Under Bench Water Filters

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neb

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#1858076 4-Sep-2017 12:47

1101:
Easiest & cheapest is to fill up a jug of water, Leave on the bench & much of the chlorine will evaporate away (supposedly)

If I leave unfiltered water to stand it gets much worse, there's a strong chlorine taste after a few hours.

richms

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#1858380 4-Sep-2017 19:21

I find a pinch of salt also helps with gross tasting water to make it drinkable as water. Doesnt help with wanting to make coffee etc from it tho.

Richard rich.ms

Aredwood

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#1858398 4-Sep-2017 19:59

1101:

When turning on the tap, consider the first few seconds of water as unusable as that may have a buildup of chlorine , so just run the tap
a few secs first.
Easiest & cheapest is to fill up a jug of water, Leave on the bench & much of the chlorine will evaporate away (supposedly)
I used to have a water distiller: it doesnt really remove chlorine(carbon filter also needed) and takes a very long time to distill . It hasnt been used for years now

Carbon removes chlorine, it wont remove other some other nasties , so you need carbon + ion exchange filters . Then something to remove
the sodium from water that the ion-exchange puts in .
Then we put the nice water in a plastic water bottle & get other chemicals leaching in. You cant win :-)
Or we have a shower & breathe it all in away , or go swim in a pool/sit in a hot tub full of the stuff.

No need to get to anal about this, we are exposed to so many chemicals in the home & work regardless.

A combination carbon + KDF filter will remove a surprisingly large amount of any bad stuff that may be in the water. The carbon will remove the chlorine and things like organic solvents, pesticides etc. And the KDF removes heavy metals and helps to inhibit bacteria from growing in the carbon stage of the filter. Assuming the filter is rated down to 1 micron, it will also remove things like cysts.

The problem with reverse osmosis filters is that they waste alot of water. And the water they output is really aggressive, it will slowly dissolve copper pipes (and virtually anything else that can be dissolved in water), and drinking water with high copper concentrations long term is harmful.

neb

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#2935486 28-Jun-2022 16:49

Just replaced the one at the Casa and thought I'd pass on two tips from that:

Always cut off the piece that's in the quick-connect fitting rather than pulling it out and re-using it, that way you get a clean, still-flexible connecting piece that hasn't been mangled by the stainless steel teeth that lock it in place and gummed up with gunk.
Put vaseline around the outside of the piece you insert to lubricate the O-ring and improve the watertight seal.

neb

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#2935490 28-Jun-2022 16:55

Aredwood:
A combination carbon + KDF filter will remove a surprisingly large amount of any bad stuff that may be in the water. The carbon will remove the chlorine and things like organic solvents, pesticides etc. And the KDF removes heavy metals and helps to inhibit bacteria from growing in the carbon stage of the filter.

Re-reading this older post and wanted to comment:

With KDF+GAC filters beware of the fact that the water flow is in the opposite direction to what you'd expect, it goes in the thin end and out the thick end with the cap on it. Some filters are printed in such a way that the logical way to hook them up, with the text upwards, and the logical way to put them in the mounting bracket, with the thick part supporting it, is actually the wrong way round, you need the text upside down for the flow to be correct.

Totally stupid design, replaced a filter at a friend's place a few weeks back that had been installed the logical but incorrect way, so the water hit the GAC first and then went through the KDF layer, undoing the antibacterial/antifungal benefits of the KDF.

openmedia

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#2935503 28-Jun-2022 17:11

We recently had one of this fitted and we love it

- https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/puretec-undersink-mains-water-system/p/375624

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neb

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#2935511 28-Jun-2022 17:20

openmedia:
We recently had one of this fitted and we love it

- https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/puretec-undersink-mains-water-system/p/375624

How universal are the cartridges for that one? The nice thing about the generic KFG+GAC inline ones is that there's a dozen different vendors selling them so you don't have to spend 3x the price on same-brand-name replacement.

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pchs

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#2935522 28-Jun-2022 18:03

A combination carbon + KDF filter will remove a surprisingly large amount of any bad stuff that may be in the water. The carbon will remove the chlorine and things like organic solvents, pesticides etc. And the KDF removes heavy metals and helps to inhibit bacteria from growing in the carbon stage of the filter. Assuming the filter is rated down to 1 micron, it will also remove things like cysts.

The problem with reverse osmosis filters is that they waste alot of water. And the water they output is really aggressive, it will slowly dissolve copper pipes (and virtually anything else that can be dissolved in water), and drinking water with high copper concentrations long term is harmful.

I'm looking at Reverse Osmosis to filter out manganese and other hard metal dissolved solids from the water which gives it a bit of a sour/stale taste, not too concerned about wastage as we are on a bore and the waste can go back into the garden - and I'd only use it for a drinking tap - probably plumbed behind the fridge. Anyone had any experience with these and can say if it "tidy's" up the taste of the water?

zenourn

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#2935651 28-Jun-2022 19:36

pchs:

I'm looking at Reverse Osmosis to filter out manganese and other hard metal dissolved solids from the water which gives it a bit of a sour/stale taste, not too concerned about wastage as we are on a bore and the waste can go back into the garden - and I'd only use it for a drinking tap - probably plumbed behind the fridge. Anyone had any experience with these and can say if it "tidy's" up the taste of the water?

I have a reverse osmosis filter for our bore water to get rid of the nitrates (were at 50% of MAV). Only used for our drinking water, extra tap on the bench.

This is what I got: https://www.nzfilterwarehouse.com/product/312303

Works very well at removing pretty much everything from the water.

I had to add a high-pressure pump to make it work efficiently and actually store a decent amount in the tank:

https://www.amazon.com/Standard-Manifold-pressure-transformer-6840-2J03-B224/dp/B07MXR284B/

Need to replace the supplied 24VAC adapter with a NZ one (I had a spare one I could use).

MadEngineer

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#2935658 28-Jun-2022 20:02

neb:
Bung: What about running costs? We have a 10" carbon filter on the kitchen sink and to be honest now that the local council have improved their chlorine dosing tech I'm thinking of leaving the cartridge out. $35-$50 every 6 months if changed as recommended. I've seen figures for 1 700mm cartridge that rated it for 40,000 litres, about 3 months for many households.

I've run mine for 4-5 years, until I can taste that it's no longer removing the chlorine. No way you'd want to swap them out every six months unless you own shares in the manufacturing company.

not advisable considering that after a certain point the carbon starts releasing everything it caught. Fine I suppose if you’re only doing it for the taste.

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lchiu7

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#2935768 29-Jun-2022 09:23

At the risk of straying OT this post reminded me I had purchased one of these many years ago but never installed it because I had some issues with fitting it on my kitchen tap.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133414452024

Having replaced tap with a standard single spout this post spurred me to retrieve and install it. Up till now I had been using a Brita which we find a bit tedious to use and the filters are not cheap.

Anyway it installed fine and I can tell the difference in taste immediately between the filtered and unfiltered water. According to the specs the filter removes chlorine and other nasty chemicals. Plus this unit has a LED inside that flashes green when the filter is working fine and changes to amber when it needs replacing soon and red when you must replace it.

The company Teledyne Waterpik don't appear to be selling this anymore but instapure who sell what looks like an idential unit still sell catridges that fit it.

https://www.amazon.com/Instapure-ESSENTIALS-Replacement-Certified-Filtration/dp/B005OHQY8Q

And Amazon ships to NZ so I can keep on using it.

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