Reviews Of Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment And A Comparison
When it comes to cleaning up salty, brackish, water from a well, or even water laced with a lot of iron, manganese, sulphur, etc., reverse osmosis reviews are very good. And, I would agree with those reviews. However, RO technology is costly and cumbersome to say the least, and, unless you have the salty water problem, there are much better systems to use. Today we will do a reverse osmosis water treatment comparison with more modern technology.
Bad tasting and/or bad smelling water is common in a lot of the US. Sometimes the brackish water, or the water with high mineral content, is just undrinkable. That same water can be cleaned up with a RO system to be very drinkable, but I have always found such water to be very stale or flat tasting.
Compared to the unfiltered water the stale water is much better, but it points to another problem. The funky taste comes from the lack of minerals in the filtered water because the RO system completely removed them. Minerals such as calcium and potassium give water its pleasant taste and they are essential to good health as well. Water without any minerals is a little acidic and it will rob calcium from our bodies in order to get back to a neutral state. Those suffering from osteoporosis may want to consider mineral supplements if they are drinking water from a RO system.
Not to belabor the point, but health officials have proven that when body fluids become more acid than alkaline there is an increased production of free radicals, thus increasing the risk of cancer.
Water is put under pressure in an RO system and forced through a membrane with very tiny pores. So tiny in fact that only molecules the size of a water molecule, or smaller, can pass. It is very crutial to the process that the water pressure be maintained and this may call for an auxiliary pump to be installed.
With adequate pressure, however achieved, much of the water still will not pass through the membrane and, with many systems, it becomes a costly waste byproduct.
The vast majority of our drinking water is "sanitized" with chlorine, a poison, and chlorine will not be removed by a RO system because the molecules are even smaller than water's and will pass thruogh the screen. The same is true of the thousands of synthetic organic chemicals found in our water supplies. To have these compounds removed a carbon filter must be used in combination with any RO system.
Water passing through a filter of any sort will somewhat reduce the water pressure and this is certainly true of the RO systems. They are very slow and, if you want filtered water for say, bathing, you will need a storage tank capable of maintaining water pressure.
The 'Rube Goldberg' combination of filters, pressurized storage tank, booster pump (maybe), and so forth, leave a lot of things to fail in these systems, and, indeed, it leads to the areas of highest complaints in reverse osmosis reviews... maintenance issues, operation costs and start-up costs.
Ninety-five percent of households in the US get their drinking water from some sort of chlorinated source such as a well or a utility company. If that's the case with you as well, you might want to compare a selective filtration system (also called multi-stage) against the RO system.
In multi-stage filtration the water flows through activated carbon that has been blended with a filter resin and compressed into a solid block. This modern technology filters out the chemicals with the carbon, the minerals leave through ion-exchange, and the rest of the bad guys get trapped with the tiny submicron filter pores. All you get is clean, healthy water with all the healthy minerals still there (by choice).
Good bye booster pumps, storage tanks, maintenance costs, operating costs and mineral supplements. Once connected to your water supply they do their thing, virtually maintenance free, giving you and your family great tasting, healthy water.
Make no mistake about it, not all filter systems are alike, as you have learned. Whatever you do, stop using your body as a filter.
David Eastham has done extensive research on such subjects as a reverse osmosis water treatment comparison to find the very best ways to provide families good, clean water. Follow him for his picks as the very best dollar for dollar buy, and the very best product overall, in water filtration systems.
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