A carbon block filter will make your water taste and smell better, but it will not help your TDS problem. My water has a similar TDS, and my RO system gets it down to 12-15. I bought a system from Airwaterice.com for $200 several years ago. It has 3 filters (10,5, and 1 micron) in front of the RO membrane. The line coming out from the membrane is split. One line goes to a 35 gallon rubbermaid garbage can which I use to store water for the orchids. The other line goes to a carbon block filter and then to a 2 gallon pressurize tank which we use for drinking water. The garbage can has a float valve (also available from above web site) which cuts off the water when it is full. The RO system has an automatic shut off valve as well. Ongoing costs are approx $20 each year to replace all the filters. The RO membrane should be good for several years as long as you replace the filters regularly. Mine is almost 3 years old and still delivering good performance (as measured by TDS). Replacement RO membranes cost $39. RO water is not really acidic, it is very near pH 7, but since it has no salts there is no buffering capacity and adding fertilizer drops the pH precipitously. I use MSU formula for RO water and add Pro-Tekt to raise the pH to near 7. The question is, how much water do you need each week? I use approx 70 gallons per week so it is well worth it.

Well, I also understand the idea that from point A, where your whole house carbon filter removes chlorine from your water, to point B, (any faucet in your house), you have chlorine free water sitting in your pipes. How high is the risk of that water getting contaminated? Do you have to touch one of the faucets with dirty hands to create a breeding ground for bacteria or since it is present everywhere, it will start multiplying in your pipes without any direct contact? How long will it take to contaminate your water? What are the chances: 1 out of 1000 or let's say 1 out of 100,000? Even if I'm ok gambling with the latter, I'm not willing to take 1 out of 1000. Also, what would be the dangerous level of contamination for drinking? What if we use water, which is being stripped of chlorine at our garage, just for showers and brushing our teeth, never for drinking? In our case, when we put RO under our kitchen faucet, we will have chlorine water till it hits RO = perfect scenario - we will be removing chlorine right before we consume this water; it won't be sitting in pipes (I mentioned earlier that our whole house carbon set-up goes everywhere except the kitchen faucet) How about making it a habit to flush chlorine free water before drinking? Asolo offered to test his/her water. Unfortunately, the results will be inconclusive unless water will be tested every week for the duration of several months. This kind of experiment can be done by some lab which can perfom tests immediately and do it as often as they want. We are putting ourselves at risk of getting sick on daily basis by touching door knobs at work, shopping carts at stores, and even shaking hands with friends. Several years ago medical professionals used to think that common cold or flu virus would survive on these surfaces no longer than a few minutes, relatively recently they found out that it can be hours. You pick up that virus sitting there for hours, rub your eyes or pick your nose - there is a very big chance you will get sick. I would say it is 50/50, depends on how strong your immune system is. Again, are we talking about real danger when we have chlorine free water sitting in our house pipes for a few days? Some people are very sensitive to chlorine while others don't see a big deal. I wish I would not care and see no difference between chlorinated and chlorine free water, but like Asolo, I do. On the top of it, as I mentioned already, all these reports telling you about dangers of chlorine by-products are not giving me more incentive to have it in my water. So, before making my decision, I have to weigh the danger of chlorine free water being contaminated from point A to point B vs the danger of chlorine by products and just my personal preference of liking chlorine free water. I don't know what to do at this point.

I’m not a pro by training but I spent a solid 4 months (every single day) researching, reading, talking to chemical engineers at the local university, plumbers, etc. I exhausted myself day and night. I slept with my phone waiting for replies from a water chemist engineer from Germany. Stress. Bought a house with a well. Had water tested at lab and I had just about every problem imagined. Forget the local water treatment salesmen, unless you just want to make a donation. Waste of time and inefficient. I wasted a lot of time with those companies before I realized they didn’t know a damn thing. First test water for EVERYTHING! Yes, you have to go to a lab and probably spend $250.00 or more. Hardness PH bacteria levels iron sulfur and Sulphates TDS, alkalinity, manganese, everything! Get results and go from there. I had high iron, hardness, iron bacteria, dangerously high sulphates, rotten egg smell, all with a low Flow rate well. This matters! After handling all of my issues I was stuck with sulphates which is hard to deal with. R/O is the only way. This means I was going to be limited to having drinkable water in one location in my brand new house...the kitchen sink. I couldn’t even use the water dispenser or ice machine from my fridge because there was no practical way to connect an r/o system. I wanted a full house r/o where my kids could get water from their bathroom sink...but I have copper pipes so I didn’t think it was an option. ****IT IS AN OPTION no don’t have to re-pipe. BUT YOU DO HAVE TO TREAT OTHER ISSUES FIRST. Hard water doesn’t do well going into R/O system. Simply put, you r/o for the entire house and after R/O system you install another system which is a re-mineralizing the water to neutralize the PH and make it taste REALLY GOOD! The neutralized water (ph around 7-8) will not corrode anything. Water tastes just like the ph water from “smart water” You will spend some money. There will be an adjustment period while you fine tune everything. It’s worth it at the end. Licensed plumber for install. Water salesmen can not do this. Good luck. Bad water sucks, I almost put our house back on the market because nobody could figure it out. Eventually, some very kind and intelligent people helped me. They weren’t selling anything or getting anything in return. They just simply took the time to help someone in a bad situation. I am grateful and found this post and wanted to share. There is a way to fix water, no matter how bad.

Had a reverse osmosis system for 26 years, in the home we moved from this past October. That one was from a local Long Island company. In the new kitchen, in the renovated "new" house, we bought the RO system from Costco. Very reasonable price. The installer was terrific. During his first visit, he showed us a selection of RO faucets. I selected a model that matches the Kohler Artifacts main faucet, sitting next to it. Makes delicious water. In both instances, we had the RO system installed in the basement ceiling. This way, I didn't have to give up any storage space, under the sink.