Bottled water or home filtered water?

[ilovepcot]

Are the filters for home taps, such as "PUR", able to provide as clean a drinking water as the bottled water you can buy? Can't decide which route to go.

 

[ilovepcot]

Doesn't ANYONE have an opinion? I don't have room for that big Culligan Cooler so I'm trying to find a *good* alternative. Somebody out there...please help me!

 

[anewvance]

We have a filter and love it... tastes great. But I do buy bottled water from time to time because its easier for travel out of the house. It's cheaper to do a filter though and it tastes just as good if not better then bottled water.

 

[Bob Slydell]

We do both -- a Brita pitcher plus bottled water. We use the Brita mostly for DS' formula and the bottled water for grabbing a quick drink on the way out of the house.

 

[Sthronds]

I take bottled water to work and whenever I go anywhere, but I have a reverse osmosis filter for my kitchen sink. It's great and the water is clean.

 

[golfgal]

We have reverse osmosis too. I think pretty much everyone in our town does, our city water is horrible. We have the RO system hooked up to the ice maker in the freezer too. It does filter out the fluoride so if you have kids, you should give them fluoride supplements (or as our old pediatric dentist said, the fluoride supplements are awful, just let them swallow some toothpaste once a day and they will be fine).

 

[ilovepcot]

Must look into this reverse osmosis but that will have to wait until after the holidays. For short term use I just wondered if the filters for your tap would give you as clean a water as the bottled you could buy.

 

[golfgal]

Must look into this reverse osmosis but that will have to wait until after the holidays. For short term use I just wondered if the filters for your tap would give you as clean a water as the bottled you could buy.

Our RO system was about $700 installed.

 

[GeorgeG]

The first month we were in our new home we got calls from at least a half dozen "water companies" saying they need to come out to test our water, some offering gift certificates to Home Depot, etc.. One even eluded to being the local vilage water department and several stated how Florida has some of the worst water in the country.

After the rep from the company that calls itself "The Villages Water Company" called for directions to my house I called the "real" water company to see what was up and they assured me our water met or exceeded all state standards and that they knew exactly how to get to my house. I let the rep continue and met him in the driveway to tell him I wasn't interested.

We do drink bottled water, but also drink from the tap. The bottled water tastes better, but the tap water isn't bad. I don't see a need for a filter at this point. Besides, I've been drinking it for two months now and I feel just fine... except for all those yellow and orange blotches all over my body...

 

[golfgal]

The first month we were in our new home we got calls from at least a half dozen "water companies" saying they need to come out to test our water, some offering gift certificates to Home Depot, etc.. One even eluded to being the local vilage water department and several stated how Florida has some of the worst water in the country.

After the rep from the company that calls itself "The Villages Water Company" called for directions to my house I called the "real" water company to see what was up and they assured me our water met or exceeded all state standards and that they knew exactly how to get to my house. I let the rep continue and met him in the driveway to tell him I wasn't interested.

We do drink bottled water, but also drink from the tap. The bottled water tastes better, but the tap water isn't bad. I don't see a need for a filter at this point. Besides, I've been drinking it for two months now and I feel just fine... except for all those yellow and orange blotches all over my body...

They tell us our city water "meets or exceeds standards" too but our city water is HORRIBLE. If you make coffee with it, there is a film on the top of the coffee, yuck. I grew up drinking tap water and will drink tap water pretty much everywhere but here.

 

[bicker]

There are two issues here: purity and taste. The purist water tastes horrible -- it is flat, lifeless, still. The only way to have great tasting water is to give up a little purity. The objective is that the impurities are "good impurities" -- specifically healthy minerals. They're good for you and make the water taste great.

Many water supplies have water filled with healthy minerals, and those minerals are still there even after whatever they do to treat the water. Chemical treatment leaves the minerals intact, but may lend some of their own flavor to the water, which would be bad.

