Here are some types of water treatment you might consider:

1. salt-based water softener. This removes the calcium from the water which will increase the longevity of your house pipes and fixtures as well as allow soap to work better so you don't need as much. It adds a small amount of sodium or potassium to your drinking water.

2. Reverse Osmosis filter (RO). This removes virtually everything from your water depending on the filter set. You can even get special filters for microbes. Because it is purer H2O, minerals dissolve in it easier than water that already has some minerals in it. Thus, it is sometimes called 'aggressive' water. It's just water being the 'universal solvent' that it is. Does not work well with some ice makers and some instant hot tanks. Can waste water depending on type (there are some newer ones that recover the 'waste' water and send it back in the cold water line to your hot water storage tank -- you can't use these with tankless heaters, though).

3. Carbon filters. Simple filtering, removes things like chlorine. Cheap, safe, easy. Like a Brita filter, but you can get undercounter ones.

4. Remineralization filters. For some uses, people like the taste of water with a little bit of minerals in it. This adds them back to RO water.

We have hard water (15 grains) but otherwise good city water and here is what I decided for us:

Our hard water is hard enough to be really rough on fixtures, shortening their life. Also, we decided to put in a tankless heater to reclaim house space and hard water is really bad for tankless. This is best handled with a whole house water softener. This results in a bit of sodium (or potassium, depending on the type of salt used) in your water. For water like ours, the salt load is not high enough to worry about (e.g. it results in about 120mg/L of water, about the amount in a slice of bread). Even our family member on a low sodium diet was given clearance by her doctor to drink the softened water.

Since we have otherwise safe water, we decided to skip putting in an RO unit. RO water is purer water, but because it so easily dissolves minerals, it can leech from your pipes and fixtures and is only compatible with some instant hot heaters (you want the stainless steel upgrade tank if you get Everhot). For those whose coffee preferences align with SCAA/coffeegeek type preferences, RO water also makes lousy coffee if you don't also add a remineralization filter. You want some TDS. Softened water is fine (maybe a little less good than RO water that is then remineralized, but probably not different enough to tell in a blind test if you have reasonably good city water under, say, 25 grains).

Also, if you have hard water, it will be really brutal on any RO filter if you don't soften it first. You can do it, but you will go through filters fast.

I'd recommend getting your water testing to see both how hard it is and whether there is anything in it you'd like filtered out, and then deciding.

like fori, we have ISE hot/cold on sink, use it all the time and our fridge has filter which is good for ice and cold water. If it's a prep sink it may not have power if there's no disposal which probably means getting an electrician to have either a tap-off or a dedicated line run for the heater power. The plumbing aspects required moderate diy skills, more some awkward reaching around the existing plumbing as ours is on main sink so there's dw and disposal to work around. the tank is moderately large and the supply runs are short. for me there was a learning curve that a plumber would already have. I use the hot as a pot filler (a little slow but helpful), really helpful for cooking tasks like rice and other ones where hot water needs to be added. Would not work well for filling pots larger than about 3 qts. as that exceeds the tank capacity as well as takes a while. Was dw's idea, I initially thought it was more of a frill and she was right--it's a helpful appliance.

Zartemis --> thank you for the water filtration 101. Really appreciate it. Based on my city water quality reports, my water hardness in summer (328 ppm or 19 grains) is quite a bit higher than in winter(113 ppm or 6.6 grains ). So perhaps a whole house water softener is a good idea for us.

The water filtration itself is only for potatble water in the kitchen. I think an RO unit may be overkill for us.. all I am looking for is safe good tasting water.

teachmkt --> We do plan to have a garbage disposal in the prep sink and will have power in the sink base cabinet.

Fori --> I have an all fridge/all freezer set up and I was thinking it would be a good idea to pipe filtered water to the freezer, the instant hot cold and the pot filler. My very rudimentary flow is below

Incoming water line --> Water filter (type?) --> filtered water goes to the following

a. Miele Freezer
b. Instant Hot/ Cold faucet in prep sink
c. Pot Filler

When we purchased our home it had instant hot water in the sink. I wanted to add a filter and purifier for only the cold water supply to the sink. I had them put into the garage and broke the cold water line to the kitchen so the water goes first through a 1 micron filter and then through a large charcoal type purifier and then just to the kitchen. Under the sink, the hot water dispenser and the refrigerator ice maker/water dispenser are fed from the purified water line. Of course there is another purifier built into the refrigerator, but I assume it lasts twice as long since the feed water is already purified.

Hardness 6.6 -19 is an unusually wide range. My personal opinion is to soften above 3-4 grains but other people have different thresholds. A softener will solve a lot of problems lines/machines-wise but many people don't care for its taste -- which is where additional filtration can help. Activated charcoal filter kills the chlorine and if the taste is still unacceptable added-mineral "taste filters" may get you where you want to be without going to RO.

Some softeners incorporate charcoal stacks within the unit itself (my Kineticos do this) but most do not. In any event, your detergent and other product usage will drop dramatically and your water-using appliances will last longer.

If your concern is taste only, there are simpler/cheaper ways to do it via specific filtration.

