What struck me in this was not the story about rain but this:-
that you have to go to a store to get drinking water… just cant get my head around not being able to turn on a tap, fill up a glass and drink it. Now I realise that this must happen in lots of places, but I just dont think about it #-o
Stuart
Talking about rain, drinking water and all that. Here is the situation in the island where I lιve. You can not drink the tap water and it costs 1,20 euro m3 :x. Rain? no rain for 121 days 8O. Drinking water we get ready bottled and it costs 2 euro for 9 Lt. Would someone like to pay my water bill for the month? :lol: For watering trees and the garden we rely in a well in my property and big water storage tank (concrete) 40 m3. So without rain for so long " I’m running on empty".
Peter
Phoenix metro water is in general, not very good tasting. Its not bad, it just doesn’t taste very good. It is common to buy drinking water in this area as a result.
We buy water from a local shop that uses reverse osmosis to make good tasting drinking water that I put into a 5 gal water cooler which has its own cold and hot abilities. The water costs 25c a gal (or $1.25 for a full bottle). Many people buy bottled drinking water in 8oz bottles but that can cost $4.00 or more for 18 bottles.
This is common through out most of the southwest where water is obtained from the Colorado River and is heavily clorinated.
I’ve come close to having a RO unit put in under the sink, but since we are going to remodel the whole kitchen soon, no point until that is completed.
Besides wasting a lot of water, RO is a good solution for mineral content but not the best solution for chlorine taste, in fact RO filters need carbon prefilters to protect the membrane from too much chlorine.
people in the USA just love ice in their drinks too
but if you want to actualy get a drink you paid for , and not 80% ice, then you are best to say “no ice” 8O
The RO units used around here have a large carbon prefilter to deal with chlorine and other things. As for wasting water… rather that than wasting money on bottled water.
if you want decent drinking water here in South Texas. You need a RO with four to five stage filters
I have to change mine every year. Here in the summer ice is necessary here. In august and Sept our water can get pretty bad since all our water in this area is from the Rio Grande River
Coyote
Providing you get cheap clean water supply and don’t care about the waste(or water your garden with it), but if you add everything up, maintenance of the RO unit, pre filters, membrane and after filters to get all the missing stuff from the drinking water every year or sooner, it’s probably cheaper and safer to get bottled water for drinking.
Peter
Just to join in on this sidetrack…
Omaha valley water comes from the river… and tastes like it.
Just use a steam humidifer and look at the bottom of the water pan after all the water has boiled away (a brown sludge is left).
I added basic single-stage chlorine/particulate filters to all our drinking water (both bathroom cold water and frig). The under the sink chlorine filters are quite inexpensive ($20) SFM2 and easy to install. New filters are $6 and also quite easy to install.
Nice thing about this particular company (besides having filters at both Walmart and Menards) is that you can change degree of filtration by changing to the more expensive cartridages. I use the basic GAC1 filter but I could upgrade to more filtration by using CB1.
Works great and the filters let you know when you’ve neglected them (water flow is heavily restricted).
Thank goodness I have a 400 ft well that is clear, cool and tastes great with no filtration. The only drawback is no fluoride to help the kids teeth but they have tablets for that. Also pain in the a** when there is a loss of power but that’s what generators are for.
–Dave
If you really have to filter it probably be almost as effective, certainly cheaper, and would have a 1:1 water use, to just use the filters without the RO, particulate/sediment followed by carbon or combined carbon/resin. Depending on the pressure and how the RO is set up it will use maybe 5 gallons for each gallon you get out of it, and that means your prefilters are used up 5 times faster too.
Yes…but
by looking at your weather page, so far this year 143mm.
Now lets say your roof area is 200 m2, that works out to 28600 litres
If your roof area is 100m2 it is still 13300 litres, and thats a lot of drinking water.
A 11000 litre tank here cost $2000
We’re on tank water here, as there’s not town water available, and it tastes great! 
I use a RO unit to top up my tropical marine aquarium, but the ‘waste’ water from it is run back in to our water tank so that we don’t waste any of it, as it is silly just to run it out on to the ground, especially when it has already been through the filters.
Tank water by itself it not much better than town water, in fact some say that tank water is worse than town water (after you de-chlorinate it), for a marine aquarium. Since I’ve been using the RO to replace the evaporated water, it has made an improvement to the aquarium life.
I used to use RO followed by DI for mine, and that was on town water. The water is the key to success in that game though.
I do have a house with a well, it has all the iron and manganese you can drink :lol:
Also on well water here:D other than power outages i love being on well! The water is ALOT better than tap water:)
Josh
We are on a public water system here but it’s so heavily chlorinated I have to have a filter on the ice maker and refrigerator dispenser
before it’s fit to drink. The filter that’s part of the refrigerator is a little pricey for it’s size at $36.00 !
But it lasts a lot longer than the specs call for and makes for some decent drinking water when chilled.
My mom has one of the high dollar systems that filters the whole house using rock salt and filters but mine tastes just as good only downfall is taking baths in chlorine does cause your skin to itch and do funny things :lol:
causes things to fall off? :lol: :lol:
Josh
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