new dw's for sale cheap. Like $100-$150 It's amazing what people will rip out of their kitchens when they want to redecorate. They do (at least at ours) check them out, hook them up and run them to ensure they work before putting them on sale. If you do decide on a new one eventually, a dw and a fridge are two appliances that I'd seriously consider getting an extended warranty on these days. As for pre-rinsing, that's a waste of water, just scrape and be sure to use a good rated dw detergent like Cascade All In One tabs or Finish Quantumm tabs. They're worth it. Pre-rinsing can also lead to etching on glasses etc because the caustic agents in the detergent need something to eat away at or else they just eat away at the glasses. The other half here always barks at me about not pre-rinsing and is so quick to point out the very odd time one little utensil or dish has something not washed away.. Well if one dish or fork out of 5 loads of lord how many dishes etc went thru the machine has a tiny speck left on it is hardly reason to pre-rinse everything everytime in my opinion LOL

I have one. I go through easily 3-4 liters of seltzer a day and it was getting expensive and hard to lug that many plastic bottles home from the store. We have the 130L cartridge one (from Costco), but because I like it really fizzy and I go through so many liters a day, it was empty in a couple weeks. And I could only get the smaller sized refill canisters at the local stores -- I would have had to mail-order the larger ones. So I invested a little more in a freedom one hose from a company called CO2 Doctor. It lets you hook up a 20lb CO2 tank (like you'd find in a restaurant fountain soda machine) to the sodastream. Although the initial outlay was high -- about $100 for the sodastream, $100 for the freedom one hose, $65 for a used CO2 tank on craigslist, then $30 to exchange the tank for a full one at the local Airgas -- my expenses now are nothing -- one $30 tank of air lasts me almost a year -- at an average of 3 liters a day with several extra pumps per bottle. If I was more frugal with the carbonation level, it would last close to 2 years. So now the $30 that used to get me about 2 weeks worth of seltzer gets me 10 months. Definitely one of the best purchases I ever made. One downside - you will have to find a place to put the 20lb co2 tank - it's big and heavy. We have our sodastream sitting on a pantry shelf with the tank sitting on the floor, all hidden behind the closet door. My sister has friends (who told us about the freedom one in the first place) who keep their sodastream on the counter and the tank in the cabinet below (they drilled a hole for the hose in the counterop). I have no affiliation with the CO2 doctor website or the freedom one product, but if you are a heavy sodastream user and you have the room for the larger tank, I highly recommend it! (I will link to the CO2 doctor site below -- they also have products that let the sodastream take paintball gun CO2 canisters -- apparently, that is also cheaper than purchasing refills through sodastream....) Here is a link that might be useful: Freedom One

tobyt - we have/use one. DH has cancer genes (the astro sign not the illness) and he THINKS he saves money. We do go thru a significant amount of soda but personally I'm not so sure about the savings not to mention the mess. This present incarnation - an Isi - cost about $100 so it may be awhile before their are any 'significant savings'. :-) I think it's way more trouble than it's worth. DH seems attached to them. I keep giving them away and he keeps buying them again. Sigh. I guess the health benefit is you don't get the salt intake that you find in regular soda. As well we have GREAT well water. If we were on regular chlorinated water, I'd likely pass (and try to get him to do likewise). :-)