Water filtration - what do you have?

[ZX9RCAM]

This is from... four years ago? Wow. Any change in your view on this? I understand that the public drinking water in most all areas has varying levels of estrogen from women taking birth control and passing it into the sewer and the public water works doesn't filter it out.... great

Don't expect to hear from him.

 

[O.S.O.K. 1961]

Big Berkey - that's what I was thinking about on Frugals..

I've got a life straw as well - that's part of my portable kit.

I drink tap water and always have. I'm mostly concerned about getting dysentery in a bad situation.

Ha! I said the same thing! I've def changed my mind - just too much crap in the "drinking water" coming out of the tap. And I have to say that trust the government - in all of its levels much much less that I did even 4 years ago....

I have a zero filter now... I never got a Berkey - but now I see that they may have been overstating their filter performance? Google this if you want "sources" - I saw this on youtube - on a review channel and don't remember which one. But apparently, Berkey's claims of 3000 gallons for their filters was never tested.... so I don't know what other claims they make? OK somebody will want a source and will only complain if I don't supply one after bringing it up.... OK here's the YT vid - there are others too:

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Ha! I said the same thing! I've def changed my mind -

Did you not realize you quoted yourself?

You said exactly that.

 

[O.S.O.K. 1961]

Did you not realize you quoted yourself?

You said exactly that.

Yes - I was pointing out that I too said that I drink tap water.... like I was asking the other member about just upthread... so yes I quoted myself intentionally.

 

[Coyote9]

Distillation is a good purifier, it is extremely fuel intensive and only practical for scale when heating your home with a woodstove, while living in Colorado I burned about 3 cords per year. Water does boil at a lower temp at 6300' so volume would be a little less down here in Texas. When camping, we set a cast iron pot of river water on the fire every meal to reduce the amount of water we had to haul in.
Prepper ? My bolthole in Texas has nat/gas so fuel is not a problem. ssslllooowww

 

[O.S.O.K. 1961]

Coyote9, that's a good solution for remote living.

I'm in the suburbs.... and have city water that is so full of lime it's ridiculous.

I am looking at house water filtration systems - just saw an ad by a company called Leaf Water Solutions.... we will see what they come up with.

I need something pretty soon - the scale from the lime is the worst I've ever seen.

And I too have NG for the water heater, stove/oven and the heat pump but I am not confident that it will flow in a grid-down situation... isn't it ultimately driven by electric pumps? I might be wrong, I don't know.

It's like the water flowing - as long as the utility company has a back up power source for the pumps to fill the towers, the water will flow but it will likely need to be boiled as their treatment plants don't have back up power - at least that was the case in Austin the last time we had a longer power outage.

 

[PDiddy]

I have straws

 

[Lonesome Dove]

When you drink out of your water house the rubber fixes it all. Tastes damn good. Don't be worried about the contaminated crap. It'll go right through by the following day pretty much think of it like the 3 second rule when you drop something on the ground.

 

[TheDan]

I already have a counter-top distiller on the way

I'll try to do a cost analysis to see if it makes any since to use the distiller over RO, but I figure having the distiller will be handy for emergencies either way. It's variable temperature too, so it can distill... other things...

forgot to update... I've been using the distiller for over a month now. It costs about 40￠/gal at current rates, which is more than buying RO at the store, but not prohibitively so. Would have been cheaper than store bought at electricity rates a couple years ago.
I only use it for the coffee machines so they don't scale up, and for the dog.

Gripes are it's fucking slow. Takes 3-4 hours to do a whole gallon. It'll shut off when it runs out of water, but I don't like to let it go completely dry because it burns the crusty residue into the boiler liner, so it requires a little bit of baby sitting. The fan on the condenser is also kind of noisy. I don't turn it on until we're done in the kitchen for the day.

The sludge that forms at the bottom of the boiler from just a gallon of tap water is interesting. It's like white paint.

I tried it with and without the little activated charcoal filter it comes with. Without the charcoal the water tastes... burnt, for a lack of a better description. It has a soft mouth feel, but also somehow dry. It's odd. With the charcoal it tastes great. The TDS with my cheap meter measures 6ppm both with and without the charcoal.

