As someone well steeped in a medical and science background, I can't really recommend an ionized water system over RO. No offense. Of course all unstudied things remain a mystery, but sometimes there are reasons we don't study things, because they don't make a lot of sense. Water is an extraordinarily weak buffer. You can sway its pH by electrolysis, but upon contact with any small amount of acid or base, it will quickly lose whatever pH it has. Read, stomach acid vs ionized water... stomach acid wins. If your goal is better tasting water, then carbon may be fine. If you want to remove tasteless chemicals and toxins, maybe RO is for you. The claim that there are 80,000 chemicals and toxins in the water supply at one time or another is sort of like claiming that every once in a while somebody gets hit by a bus, or struck by lighting. Yes, they are very real things, like chemicals in water, that may cause harm. But living your life in fear of such things can make people do extreme things, and waste a lot of money. You are not going to stay in your house, and avoid all roads to avoid lighting and buses, nor should every house install an RO system "to be safe." If your city has a bad track record for maintaining its water, you live near a clearly unregulated pesticide production facility, or you live on a farm with a well that has fluctuating water quality, it may be that an RO system is for you for "safety reasons." I still maintain an RO system is for us water snobs that not only want better tasting water, but clear ice, clear tea, and better water for our plants and high maintenance fish....

The FIRST thing to do is get a COMPLETE INDEPENDENT test of your well water. You need to know more than just the hardness and nitrates. With those results you can begin to gather the information you'll need to provide safe and quality water to your home. The fact that a water softener is already there says that there is harness and maybe iron and manganese in your water that needs to be treated. If you can identify the brand and model of the softener you might find a local water treatment pro that can check to see if the softener is properly sized for your home, operating correctly, and recommend the necessary repairs. I'd call around and get at least three water treatment companies to come out, assess your needs, and quote their solutions. They all should test your water. Ignore the ones who don't. When you have their proposals and your own COMPLETE independent water test to compare their water tests to, post your findings and their quotes so we might be of assistance. With the specific problems with your water identified and properly treated all the water for the house will be "safe". For many people that is adequate. For some, and I am among them, I also have an RO unit under the kitchen sink with the "extra" faucet. I use the RO water for drinking, cooking, making coffee, and the icemaker in my fridge. Sometimes I space out and drink the softened water from the kitchen faucet and it's OK for me. Living with a well is more complicated than being on a municipal water system. You take the responsibility to make the water SAFE and correct the problems that will cost you lots of money in the long run by prematurely wearing out appliances, plumbing, water heaters, and such or make you and your family sick. Living on a well requires some education, some training, and doing some routine maintainence on the treatment devices. A softener will require periodic cleaning of the brine tank which is EZ and no big deal. If your softener is a big box store softener (like a Sears softener) it's harder to clean out the brine tank but you can do it. You'll need to make sure there is salt or potassium (whichever you decide to use) in the brine tank sufficent to cover the water in there. RO units require filter changes which are not hard to do. Your water quality is IMPORTANT. Take your time. Ask questions.

Leaks from the air gap on the faucet are usually a clogged drain tube. I have never seen a problem in the RO cause that. Can also be that there's dirt in the faucet nipple that the drain line goes on. Mung can accumulate in the drain line and it has to be completely clear. If you can't easily disconnect the 3/8" drain line at the faucet and clean it DOWN from there then you have to disconnect it at the drain and clean it UP from there. I have a really tiny bottle brush that works great for that but I can't remember where I got it. Make sure the drain tube has as direct and downward slope to the drain connection as space allows but NO lateral or up routing.. If you have a saddle type connection on the drain vertical at the drain tube-drain loosen the compression nut and try to slide the tube just a touch into the drain. If you get a flashlight you can usually see the tip of the tube looking down the sink drain. You may have to drill out the saddle but moving the tube slightly into the vertical drain keeps it clean and slightly quiets the RO when making RO water. If the RO drain line is connected to the drain horizontal that's why it keeps getting dirty. Should be connected on the sink drain vertical..

RO systems are not that expensive really, it is the filters that makes the cost something to consider. We have well water, and regular water filtering does not do a good enough job at removing everything, so we need RO for our drinking and cooking water. We just bought two of the Brondell H20+ systems. We installed one under our sink and the other one in a pantry next to the refrigerator so we could have RO with our ice and water from the door. The system was very easy to install under the sink with one exception. We had to buy a special connector for the on/off water valve (which is included with the system) to the water supply. It seemed like it would work, but when we hooked up our Karbon faucet, it leaked until we found a better connector. Basically you have to have your cold water going into the RO system, and then you need to drain the waste water line into your sink drain. You also need the output line going to the faucet which is included with the RO system when you buy it. The instructions where very clear on what to do. The refrigerator RO system was a little more complicated because we didn't have a faucet and we needed to figure out how to drain the water. We ended up with a long line going into the basement and then back up to our sink. We are very happy with this system at the sink. The design is very clean and it looks like it will be easy to change filters. The refrigerator one is working fine, but the water comes out of the refrigerator pretty slowly. The filters are not cheap, and I am hoping we can get by with changing them less often than every 6 months since we have 2 systems. They were the cheapest to purchase at Brookstone.