Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Reverse Osmosis Water Units - A Comparison

There are so many drawbacks to reverse osmosis water units; it's hard to decide where to begin. Let's start with installation and maintenance.

osmosis membrane

As with other purification devices, a variety of reverse osmosis systems are available. Some are designed to filter the water for the whole house. Others are strictly for kitchen use.

OSMOSIS

The ones for the kitchen require a separate faucet and drain for wastewater. Installation requires the help of a plumber for any of the reverse osmosis systems. There are kitchen counter purifiers that do not include an RO step. Those can be installed by the homeowner.

Reverse osmosis water units for the whole house require electricity. If an outlet is unavailable, you'll have to call an electrician, as well as a plumber.

Maintenance depends on the number of steps that are including in the system and the amount of water used in the home. There is no way to get an accurate estimate of how much you will spend on maintenance, but it will be costly and time consuming.

The best reverse osmosis systems for the kitchen includes three separate cartridges, each having a different lifespan. One cartridge must be changed every six months. Replacement of the other cartridges depends, again, on usage.

Figuring out when to replace them is another problem. Unless you measure the number of gallons that your family uses in the kitchen every day and keep track of that number throughout the year, there is no way to be accurate. Your protection is lost if you don't replace them on time.

The cartridges must be flushed regularly to remove build up. This is a maintenance step that is not required by other purification devices.

The cost of reverse osmosis water units that will address all of the contaminants that most of us are faced with is 9.99. That's just for a system to sit under your kitchen sink. You can get a purification device that is just as effective for about 5.

Reverse osmosis systems remove all of the minerals that are naturally present in surface and groundwater. Selective purification devices do not remove minerals, only hazardous contaminants.

Reverse osmosis water units increase water usage because of wastewater created or flushing requirements. Selective purifiers create no wastewater and only increase water usage because you want to drink more.

The taste of water that is cleaned through reverse osmosis systems is flat and unpleasant. The taste of purifiers that include an ion exchange step is like fresh mountain spring-water.

Let's see, it seems as though I have forgotten something. Oh, yes. Flushing and wastewater add to the pollution that already exists in our environment. It eventually ends up back in a stream or river, along with the contaminants that were removed by the system.

Multi-stage selective filtration traps all of the contaminants inside a disposable cartridge. You never have to touch them and they don't become additional environmental pollutants. So, make the "green" choice and skip reverse osmosis water units. That's my advice.

Reverse Osmosis Water Units - A Comparison

OSMOSIS

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