 

[gll]

forgot to update... I've been using the distiller for over a month now. It costs about 40￠/gal at current rates, which is more than buying RO at the store, but not prohibitively so. Would have been cheaper than store bought at electricity rates a couple years ago.
I only use it for the coffee machines so they don't scale up, and for the dog.

Gripes are it's fucking slow. Takes 3-4 hours to do a whole gallon. It'll shut off when it runs out of water, but I don't like to let it go completely dry because it burns the crusty residue into the boiler liner, so it requires a little bit of baby sitting. The fan on the condenser is also kind of noisy. I don't turn it on until we're done in the kitchen for the day.

The sludge that forms at the bottom of the boiler from just a gallon of tap water is interesting. It's like white paint.

View attachment 358109

Glad it's mostly working out for you!

I distill a gallon or two most days. I use it for drinking, making tea and coffee, some in cooking, and for the dog.

My brother has one that runs dry, but mine stops with just a little bit of water in it. He uses a digital timer to turn his off, before it goes dry. They do take about 3 hours, but the time is pretty consistent, if your fill is.

I used to run multiple gallons without cleaning, but that gets to be a mess quick; then I would clean it with Sani-Vac... Big mess! Now, I use a Scotch-Brite pad on it after each run; it doesn't clean it to bare stainless, instead leaves it coated with a white film, but it's an easy clean.

My power costs 8.8 cents/kwh, so (without taking either the $25/mnth availability charge or my solar production into account), my gallon of water is a bit cheaper than yours. That's not something I really even think about, because of the convenience.

Soon as it gets a little colder, I'm going to pull out my new stove top distiller and see how it does!

 

[Grumps21]

I’ve always thought that it’s not good to drink distilled water because you are essentially flushing naturally occurring minerals from your body without replacing them. Is that wrong?

 

[TheDan]

Is that wrong?

Yes. We're not talking laboratory grade deionized water. You also probably get more than enough minerals in your diet.

 

[gll]

I’ve always thought that it’s not good to drink distilled water because you are essentially flushing naturally occurring minerals from your body without replacing them. Is that wrong?

If you saw the amount of mineral in your gallon of water, you'd know you don't need that...

The minerals you really need come from the food you eat.

 

[striker55]

Brita filter.

 

[Bwmart22]

I buy the 5 gal Primo water. There water has a 9 step process for filtering and decontaminating. They add minerals back for taste. Even removes chlorine. Buy it at Walmart for $6 a bottle. Bought a cooler there for $79 (Black Friday Sale). No more cases of bottled water for me

 

[ZX9RCAM]

I buy the 5 gal Primo water. There water has a 9 step process for filtering and decontaminating. They add minerals back for taste. Even removes chlorine. Buy it at Walmart for $6 a bottle. Bought a cooler there for $79 (Black Friday Sale). No more cases of bottled water for me

Shows $13.44/5 gal at my Walmart.

 

[no2gates]

Shows $13.44/5 gal at my Walmart.

That's a lot of money for water. I don't think I've bought any gallons of water at Walmart in a couple of years, but it used to be close to 99 cents, and the filter-filler-dispenser-thingy where you fill up your own jugs, used to be 35 cents a gallon.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

That's a lot of money for water. I don't think I've bought any gallons of water at Walmart in a couple of years, but it used to be close to 99 cents, and the filter-filler-dispenser-thingy where you fill up your own jugs, used to be 35 cents a gallon.

Well, $6/5 gal, like he said, wouldn't be too bad.
But I didn't find that price.

 

[no2gates]

Well, $6/5 gal, like he said, wouldn't be too bad.
But I didn't find that price.

Yeah, the 6 for $5 I don't have a problem with, but the Primo 5 for 13.44 is nuts. I hope that price is for the large 5 gallon container filled and you get to keep the container? If so, then it's not a bad deal.

 

[Bwmart22]

It’s $6 when you bring your bottle back for exchange. It’s $13.44 if you buy the bottle with no exchange. You can also refill your own bottle for like a $1 at the refill station there.