RO post filter question

[Twowaxhack]

Uranium ?? Wow wee

 

[ChickenRob]

Uranium ?? Wow wee

Yup. And it’s city water. I live in a small farming town in rural Massachusetts. Our water supply is a pair of deep open wells with inadequate treatment facilities.

 

[PerplexedPlumber]

An interesting project, and some unusual issues to overcome. Certainly, I agree, natural (mineralized) spring water from a karst area makes excellent coffee or drinking water. Our water tested below limits for lead and cadmium (we are in a mining area), but we installed an RO in our house rather than take a chance on an unexpected change. Would be interested in hearing how well your arrangement works out.

 

[ChickenRob]

An interesting project, and some unusual issues to overcome. Certainly, I agree, natural (mineralized) spring water from a karst area makes excellent coffee or drinking water. Our water tested below limits for lead and cadmium (we are in a mining area), but we installed an RO in our house rather than take a chance on an unexpected change. Would be interested in hearing how well your arrangement works out.

I currently run the RO water through a calcite filter to raise the pH and improve taste. I read a post on a home brewing forum in the home seltzer making section, where this mineralization filter outperformed bottled water and other filters inboth still and carbonated water for taste. Being that I like the taste of mineralized water, especially in coffee, as you mentioned, it seemed like a worthwhile experiment to try it for myself.

I’m also a home seltzer enthusiast with a continuous keg based carbonation system and kitchen tap going in as well (time to dump my Aarke). Looking forward to my own taste test.

 

[Mitchell-DIY-Guy]

A good friend of mine lived in Los Altos, CA and there was some serious water issues there, including these radioactive elements that @ChickenRob speaks of. I think it was bad enough that he had a "whole house" RO system. So, it makes perfect sense to want to totally clean up the water and then add back minerals for taste. For those that do not know, that's what Dasani bottled water is: basically purified water (don't know if they use distillation or RO) that they re-mineralize so it tastes normal.

Curiously, the radioactive elements used to be a water "benefit" (wink wink), and in Massachusetts no less! Great Radium Spring Water Co, Inc, Pittsfield, Mass bottle, a sample of the element Radium in the Periodic Table

If there was known and measurable radio-nuclides in my water, not sure I'd even want to shower in it!

 

[ChickenRob]

I have whole house filtration that gets most of it out of the water. Then I do RO at the sinks for extra safety, especially since I have to take a med with cancer risks as a side effect.

Here’s a pic of my filtration room for the whole house. The tall filters are 6.5 feet tall for scale.

and this is city water. Point of uses RO is located elsewhere. This gets the radioactive down below minimum detection levels, but the RO assures it for drinking and cooking.

 

[Mitchell-DIY-Guy]

That's a very nice, well done, clean and tidy installation.

 

[ChickenRob]

That's a very nice, well done, clean and tidy installation.

I hired a professional to do that for me. My RO system is not as pretty. Nor is the machine room it’s installed in.

 

[ChickenRob]

So I decided to rearrange the default order of the filters that come after the RO membrane, and put the remineralization filter after the RO and before the pressure tank. I have not compared the pressure in the tank with the filter in place, but I don’t think there will be a difference. The flow at the tap is definitely the same. I will say this, I drew a pitcher of water through the calcite filter yesterday, installed the new remineralization filter, flushed the filter and emptied the pressure tank, and did a taste test today. The new filter was worth the effort. The water is the best tap or bottled water I’ve had in a long time. I’ll post a schematic of my plumbing this weekend.

Thanks for the help and inspiration! I can’t wait to see how it tastes when carbonated!

 

[PerplexedPlumber]

Wow! An entire room devoted to water conditioning! Clearly you are a serious enthusiast.

So much agree with Mitchell - don't want any form of exposure if I can avoid it. But I recently ran across some information about the self-radiation treatments used by people with arthritis by going into mines for a period of time. I suppose that with any "treatment" there are risks and potential benefits. (and if there is a way to turn a hazardous waste into a profit machine, I'm sure that would be considered) I think one of those mines isn't far from you. (I don't even like to have my teeth x-rayed periodically.)

 

[ChickenRob]

Yeah, I take a drug for an autoimmune condition that makes me more susceptible to several forms of cancer and suppresses my general immune system. I’m not so much an enthusiast as just trying to survive as long as possible as healthy as possible.

That said, the up side of my obsession over this has led to some deep learning and I’ve enjoyed the ride, so I guess part of this has made made me an enthusiast.