We had an undersink system from Watts, a zero waste system. Worked great, had one spigot at the sink, and it also ran to the fridge. Once we figured out how to do the filter replacements, it ran well. We had it for about 16 years, and loved it. I highly recommend it.

First, what is in your water that you think you need to remove? What does your water test say? And why do you think you need RO? 98% of the time, it’s complete overkill.

I agree with Sophie: What is in your water that you need to remove?

I have one, but since moving haven't been able to re-install it. (Integrated sink and haven't wanted to drill an extra hole in the countertop in the new house.) We loved the taste of the water and had some specific chemicals we wanted removed from the water. I think Sophie has a great point that you should know what you want to remove from the water before deciding if RO is worth it.

To Sophie: (1) the need to not have mineral build-up in the orchid pots, (2) for cooking when there is chlorine and iron in the water and heating causes a black precipitate to form. This is at a minimum unaesthetic, particularly for tea. [These were my two original purposes.]

The water supply has lately gone from chlorine to chloramine, and I'd rather not drink it. I get plenty of fluoride from tea, so deleting the fluoride is helpful. The amount of Government mandated pH raising limestone dust spewed by the centrifugal humidifier is greatly reduced by filtering the water. Although the water supply (a lake) is protected in various ways, I doubt that all harmful substances are eliminated by the flocculation process and chloramine addition. There are too many people around it using it.

Last, off the top of my head, chemical contamination of electronics can be ameliorated and the electronics saved, in many cases, by soaking in distilled or RO water after cleaning in order to remove any conductive paths, then thoroughly drying.

I suggest that more than 98% of the time the splendid kitchens we "need" are overkill for their essential cooking functions.

Can we also discuss shoes?

We got ours because we were on a shared well and the water tasted terrible. And then the state (this wasn't local) dropped the acceptable limit for arsenic from 50 to 10 (parts per something or other), and the RO removed the arsenic.

I don't want to change the direction of this thread, but I have to ask this question of kaseki:

you said: (2) for cooking when there is chlorine and iron in the water and heating causes a black precipitate to form. This is at a minimum unaesthetic, particularly for tea.

We have had black, floating, things in the water, always when running hot water. It almost looked like tiny pieces of teflon, not quite like oil, but kind of oily looking. Was that from chlorine and iron? Or was yours different?

We put a filter on our hot water heater and that stopped the problem, but it has driven me nuts for years. When asked, none of my neighbors said they had this problem with their water so we thought it was just our water heater. I've even wondered (after noticing that black stuff in my glass AFTER drinking it) if our house was possessed.

Sorry to interrupt this topic. Please continue.

We have a Culligan RO system and love it. I see the water that goes into the tub different times that we bath in and cook in-and thus would be drinking. When it looks like someone has urinated in the tub, I don't so much embrace bathing in that, or drinking it, or cooking w/it. Or--when it looks like a woman has um..a visitor, shall I say, that's not acceptable either..That's our town water. Not all the time, but sometimes. However, according to what is allowable in water, the town water is fine, regardless that sometimes it smells like clorox coming out of the tap or the weird taste it has at times.

You don’t need RO to remove iron. I don’t think half the people evennunderstand what RO does, and how wasteful it is. I know kaseji does, because he is a researcher. But nope, not needed except in a minority of cases.

In our Florida home ALL of the water was RO. The water came from brackish wells then went thru the RO system by our water co op. They then added chlorine by law and sent it to all of the homes that are members of the co op. If you had copper pipes at some point they would get pinhole leaks as the water is looking for the missing ion.

In our Utah home, we have a tank under the sink and a separate little spigot for the RO water. the tank is not large (but takes up a lot of room with the membrane cartridges I believe in addition to the spigot for drinking water, it is also plumbed to go to the fridge. I use it for drinking and cooking. The storage tank could be larger as you can run out quickly. As it stands right now, there's very little room for anything under the sink.

Our water is extremely hard very damaging to many things. Earthenware pots with flowers and spices are basically deteriorating from the water. Everyone has a water softener around here. While you can drink the water that has gone thru the softener, it's probably not great If you're using salt pellets, it ads more sodium in your diet something many of us don't need.

I recently switched from salt pellets to Potassium Chloride. It feels much better on your skin but costs 5 x as much. The salt makes it feel as though you can't rinse the soap off in the shower. Not pleasant from my point of view. PC feels like "normal" water.

Inga

In service we see where RO systems and refrigerator icemakers are not always compatible mostly due to too small of RO tank being used and the system not able to maintain a constant supply of water. Some products like Steamers or Steam ovens recommend against using RO.

So depending on what your specific use may be you might be much better off with a good filtering system instead of RO.

