Home water system
 

i'll admit right up front that i am being lazy and don't want to research this issue.

we have very hard water and are considering putting in some type of water softener/purifier/magicmaking machine. i hear lots of commercials hyping different types - but does anyone here have personal insight into what route may be the best to go?

Water softener for your showers, etc. and a reverse osmosis machine for drinking water. They're both fairly cheap.

do you know anything about these "whole house systems" i hear being advertised? i currently have filtered drinking water so that is cool, but want to see if there is some sort of all-in-one miracle that is worth installing.

Water softeners are "whole house" systems, but you'll still want to purify your drinking water and a reverse osmosis machine can be installed under your sink with a faucet on the top fairly cheaply and will make your water taste as good as the water you get from a store. Never trust those "Brita" water filters. You don't really need to shower with drinking water but the softener will take out some of the alkaline.

I've been battleing water that will eat stainless steel for a long time. Water softener helped some but it finally got eaten also. The latest proposal I got was a combination of trash filter-water softener-reverse osmosis filter-pump-calcium carbonate injector, for only $7k. :rolleyes:
The problem with reverse osmosis filters (from what I've read) is that they waste 3 gallons of water for each gallon they supply to the spigot. :(

I find that the PUR filer, attached directly to the faucet, does a great job of producing really tasty water.

A friend of mine has one of those. I find that the flow rate SUCKS when you have it on filter.

My house has abnormally high water pressure.

[kramer]Even in the shower? [/kramer]

Er....I'm no plumber but shouldn't hard water cause buildup, not eat through fricking steel. Do you drink that stuff?!?!? I have a vague rule about not drinking anything that can dissolve metals, call me crazy.

You're crazy!

thankyou.

No I don't drink it Jag. The high dissolved solids content plus acidity combines to create electrolysis, is the latest bullshit(?) I've been told.:confused:

I have high water pressure also (yes, even in the shower). This probably results from being about 1/4 mile from the huge Collegeville/Trappe water tower. I have a water softener which I had installed soon after purchasing the house; it's a near-necessary item in my area unless you like scraping scale off of things and replacing seals. Other than the hardness (which is actually no problem for drinking water, it just is bad for taking showers and bad for the plumbing), the only problem is the usual chlorine byproducts which a carbon filter can remove.

Water which eats stainless is indicative of high sulfur content, I believe. Nasty.

Reverse osmosis is overkill unless it's the only way you can get drinkable water. It's high-maintenance and it does waste a lot of water.