Comparing Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment and Reviews Discussed

People who live on a property plagued with water sources infiltrated with salt cannot give enough praise in their reverse osmosis reviews. Anyone would have to concede to RO systems' ability to clean up such water. For people who do not have that problem, however, the bulky, expensive RO systems are difficult to justify. In this article we want to make a reverse osmosis water treatment comparison with today's more modern technology.

In large areas of the U.S., people are dealing with brackish water, or water with high mineral content. I have been offered such water that I just could not drink due to the strong taste or smell. I have also tasted the water after it was filtered with a RO system and, although the owner's though it tasted great, I always found it to be "stale" tasting.

A flat or stale taste with filtered water can be tolerated, but it does indicate another issue. You see, the funny taste comes from the lack of minerals in the newly filtered water. RO systems do a very good job of removing minerals...too many minerals, perhaps. We need minerals like potassium and calcium for good health and water needs minerals to remain neutral. Water without minerals is a bit acidic and it will attempt to regain neutrality by swiping calcium from our cells, teeth and bones. Osteoporosis suffers may want to consider mineral supplements or food additives if they are drinking water from an RO system.

Cancer specialists have weighed in on this also, saying they also believe such water is potentially dangerous since it creates a slightly acidic state in the body and cancer is believed to thrive only in a slightly acidic environment.

RO systems filter by forcing water through a semi-permeable membrane. Any molecules larger than water molecules are separated out and removed. The amount of force required may necessitate an auxiliary pump and it is a something you will want to ask about before you buy.

Even 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.

Chlorine, a poison, is used to kill any bacteria in our well water, or our city water, and, since chlorine molecules are smaller than water's, they will not be filtered out using a RO system. Neither will any of the thousands of synthetic organic chemicals that trouble our water supplies today. To remove these items, RO systems must be used together with carbon filtration.

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.

When these units are assembled with the filters, pump (if needed), storage tank, etc., there are a lot of things to go wrong and the largest areas of gripes in the reverse osmosis reviews is over maintenance costs and start up costs.

Most of us get our chlorinated water from a water utility or a well that doesn't have a salt water problem. If this is true for you, I would recommend you take a look at a selective filtration system, which is also called a mult-stage system.

These systems use a chemically charged resin which is blended with carbon and extruded into a solid block form. This combination produces an amazingly effective filter technology. In simple English, the bad water flows into the filter system from one end, using normal water pressure, and the carbon removes the bad taste, bad smells, chemicals and drugs. Then the resin, through an ion exchange process, filters out the heavy metals such as lead and mercury, but leaves the healthy minerals like calcium and potassium. After that, you get good, healthy water flowing from the other end of the system.

And, it's all done with no pumps, no storage tanks, no extra maintenance or operating costs, and no need for mineral supplements.