Questions about choosing a drinking water filtration and chiller/heater system.
Thanks for your help as I finalize my drinking water plan for the new house!
We currently rent a standalone water cooler that holds the 5-gallon jugs. Instant chilled water is the best thing ever and instant hot has its uses in the cold months also. But with the new house I want to scrap the rental and install a filter system and my own chiller/heater.
The Plan: Install a filter system in the basement (almost directly under the kitchen sink) with lines running to a dedicated tap in the kitchen, the ice maker for the fridge, and possibly future lines to a wetbar/coffeebar or 2nd floor.
Filter Systems: Reverse Osmosis vs UltrafiltrationRO Pro vs UF: Better filtration, "clean taste" some people prefer.RO Con vs UF: Wastes water, additional filtration vs UF may be meaningless in a drinking water context, "flat taste" may actually not be better but could use remineralization filter to fix taste with additional cost, low pressure especially from basement makes it more difficult to power multiple taps especially 2nd floor but pumps or location-specific storage tanks might help, have to get specific chillers/heaters designed to handle corrosive iron-free RO water.
Do you agree with my Pro/Con list? I'm leaning towards regular filtration and skipping the RO. Can a basement UF drive a tap 2 stories up? Can an RO system drive a tap 2 stories up if I put a storage tank on the 2nd floor? Any input on filtration systems is appreciated.
Chillers/Heaters: The plan is to place under the kitchen sink and drive from the basement filtration system. It seems like there would be an advantage to have them be a single unit so the chiller could dump excess heat into the heater, but I haven't seen many of these combo units. The under-sink location is internal so I don't have good venting options. Any experience with units like the Chiller Daddy or is my lack of venting going to be a problem? Any advice on either under-sink or standalone systems for chillers/heaters? Thanks!
Posted Jul 19, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC
You can buy conversion kits for water coolers, look for bottle less coolers. Not a fan of undersink chillers/heaters. You need to make sure they are rated for RO water specifically. Anything other than stainless steel will eventually fall apart and leak. If you go that route, waterproof your cabinets. You'll thank me later.
When it comes time to decide which type of filtration you want, you need to understand what you want from it. RO specifically will significantly breduce the overall dissolved solids and improve the quality of water. UF will reduce but not to the levels of RO. Buy a TDS meter and measure the water your drinking now. The filter system that gets you closest is the one you should pick. Most RO systems will reduce the incoming TDS anywhere from 80-90%. That should help you decide.
Remineralization filters a weird thing, there is no way to control how much minerals get back into the water. Your heater/chiller and faucet will be damaged like what happens with hardwater.
As far as the pressure goes, if your concerned get a delivery pump. If you use alot of water you may need additional storage. As you draw water from the storage tank the pressure will drop substantially the emptier it gets. That can cause some ice makers and boilers to malfunction.
Thanks! I appreciate all the advice.
You don't like the under-sink options just for the issue of venting/leaking or other factors as well?
Yeah, so measuring the tds before choosing seems reasonable. If I got like 80 go with UF, 800 go with RO? What's a reasonable estimate for what level of tds should make me pick RO?
I've seen alot of nice cabinets get ruined by appliance leaks. Almost every one I've installed was removed within 2 years or less because they aren't very reliable. The vent is in the handle, do you really want steam coming out of your handle or hot water flooding inside your cabinet? Also, unless you use alot of hot water, the tap will be pointless. Microwaves do a pretty good job of heating water quickly also. Chillers are cool but again, unless you use alot of chilled water, it's pointless.
If you are on a private well or public water supply that is less than 100tds, go UF. If you want to get as close to pure water as you can, go RO.
On a side note, "What's a good TDS?" is a greatly debated subject and there are lot of opinions. The bottom line is this, a majority of the minerals we get are from the foods we eat not the water we drink. Water in it's purest form tastes like nothing and has no nutritional value. Companies will add minerals "to improve" the taste or add some curative or health benefits. All they are really doing is improving the marketability of the water.
Yeah I think the whole TDS thing is mostly bullshit. I don't care what it is as long as the water tastes good, but there's no good way to know without installing the system first. 100ppm seems reasonable to help make that decision.
We do drink a lot of chilled water, I would say 1.5 gallons a day on average. That's the most important piece of the system for me. I'll look into standalone units.