Water purified by reverse osmosis is very pure, and the better the purifier is, the worse (the more "flat") the purified water tastes. Filtered water is not quite so bad; generally, home filters just remove larger impurities. Of course, that raises concerns about its purity, in some areas. Bottled drinking water actually comes in two varieites: Water purified by reverse osmosis (or some other, similar method), but remineralized (they deliberately put in specific impurities to make the water taste better), and natural spring water.

For me, on average, I don't see a difference between the two types of botteled drinking water, even though they're radically different products. I find them far better, though, than what we can get out of our sinks here in Burlington, filtered or unfiltered. We have unremineralized reverse osmosis at work, and I'd rather drink bleach.

 

[ducklite]

When I lived in NJ, my public water had a terrible chlorine taste--over the top. I put a Brita filter on my kitchen tap and resolved that issue. I didn't filter for cooking or cofee/tea, as the chlorine taste would go away when the water was heated.

In FL, well, we all know about FL water. I'll have to say where I live the water isn't terrible, even unfiltered. Better than at WDW! But still not great. We have a filter built into the dispenser in our fridge, and that water tastes very pure...in fact it tastes like Dasani.

We keep bottled water in the pantry for a grab and go as needed.

Anne

 

[Sthronds]

I just wanted to let you know that my parents just purchased a reverse osmosis filter at Costco for under $200. It will cost another $100 for installation by our favorite plumber but all in all, not as expensive as it used to be. Good luck finding something!

 

[icebrat001]

There are two issues here: purity and taste. The purist water tastes horrible -- it is flat, lifeless, still. The only way to have great tasting water is to give up a little purity. The objective is that the impurities are "good impurities" -- specifically healthy minerals. They're good for you and make the water taste great.

Many water supplies have water filled with healthy minerals, and those minerals are still there even after whatever they do to treat the water. Chemical treatment leaves the minerals intact, but may lend some of their own flavor to the water, which would be bad.

Water purified by reverse osmosis is very pure, and the better the purifier is, the worse (the more "flat") the purified water tastes. Filtered water is not quite so bad; generally, home filters just remove larger impurities. Of course, that raises concerns about its purity, in some areas. Bottled drinking water actually comes in two varieites: Water purified by reverse osmosis (or some other, similar method), but remineralized (they deliberately put in specific impurities to make the water taste better), and natural spring water.

For me, on average, I don't see a difference between the two types of botteled drinking water, even though they're radically different products. I find them far better, though, than what we can get out of our sinks here in Burlington, filtered or unfiltered. We have unremineralized reverse osmosis at work, and I'd rather drink bleach.

YOu need a new tag, one that says, Water Expert

 

[bicker]

They used to call me the Resource -- knower of lots of trivial things.

 

[Marseeya]

We had a Brita filter on our faucet and the water was GREAT with that thing. We had to get rid of it eventually because we have a free-standing dishwasher. I still miss that filter. We bought a Pur pitcher afterwards, but we didn't like it nearly as well as the Brita.

 

[ilovepcot]

Gee, so glad I returned to this thread. I learned a lot! It's my family visiting during the Christmas holidays that refuse water from the tap and I'm attempting to learn how to make a smart choice for better water. Now I can!

 

[robinb]

I have a 3 gallon rectangular container that I fill with water from the RO machine at my grocery store. I bought the container at the grocery store and it's about the size of 2 1/2 half-gallon milk containers and I keep it in my fridge. The water is 39 cents per gallon and I refill about once a week. I don't use the water for everything, just drinking.

 

[TSR6]

Brita Pitcher!

I've used it for both Florida water, and Milwaukee County water.

 

[Disney Doll]

We have a side-by-side refrigerator ( which I hate!!!!) with an ice maker and water dispenser in the door (which I love). The water is filtered through the refrigerator and it tastes the same to me at the bottled water.

I do usually have some bottled water in the house for when we go walking etc., but if I am home and want a drink, I go to the fridge dispenser.

I think as long as the water is filtered, whether is be Pur, Brita or whatever, it's probably pretty close in taste.