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> > Is there any taste left in the water? > With the Reverse Osmosis purified (RO) water there is no taste whatever. Just as we learned in elementary chemistry, pure water is truly tasteless. If you taste anything, there is something in it. Of course, being tasteless is no proog unto itself of water being pure, as there are some contaminants that are also tasteless. But a good RO system strips the water molecule of any and all compounds, including dissolved gas. We have a special faucet that dispenses RO water in the kitchen, and use it for all cooking and drinking purposes. > > Is it real soft water as well? Soft water on the skin feels like you > still have soap on your skin. > -- The water running throughout the rest of the house is soft water, which is nice to have. But, as for soap not coming off with soft water, well, there is a story behind that. With hard (tap) water the dissolved compounds that make the water hard (minerals, rock, etc.) prevent your skins oils from coming through the surface of your skin pores when you rinse off soap, hence the "squeaky clean" feeling you feel when rinsing off. With soft water there are no significant dissolved compunds, as nearly all such dissolved compounds are trapped by the softener crystals (later flushed out via a salt regeneration cycle). So when you rinse off soap your skin oils are allowed to come to the surface, which gives you that "soapy feeling". To test what I am telling you, one needs to get a bar of iveroy soap (pure soap, no detergents). Was your hands, then rinse in normal tap (hard) water. After rinsing smell, then taste one of your fingers. You will notice a soap smell and taste is present, indicating not all of the soap rinsed off. Now do the same thing using soft water. After rinsing with soft water smell and taste a finger. You will find there is no soap smell or taste, indicating all the soap was rinsed off - hence the "soapy feeling" is not due to the rpesence of residual soap. It is truly your natural skin oils. One can keep rinsing with soft water, to the point that the oils are also rinsed off. But, I for one, prefer to not over rinse. It took some getting used to, but after a while I found that indeed my skin was far softer feeling with a light rinsing in soft water as opposed to over rinsing to get the oils off. Other benefits of using soft water include no more hard water deposits or rings around sink, tub or commode basins, or shower walls (most folks think that is soap scum, but it isn't. It is hard water deposits that trap soap scum.). With soft ware you experience far less (and less brutal) cleaning of household items you use with tap water. You will use far less soap (detergent) for dishwashing and washing clothes. Clothes last longer as they are not being washed in water with dissolved rock (hard water is abrasive), and fabric comes out softer (you may still want to use a fabric softner if you like the fragrance of said products). Certainly soft water enhances the quality of everyday life... But, a water softener does not remove all compunds dissolved in tap water... As for the RO water, all contaminants are removed. You will use less flavoring compounds when making coffee, tea, and other beverages. Suger (or salt) will dissolve instantly, even in cold RO water. We use RO water for our icemaker also, so we do not end up getting contaminants into beverages via melting ice. We all read and hear via local and US news reports about problems that occur with tap water, whether the source be public water or private wells. Bacteria levels exceeded, new sources of contamination being found (after years of those compounds having been leeching into the public water system), parasites found (better boil the water for a few days <g>), etc. Well, we fear no such news report any longer, knowing we are purifying the water at the point of consumption. We trust no government or water utility "official" re: quality of water reports - as all they want to do is collect a paycheck and not cause panic when a problem is uncovered. We have had a few too many incidents all over the country for my comfort. The only real solution is to treat water in our home using softening and RO equipment. A softening system can be pricey, over $1,500 for a decent system with installation. Check out Home Depot, and do not go cheap. The RO systems, however, have come down in price. You can get a decent GE RO system at Home Depot for under $300 (Model PXRQ15F) or even under $200 (Model GXRM10GBL) if you want to save money and lose one level of filtration. Personally I would go for the more intense (and expensive) system, but even the less costly system will do far more than a mere Brita carbon block faucet mounted unit (A Brita-like unit is still better than nothing, but will not remove all bacteria, viruses or parasites). Invest once, do not buy twice. These RO systems used to cost over $1,500 a few years ago. But once GE entered the market with a consumer unit everything changed. We do have to use salt for the softener regeneration. And each year we replace the filters on the RO system. Every 2 or 3 years we replace the RO membrane itself. So there is a cost associated with these units, but truly nominal. I know this, when I am on my deathbed I will know I did not wind up there because of exposure to contaminants in the water I drank. When traveling we drink Aquafina or Disani water, or any other bottled water that clearly states they use Reverse Osmosis filtering. Many bottled waters are merely filtered with carbon block systems, some not at all. We try to find hotels or boutique motels that have soft water (hard to find, but we have a few in our favorite haunts). I truly hope this information is of value to my ProFox friends. Regards, Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:profoxtech- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Russell > Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 9:55 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [NF] Truth about coffee, caffeine, and the calories > > On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Gilbert M. Hale<[email protected]> > wrote: > >> So how many of you go for those beferages towards the top? mmmmmmmm > >> > > > > I could not find my favorite beverage on the chart, so I hope it is > okay > > <g>. Reverse Osmosis Purified Water. We have a water softening and > RO > > purification system in our home. Love it! I also have some rarely > touched > > bottles of wine. I may drink about 1 bottle of wine each month, > sometimes > > shared with my wife (she drinks less than I do). > ---------------------------------- > > Is there any taste left in the water? > > Is it real soft water as well? Soft water on the skin feels like you > still have soap on your skin. > -- > Stephen Russell > Sr. Production Systems Programmer > SQL Server DBA > Web and Winform Development > Independent Contractor > Memphis TN > > 901.246-0159 > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/022501ca265e$8b898fb0$a29caf...@com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
