We have a whole house water filter on city water. It automatically backwashes itself periodically & shouldn't need maintenance for at least 10 years. Our water feels as good as it tastes, which is excellent.

Uninhibited by any facts (since you don't give much detail in your OP), I'd evaluate your need for RO, first. Here in GA, we're blessed for the most part with soft surface water at the tap. Essentially, all that you need is maybe a sediment filter and carbon for chlorine removal. Unless you have an extraordinary need (immunocompromised, e.g.) or really bad water quality (hard, high TDS, dissolved nitrates/sulfates, etc), you'd be spending a lot on a filtration system (and then on periodic maintenance) when you didn't necessarily need it.

On the other hand, reverse osmosis or distilled water makes the cooking taste better :) Not to mention things like the iron which require it. My house came with an R.O. system which I eventually dumped when it needed a part that was the cost of replacement. Annual maintenance was expensive enough that it's really not worth it anyway. Now I get distilled water delivered in gallon jugs, along with the spring water (i.e., tastes good) water I get for drinking.

It's a storage problem and a bit of a bother, but the ice doesn't disflavor beverages, and the pasta, rice, etc., tastes better, and people rave about my coffee (duh--use a clean pot and unflavored water). I don't need a water filtration system--our water is yucky tasting but of good quality--but it sure was convenient. And it would be great to have R.O. water in an icemaker and pot filler.

So, thanks Fhmiller, for bringing up the issue. Question is, do they waste more water/resources than making and recycling the bottles and cartons. Since I'm getting the drinking water delivered anyway (and that's worth it) I'm not worried about that part of the equation... Sigh.

I've linked below the water filtration system that we have. The water tastes great. And in the two months that we've been using it, I can say that my skin and hair have never before been this healthy. The water feels so good. I do not know how efficient it is. Ours backwashes every five days. You now have me wondering how often we really need to backwash. I'm going to investigate whether we can do it less often.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole House Water Filtration

fhmiller - First let's start with your reason for wanting a fitter. Do you have city or private/shared well water? What are your concerns? Taste, odor, color, sediment, metals, organics, VOC's, chlorine? It's possible an RO is what you need - no way to tell without knowing what is in your water.

Watts makes a zero waste RO unit. They also sell a retrofit unit to make your current system zero waste...It costs as much as the RO system you bought. Zero waste units require electricity so you either waste water or electricity.

Unless you are on your own well water, your local water district should publish an analysis of the water coming to your tap. Since I get water treated by the municipality, I should be able to get away with just a sediment and carbon filter but I have a RO unit just in case.

Thanks for the postings all. We're on municipal water. Reason for it is that sometimes our water tastes bad, and I don't trust (or to be honest, have the patience for) continuing to check on water quality publications from our municipality.

I'm thinking, however, that RO may be a bit much, and during our kitchen remodel, I'll move to something that has less maintenance, and doesn't waste water as much. Goal is really only for drinking water. If anyone has other suggested on these lines, all ears...

thanks again

Generally, on municipal systems, chlorine is the culprit if the water tastes bad. A simple GAC (granular activated carbon) cartridge filter installed under the sink will take care of that. Change the cartridge every six months.

fhmiller,

I am in the same boat as you-city/county water but poor taste. You don't need RO. A simple filter or two will handle your problems, with zero waste.

I have included a link to the company I use. All they sell is water filter systems. One good thing about them is that all of their products use standard-sized filters, meaning you have lots more options in cartridges and at lower prices than proprietary systems.

Myself, I have a double undersink housing, with a taste and sediment filter followed by a chloramine (what our county for sanitation) filter. I change them once a year. They pay the shipping on most items.

Here is a link that might be useful: Water filters and cartridges

I'm not discounting needing RO for an iron/manganese problem (more likely if your supply is a well or other groundwater). But there's a whole industry out there to cater to folks like plllog and ttmatsu, for whom essentially a Brita pitcher isn't good enough, and who have money to burn ("just in case").

Not to mention that your public water supply is ridiculously more regulated/monitored than any given bottled water supplier.

fhmiller- There are a lot of different vendors who'll sell you filter systems that have a sediment filter and carbon. They vary in ease of changing filters, but generally, they're going to have proprietary connections or filters. That locks you into buying replacements from them (the egregious example is the GE fridge filter, which is $40 and probably holds $0.50 worth of materials).

If you aren't shy, you could get just a filter housing or 2 and double-open-end cartridges for sediment and carbon. You'll have to put fittings together and hook it up yourself, but you'll have a much broader range of sources for replacement cartridges. Cole Parmer is a quick place to look and see what these look like (housings- http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_index.asp?cls=1403 ; cartridges- http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_index.asp?cls=1390).

My office is switching from bottled water coolers to ones that filter tap water and heat/chill. Honestly, I'm not sure what dummy got the bottled water, since it was policy for many years that we're in the business, so we drink our clients' water. But, buying these chillers will pay for itself in about a year, as we end our $200/mo bottled water habit.

