Shore Water vs Watermakers

[rebel heart]

150 gallon tank, plus gerry cans. I've been debating about installing a water maker before we cross the pacific. It will be a few years away, so I'm hopeful the prices keep dropping and the gear gets better by then.

We have a simple Britta filter we keep next to the sink. We also have a dual stage filter on the intake side of things, but no matter what the Britta helps. It's always got gunk in the top of it (the part before the filter), so I know it's doing it's job.

As a trivia note, I had a guy tell me you can run your vodka through that thing too, since that's what they mean when they say "triple charcoal filtered".

[waterworldly]

What about Spectra's Z-Brane? From what I read, this add on to your watermaker is supposed to make pickling obsolete. It is supposed to make the membrane life much longer as well.

[GordMay]

The Bottled Water scam is perhaps the finest testament to the power of marketing and distribution, and public cupidity.

Some people think that bottled water is safer than municipal tap water, but there is NO EVIDENCE to support this. In Canada, local municipal (tap) water supplies are inspected every day, whereas bottled-water plants are inspected at three-year intervals.

Bottled water can be from ANY source, distilled, carbonated or treated in ANY manner. Ie: Dasani (owned by Coca-Cola) & Aquafina (Pepsi) are filtered municipal tap water. There are NO requirements for bottled water (Canada & USA) to contain ANYTHING (including chlorine & fluoride), other than water.

Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles have previously been labeled “PWS”, but new labels will spell out “public water source.”

For the price of one bottle of Evian, a person could use about 1,000 gallons of municipal tap water, and many consumers think nothing of paying 6 times as much per gallon of bottled H2O as they do for gasoline (or 10,000 times what they pay for their home tap water).

[drew.ward]

I had an internship with Coca-Cola when I was in college. The biggest section of the local bottling plant was the Dasani machinery -- basically the equivalent of one big water faucet. It came straight out of the municipal system got zapped with UV light and had ozone bubbled through it and that was it.

Sad part is that they own Evian - an actual proper spring water. It tastes good, and is natural. And the sad part is that Dasani and Evian cost about the same at the stores even though Evian is shipped from the Alps and Dasani is the equivalent of drinking from the backyard hose!

Those big jugs of bottled water in Mexico however are there for a reason...

[rebel heart]

The only reason I buy water in bottles anymore is for sparkeling water. I got into sparkeling because it replaces soda and even alcohol for me a lot of time. It's nice for when I want "something to drink" other than normal water.

I have a nalgene bottle I got at a tradeshow a while ago that I bring with me and keep at my desk at work. I try to drink a full one every day.