Yeah, that's nasty looking.

I refill my dispenser all the time with filtered tap water. I'm on a private well, and my water is very hard and has some odor and flavor issues from iron bacteria (sort of fishy at times), but has no quality issues that affect health.

I just use a Brita filter. I've had both the on-tap and the pitcher kind, and both work very well to remove minerals, odor, and flavor. Only drawback is that its kind of slow, takes a while to filter five gallons.

Spring water is basically a fad, affectation, or scam. Most public supply water is just fine and most of that which is not fine can be made so with a cheap standard activated carbon filter. The better filters (larger) are the standard replacable-cartridge under-sink kind with a separate drinking/cooking water tap at the edge of the sink. The faucet-end filters are too small. A private well may have problems this filter will not deal with (numerical chances are fairly low but some areas have arsenic or radium or even uranium) and an under-sink reverse osmosis or ion-exchange (water softener) will take care of most of that. The off-the-shelf units at the "big-box" stores sell for ~$200-250, while the water-treatment companies will try to sell you a ~$2000-3000 unit you don't need. Even radon can be treated with a somewhat larger standard activated-carbon unit.

Water treatement is filled with almost but not quite as much "snake oil" and snake-oil salesmen as gardening.

Keepitlow:

Gonebananas said it better than I could. I regard the national addiction to bottled water to be just off-the-charts crazy. In nearly all locations, tap water is equal to or better than any bottled water, and has less chance of contamination. If you are concerned about the quality of your city water, have it tested by a reliable laboratory. If you object to the chlorine taste or the water has other off flavors from excessive iron or sulfur, run it through an activated carbon filter.

I recognize that GB and I hold the minority view. It is hard to go anywhere without seeing someone lugging a bottle of designer water. When gasoline prices go up a few pennies, there is a national outcry, but it seems the more expensive their water, the more people like it.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Looks like the gunk is on the outside of the bottle--so I'd clean the ring in the water cooler the bottle sits on. Probably a collection of dust/dirt, old grease, some adhesive, moisture, and bacteria and not much to do with the water.

Many of the most common bottled waters are nothing more than tap water from the public supply in the town where they are bottled, but run through a carbon filter to remove the chlorine flavor.

I prefer well water with lots of lime and a mild flavor.

I am in an area of geysers and hot water wells where the water tastes and smells of sulfur. My folks drank it thought nothing of it but my wife and I could not take it. We struggled for years with under the sink filters and water softener systems. My wife finely said no more and had me hauling bottled water for her use. Bottled water approaches the cost of gasoline and is more of a nuisance. After having my water tested the laboratory suggested I could benefit from an Ozone treatment system. It cost quite a bit to buy the components but the results are wonderful. I have been able to give up the water softener and only need to clean the tank filter once a month. If you have really bad tasting well water, look into it. Al

I'm glad I'm not the only person who had problems with well water. When we first bought this house in 2003 our major problem with Radon in the water. The problem is that radon (from all the granite ledge nearby) is liberated when it comes out of the faucets and becomes radon in the air which is the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer. We also had hard water and PH issues. One company wanted to charge about $12k to put in a system that they wouldn't even guarantee. I did all the work and put a system in myself: Radon abatement unit, calcite filter, water softener for a good amount less than 1/2 that amount. The words from the water tester person was "What the h@ll did he do to his water?!?!?". All of our water-test problem areas were fixed, and most of the other areas (which weren't awesome, but not really a problem) improved too. I love it when a plan comes together! -Glenn

{{gwi:125075}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Clearradon system

Long Island is a sand bar formed by glaciers 10,000 years ago. A huge sand filter under us. A water tester arrives weekly to a spigot next to my property. The water authority says our water tests better than bottled water which is mostly tap water btw. The water bill is under $200 a year with the whole 1/4 ac. yard on timed irrigation.

As the manager of a municipal water system, I can say this: If you doubt the quality of your water, don't pay to have it tested, go to the provider of your water and ask for (or if necessary demand) a copy of the most recent Consumer Confidence Report (CCR), or, if they don't issue those, a copy of their most recent analytical results for all that has been tested in the last 3 - 5 years. The Fed. EPA requires your supplier to supply this information upon request. In my state, CCRs are mailed out to all water customers on a yearly basis including all analytical results. That list of results is quite long.

As far as the black gunk, oxidized manganese looks very similar to that. I have only seen it on plastic once, that was on a 1 liter water bottle someone used to keep water in in their fridge. They never washed the bottle over many months time, just kept filling it up, yuk.

I take that back, I often see it lining plastic water service lines as a very thin film that is easily wiped off with my finger or flushed out with a high water flow rate.

Michael

We get our annual water report, and I'm amazed at how many different substances are checked/measured.