Where I live, the city water tastes awful. I have whole-house softener plus RO to solve the problem. Other locations don't have my issues. However, I do regard household water supply and drinking/food-prep water as basic to my life. I think they're worth making right. Depending on your situation it may cost a lot or very little to make it OK with you.

If you want to do it right, get an independent water test so you know exactly what you're dealing with and go from there. There are filter-products available all over the internet to address whatever you may need depending on what your test results show.

How long have you been living with the hard water? A water softener is a big change -- you have to regularly buy and fill it with salt. We just put in a Kinetico (it was about 2 times the cost of other brands, but we were very much impressed with our local Kinetico company, and not so impressed with the 2 independent water softener companies we talked to (who use Clack, which would have worked just as well)) and are very happy with it, but we've lived with the hard water for decades here, so it isn't critical to soften in most cases, just nice.

Have you used a Brita filter or similar? If that improves the taste enough for you (removing chlorine, etc), then you are correct that an RO would probably be overkill for you. A simple undercounter charcoal filter will do nicely and will not cause any problems with an instant hot or your appliances (beyond the expected scaling issues that hard water causes normally). But do check your freezer manual, since as fori mentioned, many already have a filter.

As for the pot filler, if it is mainly chlorine affecting the smell/taste of your unfiltered water, then you don't need to filter the pot filler water since chlorine and any VOCs will evaporate out when you boil the water anyway. You could boil two batches of water: one filled with Brita filtered water and one with straight tap to see if you care about or even perceive the difference.

FWIW, Consumer Reports has ratings for water filters if you are a member of their site. They recommend the Omni CBF3 as having a good flow rate and decent filtration. Their testing listed 2 others as better filterers but with worse flow rate.

asolo - I was confused about the variance in hardness as well and we talked to the water district. Where we live in CA, we actually get well water in the pipes for 6 months and cal water district water ( from sierras) the other 6 months. Hence the variance. I just got the test collection kit for independent testing and plan to drop it off this week. I agree that water quality is key and I want to prioritize this investment.

Zartrmis - the kinetico guy came this morning and per his tests today, it was 9 grains. He recommended a softener, especially as we want to do a tankless water heater. We have not lived in the house yet ( waiting for the remodel) currently we use a Britta in the cottage we are staying at during the remodel. I do lik the taste of Britta water better than the tap water. Good point about boiling. I am thinking we can do the softener now and maybe do the filtration later - I am not convinced about need for RO. seems to make the water "aggressive". We do want to do a instant hot and cold faucet and I am assuming as long as the water is soft, we can do the filtration later. The guy said that as long as we use NSF certified pLumbing fixtures for the instant hot/ cold and the pot filler we can do an RO system( if we want to do it). The kinectico softener was $2280 for purchase and the K5 water filtration was $3990.00. I will check the freezer manual to see if it has a filtration. We are undecided between miele all freezer or under counter freezer drawers.

I don't know if this will help you, but I have a setup similar to what you mentioned above. I'm installing a Watts RO system. The system will feed a Tomlinson hot/cold faucet. The way this works is the faucet has three tubes. RO water enters the faucet in one tube. Then from the faucet to the instant hot. Finally from the instant hot back to the faucet. Prior to the faucet, the RO is also split to feed the freezer and a pot filler.

The original plan was to feed the pot filler from regular tap water. My reasoning was twofold. First the water gets boiled so I don't think RO will make that much of a difference. Secondly, I doubt there would be enough pressure. But the plumber insisted that the pressure would be fine. He's going to connect the RO system to the 1/2 pex feeding the freezer and pot filler. I'll know in a couple of weeks if this all works. I told the plumber that if it doesn't work, he'd have to eat the cost to change it.

I have a reverse osmosis filter system feeding a faucet at the main sink, a faucet at the prep sink, refrigerator ice maker, a future family room sink, a humidifier, and a watering wand. As it happens, my town water is nearby city water, drawn from a lake. It is soft, but made alkaline per Government mandate. Post RO, it is still slightly alkaline, so metal leaching will not be a problem. (Nore have I observed any, after years of RO operation.)

Note, the aggessiveness (polar moment) of water with trace minerals is not significantly less than that of pure water, all else being equal; it is acidity that is the cause of metal leaching. Many water sources, post RO, will be acidic, and these should be treated by an appropriate mineral cartridge before being supplied to fixtures that use parts with leachable metals. Such cartridges are available from the major RO suppliers, such as Spectrapure.

Simple RO systems flow filtered source water through a membrane and thence to a faucet, or perhaps to a storage tank and thence to a faucet. The membrane output is proportional to the differential pressure, so typically such systems have low flow rate and or low pressure. They typically come with a suitable low flow, acid resistant faucet.

More complex systems use pumps to keep the membrane output pressure low and system pressure high. This is the type I use. (The pump is driven by the waste water flow.) I can get a good flow rate through a pot filler faucet. My household supply pressure is 98 psi, my membrane input pressure is 65 psi, and my RO storage tank pressure is also 65 psi. The two membranes in series/parallel can supply about 6 gal/hr of RO treated water.

kas

jscoute:

As far as I know, all the approved fittings for 1/2-inch PEX are metal, usually some form of brass. These can leach zinc if the water is too acidic, in one manufacturer's case leading to multiple lawsuits when household plumbing catastrophically failed. So your RO system output should be tested for pH and corrected if necessary.

