Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration
As a child, I grew up drinking well water. As I got older, the little country community I lived in modernized and provided clean, safe, great tasting water. At least that was the claim. Right off the bat I knew I didn’t like the taste and I started drinking less and less water in favor of flavored drinks and soft drinks. Now that I’m older, I seek the potential damage such a decision can cause and I decided to drink more water.
I decided not to dig another well because of the expense and at the time, a water filtration system seemed too much money just for water. So I settled on buying water. After a couple of years of purchasing water from the local mega-store, I started adding up how much it was costing me per year. It shrinking me to find out I was paying more than if I had a filtration system.
The idea of water filtration didn’t seem so expensive any more. I started off with a basic carbon and mesh filter. Immediately I realized the same unpleasant taste was quiet there. Next I tried a water distillation device. Without a doubt, that took the abominable taste away but it also took all the taste away. The water was flat and just didn’t taste legal. Tea and coffee didn’t even taste the same. The last option I looked at was reverse osmosis. This was something totally different to me and I spent several weeks studying it.
My gargantuan concern was what the water was going to taste like. I didn’t know any one with one so all I could do was go by what I read. Some said it was a good smooth taste and others said it’s sort of flat like distilled water. I took a leap of faith, compared cost to features and purchased the best one suited for me. Now the fun begins… so to speak.
I’m a do-it-yourself type of guy so I ordered an under-the-sink kit. The instructions supplied was not written for someone who had never installed one before but I was able to secure it assembled. All that was left to do is let it run a few hours and let the tank fill up. The hours passed with very little water in the tank. More hours passed. Same result. Twenty four hours passed and nothing had changed. It was the beginning of the weekend so I was unable to call customer service and find out what was wrong. I let the system run all weekend but the tank objective wouldn’t fill up.
That following Monday I checked the system before calling customer service. Much to my surprise, I hear water trickling in the drain. There’s a waste water port, connected to the drain, the system uses to flush the membrane cartridge. It had been running water ever since I turned the system on. Who knows how many gallons was wasted. I was a bit steamed. I called customer service, described the problem and asked them if a certain automatic switching valve was the problem. They said no and asked me what’s the water pressure coming in the house. After checking, I told them about 40 pounds. I was told that was the problem and I had to get the pressure between 60 and 80 pounds. Just great. Another expense!
Increasing the water pressure coming in the house wasn’t an option for me so I bought a small pressure pump made especially for reverse osmosis filters. Curved it up and… TA DA!!! It was doing the same as before. I was not a delighted camper. I got support on the phone with customer service, described the problem again and this time was told they would call me back because they needed to mumble to their senior technician about this. About an hour later they called succor and guess what they told me? You guessed it. The problem was the automatic valve I mentioned earlier. Two days later, they rushed a new one to me. That finally fixed it but out of curiosity I removed the pressure pump to contemplate what would happen. After draining the tank, I found my existing water pressure just wasn’t enough for the system and the tank would not fill up.
In conclusion, the aggravation during installation was worth it. It educated me on the internal workings of the system and now I have all the drinking water I want. And by the method, the water taste great. The best tip I can give anyone reading this is if your existing water pressure isn’t at least 60 pounds, buy a small pressure pump for it. You can salvage them under $100 US.
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Filed under Whole House Reverse Osmosis Water Filters by on Jan 3rd, 2011. 