I'm also in the minority camp on the bottled water craze. I recognize there are people with real water quality issues that are forced to purchase bottled water, but it always amazed me they charge $1.00/bottle when it really costs 25 cents for a hundred gallons. It's comical that you can actually bottle up water and sell it to Americans. I don't have much room to talk though, drinking my share of soda pop, which is essentially bottled water with a little sugar added. Americans will buy anything.

I'm waiting for bottled air to be sold next.

Glenn,
Great pic on the construction project. You always do such neat work. Makes it a pleasure to look at.

Not sure what the black gunk is, I'd do a thorough cleaning if you want to keep with the bottled water.

We have city water, it tastes ok and I'm sure it is perfectly healthy. However, I craved the RO filtered water taste. There are a couple of bottled waters that are just RO water with minimal additions added back. My DH recently installed an under the sink RO system. I Love it!! The water tastes awesome and there is very little cost. Unfortunately RO systems do waste water though but if that is a concern there is propably a creative way that water could be saved and used (in the garden perhaps).

~Cindy

Check out freshwatersystems.com for best and cheapest solutions. Micron ratings down 1 absolute, etc, that remove pathogens. Reusable filters down to 1 micron. Flo-max brand filters have an especially long useful life. Radon problems can be handled by pumping from well into non-pressurized holding tank where radon escapes- also lengthens life of pump in hole.

Interesting thread.
We're on a well and have been drinking the delicious water since we moved in in 2005. It was a nice change to the city water we affectionately left behind inside the city limits. I have it tested pretty regularly and it has consistantly tested positive for bacteria, the naturally occuring kind found in groundwater (not e-Coli). We started using a brita filter (carbon filter) until I began asking questions on a pump and wells forum. I was unanimously told to stop using the brita filter (or PUR is the same) b/c the carbon filter provides an accelerated breeding ground for the bacteria. We looked into the very expensive filtration systems. Now we use nothing. It comes out of the well, through the tap and into our glass. Of course it is tested for all the routine stuff and passes but if you have bacteria I would seriously consider not using the carbon filters.

Michael357 said the same thing our county health well sampler fella said when I showed him the black stuff on the inside of one of my Nalgene water lids. Its oxidized manganese.

Hi Fruithack-
WeÂre quite a bit off topic, but thatÂs cool with me, if itÂs cool with everyone else.

Right... Radon will decay naturally in say a reservoir, and that's why people with city water don't usually have to worry about it. But, I think youÂd need a very big tank. The before and after testing I did on my water revealed that the filter removed 99.7% of the radon (43,000 --> 120 pCi/l). To get that type of reduction by natural decay would take about a month. (Radon half-life is about 3.8 days). Also, once youÂve pumped it up to your reservoir, the natural decay is done at atmospheric pressure so it can be vented. Thus, you need another pump to pump it back up to house pressure. (So, it may be easier on one pump, but you do need another pump)

I guess if, in my case, I wanted to settle for the EPA limit of 10,000 pCi/l, IÂd need to hold it for just a bit more than a day. The average American uses 100 gallons of water per day, so for my family of 4, I figured IÂd need a 500 gallon tank. (In my mind IÂm visualizing this as nine 55 gallon drums.) And, that would barely get me to the EPA threshold.
-Glenn

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.radon-water.com/

An environmental engineering professor with interest in water treatment told me (and I have since double checked with him) that a decent sized activated carbon filter will effectively treat radon. I was a bit incredulous, radon being an inert gas, but he said the activated carbon just had to hold it long enough to decay, so radon does not build up. The lead produced from the decay is of course tightly bound to the carbon.

There is an alternative here...

Use rain water...

There are a lot of people around the US (on other forums) that use rain water exclusively. There are some issues to overcome (gutters, storage tanks, filters) but overall it can be cheaper then digging a deep well.

Our well water is only 62ft down and very nice stuff. Its all sand around here (living next to the Mississippi River)...

thomis: don't suppose you are lucky enough to have a copy of the well log from when your well was drilled. I'm thinking about the well design and your chronic bacteria presence. There are many microorganisms that inhabit wells and the aquifers they draw from, the vast majority are no big deal as you know. Make certain to keep the well seal in good shape and screens (to prevent bugs and debris from entering the well) in place. Oh yeah, hope it never gets flooded by standing surface water. And one final warning, don't build an outhouse at the well head.

Michael

Hi Glenn- the radon is reduced in the holding tank by outgassing, not decay. Radon in well water can be under pressure, and if given a low pressure environment, will simply come out of solution into the atmosphere. The little radon remaining in the water will mostly remain there when it comes out of the tap. Radon dissolved in water poses very little health risk when ingested. You will be inhaling a little more radon in the shower. It comes down to personal preferences about assessment of health risks. The radon filter manufactures would have you believe that theirs is the only solution (kind of like the printer ink business, proprietary filters sold at a loss, and filter elements priced like gold) . I personally prefer low tech solutions whenever possible. I've read the EPA epidemiolgical studies on waterborne and airborne radon because I live in a hot zone.