Usually, one can get adequate flow from 3/8 polyethylene food service grade tubing. This stuff can be connected using push-on John Guest style plastic fittings and not have any risk of leaching. However, if one wants the flow rate performance of half-inch tubing from a suitable pressure tank, then PEX is the way to go so long as the acidity issue is corrected.

One source of polyethylene tubing and John Guest type fittings is Portage Specialties; another is McMaster-Carr.

kas

lalitha, we are also in CA and have mixed source water that varies in hardness, though not as predictably as yours. If you set the Kinetico to cover the max hardness, then when your water is softer it will just regenerate too frequently and waste water and salt, it won't harm the water or not soften it enough. Or you could test your water monthly and change the disk appropriately. Ask your Kinetico person about it -- ours was very knowledgeable.

I think your plan to start with the softener and then wait on the RO is smart (especially if you want to go tankless). The Kinetico RO is a fine choice, but comes with a price premium. However, they do offer the mineral cartridge as a standard option when others usually don't -- you'd have to add that separately to most other systems if you wanted that part.

Kinetico RO.....Highly recommend the K5W unit....the one with the "water-on-water" storage tank, which I believe is Kinetico exclusive. Much superior to their own or anyone else's air-bladder tanks. Uses line water-pressure for delivery so no drop-off in flow rate from full to empty. Also refills with zero back-pressure so replenishment is much faster and with much less wasted water.

I've had two of them at different locations for more than a year. 2.7 gallons capacity. Flows about 1.2 gallons per minute at my 65psi line pressure. Refills from empty in under an hour. Far superior to previous (or current) air-bladder tank. Worth every penny of the extra in terms of convenience IMHO. (Had previous Kinetico RO units for 18 years with zero problems. Responded to their exchange-discount offer.)

Kinetico is high-end supplier but they absolutely do hold up their end of the bargain in my experience. They did everything. I did nothing.

Thanks for your always helpful posts, Kas. I forgot to mention that I do have a pump in my RO system. So I guess the flow rate to the pot filler should be adequate. I did do a search for John Guest 1/2" fittings and found something like this:

http://www.pexsupply.com/John-Guest-Twist-Lock-Speedfit-Fittings-14370000

Will this suffice? If so, I'll be sure to talk to the plumber to make sure we're on the same page. I think the only part that will have to stay metal is the fitting from the pex to the nipple to the faucet. It think it needs to be metal in order to be strong enough to support the weight of the installation, right?

Lalitha, sorry to hijack your thread. I do hope all the feedback is at least relevant to your original post.

I stand corrected; looks like plastic John Guest fittings are available in 1/2-inch size, and the only issue would be to confirm with PexSupply that these work with PEX as the descriptive wording hints without saying so explicitly.

The pex has to connect somehow to the faucet. I would recommend a flexible reinforced plastic connector hose of the type commonly available in any hardware store. A John Guest type fitting for PEX to whatever male thread fits the connector hose most likely exists as a fitting, although I didn't see one listed at PexSupply. The PEX tubing should be fixed to the cabinet with a Pex standoff support, and the hose then compensates for any flexure between pex and faucet. See link illustration, top left

kas

Here is a link that might be useful: Push-to-Connect Tube Fittings

Have you heard about the quatreau. See www.quatreau.co.uk. Surely it's available in US. Or one similar. I've got a quooker which filters and boils.

Dippy.

New developments in instant hot are that you get BOILING instead of hot water. Don't buy just hot water one cos they are going out of fashion. Quooker brand are definitely available in the US so might be appliance for you.

Dippy

Thanks you all for the great advice.

Any other recommendations for specific brands/ models for filters, hot/cold faucets and instant hot tanks? Kinetico and Everhot are recommended above. Any others I should consider? I am hoping to do some cost comparison and narrow it down to a good quality affordable unit.

Lalitha

Grohe is bringing out a "Red" faucet. Check it out.

We have used Kitchenaids since purchasing our home. Both the original and a new delux stainless steel model have worked well. Only problem for both is that the turn-off spring sometimes sticks and we have to jiggle the knob to turn them off. The new stainless model came with a small knob that is much harder to turn than the old base model which is also available in stainless. When we were shopping for the replacemant there were threads of people stating that ISE instants were failing prematurely. My daughter put one in her house and it failed within a couple of years. They just gave up on the idea of instant.

Hi again. The one i have is the QUOOKER which Filters and boils the water. The price includes the tank and there is a model which includes cold filtered water. Its not at all suitable as a main faucet. It's smaller and sits to the side of the main faucet. The grohe one is totally different. It replaces the main faucet. When you are choosing be aware of this difference. The new style ones replace the faucet

Also double check if the tank is included or not. With the quooker it always is included but with the grohe its separate (but they are mostly sold as a package). Double check that there is a child protection feature because there isnt always.

Dippy