Here are a couple of articles on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/business/10filters.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/dining/10lead.html

Here is a link that might be useful: In Praise of Tap Water

Yep, some of use are picky! The iron and other equipment don't care how it tastes. They just want pure H2O. :D But the pasta, coffee, ice, etc., don't taste as good with the good tasting spring water either, and the stuff that's sold as "drinking water" is pretty foul tasting. (I'm not fond of the Brita taste either.)

From what's been said, it's possible that there's some kind of non-R.O. filtration that will do the job on the minerals for cooking. I was just thinking that, and that I needed to check them out, when I got to thull's post :) I really don't care for the price of the R.O. which is why I got rid of it in the first place!! But I'd still have to buy distilled for the iron...

BTW, the tap water in South Florida was great tasting last time I was there, and the best tasting water ever came out of the tap when I was living abroad and it came from the source of a major river.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

Fhmiller, I hope you post what you decide on.

Okay, plllog, now you've entirely changed the parameters. If you want to remove minerals from drinking water, RO is your only viable option. Sure, you could distill, but that takes a lot of time and attention on your part, Or you could purchase resin cartridges, but they are ridiculously expensive. If you are worried about water waste (4-8 gallons per day at most for a typical household) get a zero-waste unit that sends the concentrate to your water heater.

I am allergic to chlorine, cough and cough and cough when I've ingested some. Our city water smells like bleach most mornings so drinking it is of the question. Most of the commercial purified waters do not filter out enough chlorine for me to drink. We'd used a Britta pitcher filter system for many years. When we remodeled, we put in an Everpure. It is a large filter in the basement that runs to a dedicated spigot in the kitchen and our ice maker. There are several differnt models and what you want to filter to choose from. One of my favorite things about our new kitchen is that for the first time in my life, I can get a glass of water whenever I want one.

Aliceinwonderland_id, I'm not sure how I've changed the parameters, since the OP was talking about R.O. and I was talking about how it makes things taste better, but I really do appreciate your input, that R.O. is the way to go.

I still have to figure out if putting in a system with its attendant maintenance costs is worth it, but I will look into a zero-waste unit. 4-8 gallons a day just sounds decadent!

So, is there a way FHMiller can retrofit zero waste to the Watts unit that's already in the house???

All I meant was that by going from simply improving taste to wanting to remove minerals, you totally change the method of treatment. As to retrofitting for zero waste, it's absolutely doable. Watts sells a kit. 4-8 gallons is really not much though. Shave a couple of minutes off of your morning shower to make up for it.

There is another way to reduce "waste" water from an RO. Installing a permeate pump will decrease water to drain by up to 85%. Cost is significantly lower than a zero waste retrofit also, around $70. It can be a pain to install, but less so than the zero waste kit. Plus, it uses no electricity because it runs on the "waste" water flow. There are a couple of disadvantages you need to be aware of. There is a slight thumping noise when it runs, which is whenever RO water is used. Also, when only small amounts of water are used, the RO will produce slightly lower quality water. Conversely, water quality will be higher when larger amounts of water are used.

Here is a link that might be useful: zero waste retrofit.

We are very environmentally conscious in our household, and all of our appliances are energy and water efficient. The only area where we went with something wasteful was with the 5-stage RO system and whole house softener. We live in Arizona where our average hardness hovers around 30° dH, which is extremely hard. If I'm not mistaken, RO will remove dissolved solids down to .0001 micron as well as chlorine and various other harmful chemicals (lead, copper, barium, chromium, mercury, sodium, cadmium, fluoride, nitrite, nitrate, selenium, aluminum, arsenic, sulfate, calcium, phosphate, iron, magnesium, zinc, chloride, silicate, cyanide, sulfate, bacteria, potassium, nickel, silver, bicarbonate, manganese, and ammonium).

We went with RO for our drinking and cooking water because we felt more secure that it would remove things we couldn't see, beyond just improving taste and odor. The RO filters are good for 1,000 gallons and cost approximately $60 to replace. That calculates out to 6 cents per usable gallon, plus a fraction of that for the discarded wastewater. That's nothing compared to the cost of bottled water and the plastic waste products that end up in our landfills.

sshrivastava- I get where you're coming from. For those that don't have to have it, though, $60/1k gallons is a lot more than the $6/1k gallons or so we pay for tap water.

plllog- be careful w/ substituting ion exchange for RO for mineral removal; the minerals removed are replaced by sodium or another ion; you may not want to trade minerally for salty.

thull, I used to drink and cook with tap water in Seattle and in the SF bay area -- the water was as good or better than bottled water. Arizona water, on the other hand, is disgusting and full of minerals that only an RO system can adequately remove. There is no way to drink tap water here unless you have a high tolerance for distasteful water, and RO was a much less costly alternative to bottled products.

It's also nice to hear guests exclaim how good our water tastes compared to theirs LOL!