Is There a Better Option?
If you are concerned about contaminants in your home’s drinking water, the assumed best solution when researching is reverse osmosis (RO).
But why?
ROs were created for desalination, getting salt out of seawater, which isn’t exactly a problem we have in homes. They also come with a lot of disadvantages not talked about in product reviews or buyer’s guides.
So, we thought we’d give you 4 things you need to consider before purchasing a RO, and just so we’re clear, we sell ROs and have for over a dozen years. For some they are the perfect solution, but there are other options available to you that might be a better fit. We’ll show you those as well.
#1 – Source water
The harder, meaning the more minerals that are in your home's source water, the more difficulty you will have with a RO system over time. It will be subject to clogging, component issues and time spent troubleshooting. Remember, ROs were meant to be used with salt water and work via an osmotic process across the membrane. That process is different than what we usually think about with a filter, where the filter media captures contaminants, holding on to them as the water passes through.
If your home water has medium to high levels of mineral solids in the water, the prefilters and membrane will clog up pretty quickly…definitely faster than the recommended replacement cycle. That means you will need something that removes the minerals before the RO. This is where water softeners come in and why you often see them packaged together as a set. Softeners make the water more like salt water and the RO therefore works better.
There are solutions that don’t require the expense and upkeep of a softener, like a ScaleGuard prefilter, but you will need to address the source water unless you want a lot of future frustrations.
#2 – Waste water
It used to be you would be lucky to get 1 gallon of clean water for every 10 gallons of wasted "dirty" water going down the drain during the RO process. Technology has improved in this area with the advent of various pumps to improve the pressure balance across the membrane, thereby improving the clean:waste ratio, but you will still likely have a 3 or 4:1 ratio.
Water bills are not going down in the future, so this needs expense needs to considered and isn't typically found in the operating costs of buying guides. Particularly as we see some areas of the country where water usage is monitored by municipalities for what they deem as "excessive" use. ROs would not be classified as environmentally friendly.
#3 – Size and Complexity
The average RO system will have not only the main system with all the filters, but it will also have a storage tank alongside. Installation under the kitchen sink is going to take up nearly ½ of the available space. Add in a garbage disposal and things get tight.
Newer, and growing in popularity, tankless ROs have decreased that requirement down to about ¼, but to do so they have added technology inside the main unit. As with nearly everything these days, if something goes wrong with those components, you have almost no way of fixing them yourself.
Many of them will also require electricity for the various pumps, valves, monitoring gauges, etc to function correctly, so you must have an available outlet to plug in to. Then to make things even more challenging, you might run into an app based system that looks sexy before you purchase, but then encounters connectivity or other bugs.
#4 – Maintenance and troubleshooting
It is very rare to have a RO system, with all of the moving parts and components, work flawlessly all the time. You will have troubleshooting, maintenance and flow issues pop up. Some companies rely on this for their continuing contract of annual visits or on-call repair trips. Upkeep and repair needs to be factored in, making the annual operating costs higher than just buying replacement filters. Especially if the system is a higher-tech version.
The Alternative
Now that we’ve shown the negatives, how about an alternative with none of those downsides. The only situation where this would NOT work is if you have a water softener treating the water at the kitchen sink. But for any other situation, this is ideal.
It’s ceramic with a very high end carbon block inside.
Why is it better?
It’s smaller. There is no waste water. No tech, valves or moving parts to break. The source water doesn’t matter (unless it’s softened). You don’t need to pay a company to maintain it. You can install it yourself in just a few minutes.
Filtration levels of every contaminant imaginable are within a few % points of RO and in some cases even better.
Maintenance is as easy as opening the filter every few months and scrubbing it, which is kind of reassuring as well because you will see all the crap in your water that it is removing.
Even better, the cost is less than a comparable RO and the maintenance upkeep is as well.
It’s kind of bewildering how little is known about this method. Companies like Berkey and Doulton have used this method in their clunky gravity fed systems for decades, but it is waaaay more convenient as an undersink system with a dedicated faucet.
Oh, and the entire system including filters are Made in the US.
There really is no downside we can think of, and remember, we sell ROs. This is the preferred method we at Vitev chose in our homes, we utilize it at our office and warehouse. We can’t recommend it highly enough.
So, if you want a very simple solution to all of your water issues. Have piece of mind both now and in the future, ceramic is the way to go.
You can learn more about the system HERE.
