While the water from your well or your city water supply may be considered potable, sometimes it doesn’t always taste the best or may have a slight odor to it. This water is certainly fine for bathing and cleaning purposes but it isn’t always the most pleasant or healthy for drinking purposes. This blog is going to explore the benefits of under sink reverse osmosis gives over a pitcher or faucet type filters and give you pointers on what to look for if you choose to purchase and install an under sink reverse osmosis filter.

You’re likely reading this blog because you’re tired of buying bottled water or tired of trying to drink water that tastes or smells bad! The inexpensive pitcher or faucet filters that can be purchased will help with both taste and odor. These work by running the water through crushed, activated charcoal which adsorbs the chlorine and other constituents that can contribute to bad tastes and odors. While these filters can certainly HELP taste and odor issues, they do have their drawbacks. While activated charcoal is great for removing chlorine and some other constituents, it allows many other things to pass through that you may not want to drink or cook with.

Under sink reverse osmosis takes the pitcher/faucet type filter to the next level. Not just in convenience, but also in performance. You don’t need to wait for the water to filter or remember to fill the pitcher or wash it, and you get water that has much higher purity than any pitcher or faucet filter can offer!

While many people are worried about the chlorine in their water or sometimes heavy metals or fertilizers and pesticides, these are not the only potential contaminates for water supplies. City water supplies regularly test for pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, heavy metals, etc. Well owners can, but infrequently, have the same testing done on them. Do you know what most cities or well owners are NOT testing for?

Removing Pharmaceuticals from your drinking water.

Pharmaceuticals! “So, big deal.” You say. “It isn’t like the wells or springs that feed our water supply have a bunch of benzodiazepine or antibiotics in them…” Fortunately most wells and springs don’t have pharmaceuticals in them. However, most city water supplies come from surface water supplies like lakes or rivers. Surface water supplies are influenced by the environment around them and there are lots of pharmaceuticals going into our environment and they are getting back into us at low levels without any prescription necessary! Many recent symposiums in the drinking water industry are dedicated to discussing this issue because, not only are pharmaceuticals not being tested for in the water supply, they are not being removed from the water supply! The solution that many of those researching this problem have come to? Reverse Osmosis for the entire city water supplies would work, but is too expensive and energy intensive, especially when much of that water would be used to water lawns and wash dishes. The consensus seems to be for concerned individual water users to install under sink reverse osmosis units to provide for their drinking water needs. RO technology really does a great job of removing/reducing contaminates, including pharmaceuticals, to acceptable levels.

Removing PFAS and Hexavalent Chromium (Chrom-6 from your drinking water

PFAS? Chrom-6? What are those even? Chrom-6 is the chemical that came to light with Erin Brockovich and is carcinogenic in nature. PFAS is a a chemical associated with teflon, plastic cups, non-stick pans, fire fighting foam and various industries. Research is showing that PFAS is found in most people and that elevated levels can lead to health problems. Fortunately research shows that properly operating Reverse Osmosis filters are effective at removing more than 95% of these contaminates. But clean water is just the start and to ensure you don’t introduce various chemicals into your diet by avoiding plastic and teflon coatings in your cooking, food storage and dinnerware is an important step as well.

Keys to Purchasing an under sink Reverse Osmosis water filter

Now, if you’re going to purchase an under sink RO you’ve done some basic web searches and found that there are dozens of companies making and selling them! Some have 4 “stages” and some have 7 or more “stages.” Some have a “UV stage” I can just hear you asking “how many stages, what stages do I need, ahhh…what is a stage?”

In the context of a RO unit a stage is refers to a specific process that the water is put through. A very common RO setup has:

Pre-filter stage:

This removes any sediment, sand or particulate matter. Sometimes there can be more that one type of pre-filtration stage.

Chlorine removal stage:

This stage has granular activated charcoal and removes chlorine from the water because chlorine can degrade the reverse osmosis membrane and needs to be removed anyway to get rid of the chlorine tastes and smells!

RO stage:

Reverse osmosis membranes allows water molecules (or molecules smaller than water) to pass through the membrane. The contaminates that are too large to pass through the membrane (most contaminates) are rinsed away to the drain by a small stream of water.

pH correction stage:

Pure water from the RO membrane typically has a very low pH, this stage adds some of the healthy/natural minerals back into the water and corrects the pH to a normal/neutral range.

UV Stage:

This stage exposes the water to high intensity UV to ensure pathogenic organisms are neutralized.

There may be some other stages, but don’t fall into the trap where “more is better” when it comes to stages. When it comes to equipment, simpler is better! Many people on city water use a 4 stage under sink RO that doesn’t have the UV stage and it works absolutely fantastic, producing plenty of pure clean water for drinking and cooking with. If you’re on a well, you might consider having an under sink RO with the UV stage to ensure pathogen organism removal. One of the main things to check for as you shop is an NSF rating! This ensures that the unit has been designed and tested to comply with drinking water standards!

When you purchase an RO unit, PLEASE PURCHASE SPARE REPLACEMENT CARTRIDGES AT THE SAME TIME! There is nothing like purchasing your under sink RO unit, installing it and using for awhile, only to have it beep or flash some red lights at you telling you it is time to replace the cartridges/stages. Then, like everything else, basic maintenance is required …and you don’t know where to get the components or find out your product/parts have been discontinued and components aren’t available!

Installation of an under sink Reverse Osmosis Filter

Installing an under sink RO is not an extremely difficult task and, in most cases, doesn’t take many or specialized tools. Most under sink RO kits come with the valves and adaptors to connect water and drain lines as well as the screws and equipment for mounting the unit in the space under your sink. Most homeowners that have installed or replaced their own sink fixtures should be able to accomplish the task in a few hours. If you don’t feel comfortable with the install, most reputable plumbers should be able to complete the project in 1-2 hours.

Oakville Pump Service has helped many of our customers work with all types of filtration needs to help provide high quality water suitable for agriculture, industry as well as their homes and estates. Please contact our amazing team if we can help improve your water quality!

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