Home water treatment solutions (1 Viewer)

[Wade]

My wife and I are looking at putting both a water softener and a reverse osmosis system in our new home. I am having the builder put in the soft water loop and reverse osmosis line from under the sink to the refrigerator so we're ready to go for both systems. I have been reading a lot on-line about how both of these systems waste a lot of water. We've never had these systems before so I didn't know how they worked or how much water they wasted.

Can anyone recommend a water softener that regenerates based on demand and not by a set schedule? It looks like the Kenmore models do this but I'm not sure about the GE models. Any other manufacturers we should be looking at (Culligan maybe, but probably expensive). From what I understand, soft water will not be supplied to the kitchen sink or outside hose bibs. This should help to cut down on the number of regenerations. We're only a family of three right now but I'm thinking we should probably buy a little bigger unit to account for any future growth.

Is it true that reverse osmosis will waste up to ten gallons of water (depends on unit) for every one gallon of purified water? If this is the case then I may just go with a dual stage under the sink filtration system and be done with it. How do these systems compare to the reverse osmosis systems?

Is a whole house filter overkill if you're only going to be drinking water from the kitchen?

Thanks,
Wade

 

[Shawn C]

I think what you are looking for is a Kinetico system. It only operates on demand and saves water. The mechanism for determining what cycle it is currenly in is run by the water pressure going through the system. So, if you never run your water, it will just sit there.

There was a Kinetico system installed in my house when I bought it, along with an RO system under the sink for drinking water. Works great so far...Just keep filling the container in the garage with salt or potassium.

http://www.kinetico.com/residntl/index2.htm

 

[Max Leung]

According to the specs of my RO filter under my sink, yes, it will 10 times as much water as it produces. I have a tank that holds the filtered water.

It is advised that you run soft-water to your kitchen sink and/or dishwasher - supposedly it really helps with the longevity of the RO filters. Besides, soft-water for the sink is really handy anyways - cleaner dishes with less detergent!