Sophie,

I think you might be surprised at how many people actually do understand and know about RO systems. Our sail boat is "self sufficient" We can go anywhere without depending on marinas or other "city utililes" We have no shore power instead we have solar panels, rather than have huge water tanks which are heavy and dependent on finding "good water" in 3rd world situations. , we have a water maker I.E. RO system. It takes salt water and runs it thru the membrane which filters out the salt puts it back into the ocean and gives you fresh water to replenish your tanks.

It is an expensive way to make water but it's done in many places where salt water is plentiful and fresh water precious.

Inga

Scardy Kat:

I really wouldn't want to guess about what you were seeing. Modern regulatory impositions on water temperature may cause the hot water system to not heat up the water to the levels needed for an iron precipitate to form. In my case, given that it didn't take me long to filter my whole house against general rust, small fasteners, and other stuff my town once sent on to customers, I had to boil the water to obtain the precipitate, although -- thinking back -- that might not have been necessary before I changed from boiler heating to indirect hot water heating via a hot water storage tank. It also depended on which wells the town was using at any given time.

Mineralization effects can be seen even at swimming pool temperatures when chlorine and ions existing in the water, depending on the source, cause colorful effects.

Corrosion of plumbing can be seen with use of RO water unless polyethylene tubing is used. Faucets are also at risk. It is incumbent on the owner to test the pH of the RO water and, if necessary either use RO resistant materials, or adjust the pH after RO filtering. My RO water remains slightly alkaline, probably due to the percent or so of source water leakage that most RO filters will allow.

We researched this recently when our fridge water dispenser stopped working.

RO sounds great, until you consider that the RO water "wants" those minerals back that are removed. Just like ifoco said about the copper pipes getting pinhole leaks, our bodies can be leached of calcium, magnesium, and other minerals to remineralize the water. If you get an RO system, you must remineralize the water before drinking or cooking with it. I'm not sure about bathing.

Carbon block is what our fridge filter is. That's what we will probably get for our filtration faucet that we purchased when we got our kitchen faucet (but haven't plumbed yet). One caution I almost never read - you don't want your filtered water sitting in a tank for very long, if at all. Once the water is cleaned of many of the chemicals that we don't want in our bodies, it is more prone to bacterial or fungal/mold/mildew grown, especially in some dark tank. A friend of mine had a leak in her water filtration system, and when the plumber removed it to investigate it, he popped the top of the tank to reveal the entire top area was darkly molded and there was red stains around the water line. The red ended up being a bacteria called Serratia marcescens.

Although it most likely won't kill you, it can, according to Wikipedia, cause meningitis, pneumonia, and infections in urinary tracts, respiratory tracts, and wounds. It's also linked to problems with your peepers, so don't go rubbing that stuff on your eyeballs while you are in the shower.

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/bathroom-caulk-replacement-259166

Under the sink RO systems are in a sealed tank which only holds 3 gallons. We have had a Culligan system for over 30 years. I would not drink water from the tap.

When we lived in NY we had well water. It was so acidic it ate up our plumbing, stained everything, water tests showed it contained high amounts of nitrates and tasted vile. We had large salt-water fish aquariums and could not figure out why we would lose fish and delicate corals. When I brought water samples to be tested was when we discovered how bad our water was. We did not live in a rural area. We lived in a affluent suburb close to NYC. Large homes with large properties which were all on wells.

RO was the best thing we did. We installed a large tank in the basement to supply water going to the bathroom sinks, showers and furnace. It was not hooked to our hose or toilets.

We had under the sink RO for drinking and cooking. We always had a service contract with Culligan and they came once a year to replace the filters. I was always present and the tanks were perfectly clean. When set up, air is removed from the tanks and it is sealed. There was never any stains or colored water in them. Not sure what Allie is talking about.

We now live in Florida and before we moved in I had painters, carpet torn up, bathrooms remodeled and a Culligan RO installed on our sink and ice maker on the fridge. Florida has horrible water and we do not trust the State to report truthful water reports. Already certain areas have contaminated water supply which was discovered by independent testing.

We had a large water softener installed for everything else except we opted for a charcoal filter rather than using salt. I am a gardener and grow many orchids. I did not want anything containing salt for my garden and orchids.

As far a not getting minerals, your foods and other drinks are full of minerals. Unless you drink water from the RO exclusively, there is not a problem. I drink bottled water when out and like many of the flavored waters and sparkling waters. I'm 69 and do not suffer from any mineral deficiency nor does my husband or children who grew up on RO water.

Sorry for the long post. However when you look at the condition of the water supply in this Country, I think it is to everyone's benefit to only drink and cook with RO water.

Jane