Useless Conversation

[voodoolily]

It comes in it's own carrying case that doesn't fill up your dishwasher.

Do you recycle all that?  Also get a filter.  You can get one that sits at the beginning of your plumbing so you don't have a faucet that looks like it wants to eat you.  I actually drink tap water all the time.

<soapbox>

JESUS fucking Christ THIS. Seriously. Those bottles are a fucking mess. They are recyclable, yes, but it's still very polluting to produce them. And it takes a LOT of energy to transport them to the store, to your house, etc. We have a filter built in to our fridge, so we have clean water at the ready. If we didn't have this we'd just get a PUR installed under the kitchen sink.

</soapbox>

[Signe]

I can't install anything in this rented house.  It's in the lease.  We've decided to try one of the faucet filters.  I agree about plastic.  I would prefer it all to disappear from the world, especially those horrible plastic thingies around six packs of soda that strangle wildlife.  I have much guilt over my bottled water.  My sister has some strange contraption that captures moisture from the air and deposits it in a container.  I don't know what it's called but it doesn't make enough water for me anyway.

[Merusk]

If the PUR doesn't work you could always buy a water cooler and service it like offices.  It's probably cheaper per month than the bottles and they reuse/ recycle the large bottles on top.

[rattran]

I use an under-the-sink filter, replace the $30 filter every 6 months, and it makes the water drinkable. I used to have a pur faucet filter, but it always seemed to be in the way.

When I'm on the road, I drink distilled water by the gallon.

[Righ]

JESUS fucking Christ THIS. Seriously. Those bottles are a fucking mess. They are recyclable, yes, but it's still very polluting to produce them. And it takes a LOT of energy to transport them to the store, to your house, etc. We have a filter built in to our fridge, so we have clean water at the ready. If we didn't have this we'd just get a PUR installed under the kitchen sink.

While you're still in an eco-rant frame of mind, I just wanted to point out that the replaceable filter cartridge in the PUR filters are not recyclable - they are 100% landfill. We don't own our fridge or plumbing, since we rent, so faucet filter is the best we can do to cut down on those nasty recyclable bottles. I'm looking at the Brita ones now.

[Simond]

I never got the whole water filter thing. Mind you, the local tapwater tastes quite nice, apparently. 

[Johny Cee]

I use an under-the-sink filter, replace the $30 filter every 6 months, and it makes the water drinkable. I used to have a pur faucet filter, but it always seemed to be in the way.

When I'm on the road, I drink distilled water by the gallon.

Distilled water?  Isn't that the type of water that tastes like complete ass,  since they remove the trace amounts of minerals that gives it taste?

[Signe]

Distilled water isn't really good for you unless you're doing some sort of detox thingy.  It's great for your  iron, though.  If you are inclined towards ironing.  Which I'm not.

[Samwise]

I never got the whole water filter thing. Mind you, the local tapwater tastes quite nice, apparently. 

That just proves that overpaid wine and food critics don't have functioning tastebuds IMO.  London tap water tastes like the Thames smells.  Whenever I visit there I load up on great big bottles of Volvic and keep them stashed in my hotel room.

Then again they say that everyone's tap water has its own particular type of funk and everyone thinks of their own tap water as being the good stuff.

[rattran]

I travel a lot, and find most tap and bottled water to be awful. Sure it may be safe, but it tastes like crap. The filtered stuff is ok, it makes a fine pot of coffee.

Distilled water has no taste. It's wet, I drink/cook/make coffee with it. Everything is fine. If I need minerals, that's what food is for.

[voodoolily]

I just wanted to point out that the replaceable filter cartridge in the PUR filters are not recyclable - they are 100% landfill.

 

[Trippy]

JESUS fucking Christ THIS. Seriously. Those bottles are a fucking mess. They are recyclable, yes, but it's still very polluting to produce them. And it takes a LOT of energy to transport them to the store, to your house, etc. We have a filter built in to our fridge, so we have clean water at the ready. If we didn't have this we'd just get a PUR installed under the kitchen sink.

While you're still in an eco-rant frame of mind, I just wanted to point out that the replaceable filter cartridge in the PUR filters are not recyclable - they are 100% landfill. We don't own our fridge or plumbing, since we rent, so faucet filter is the best we can do to cut down on those nasty recyclable bottles. I'm looking at the Brita ones now.

Do not get this one:

Brita 35214 Base Faucet Filtration System

The knob on the side is very difficult to turn and if the attachment isn't totally secure or the thread isn't long enough on the faucet the thing will keep coming off. I ditched the one on my kitchen faucet for this Pur:

PUR FM-3700 3 Stage Vertical Faucet Mount with Filter Chrome

It's much more secure on my faucet and it's obvious when it's in filter mode, unlike the "knob" versions.

I still have the above Brita on my bathroom sink faucet (I bought 2 at one time) cause that one is attached more securely but it's still a two handed operation to actually turn the knob.

There are also various standards for water filtration with NSF 42 and NSF 53 being the most applicable to household carbon water filters. Brita does a very good job of hiding which standards, if any, their filters conform too. Companies like Pur do a better job (though still not great) of showing you which of their filters do what. If you can try to get something that will filter out as many of the items in NSF 53 as possible.

NSF has a Web page you can use to help you search for such products:

http://www.nsf.org/certified/dwtu/

Select NSF 53 from the drop down near the bottom of the page and select a type of product you are interested in (like faucet mounts).

Also Brita filters are recyclable now.

[Trippy]

I never got the whole water filter thing. Mind you, the local tapwater tastes quite nice, apparently. 

Some places, even with extremely good water, put a lot of chlorine and other crap in the water, just because. E.g. San Francisco and some other parts of the Bay Area (including the city I used to live in) effectively gets its water from the Sierras, as in the Sierra snow melt runoff via the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. Unfortunately depending on the whims of the water treatment plant they sometimes dump a whole crap load of chlorine into the water supply. There was a period of time a while back that it was so bad I switched to drinking bottled water.

[Yegolev]

My sister has some strange contraption that captures moisture from the air and deposits it in a container.  I don't know what it's called but it doesn't make enough water for me anyway.

Well, it could be an old-fashioned moisture farm, or one of those new-fangled Fremen jobs that you wear.

If you have a lot of chlorine in your water, boiling it can help.

[Signe]

If I have to boil my water every time I want to drink some, I might as well drink tea.  That much tea will probably kill me faster than the nasty taste of the water here. 

So I want to stop drinking bottled water because of the plastic and then find out that the filter cartridge in most of them is even worse.  We just can't win!  I'm letting Righ work it out.  It's giving me a headache.

And my sister doesn't live on Tatooine! 

[Trippy]

They also make counter-top reverse osmosis systems in case you don't think a carbon filter will give you pure enough water. That allows you to get around the "no messing with the plumbing" clause of your lease that an under-the-sink system would violate. They're still pretty pricey, though.

[apocrypha]

Distilled water isn't really good for you unless you're doing some sort of detox thingy. 

If you're doing any sort of detox thing then you've been hoodwinked and are wasting your time, the concept of detox is unscientific, unproven and highly marketable bollocks.

And distilled water isn't bad for you at all. The theory behind the claims that it is are that because it contains such low concentrations of minerals and electrolytes that it will leach those molecules out of your body. This is bullshit. Your body is perfectly capable of simply reabsorbing them straight back from the water and drinking water is very rarely your primary source for such things anyway. Your biggest problem if ALL you drank was distilled water would be tooth decay because you'd not be getting the fluoride but that's easily addressed.

The only sensible reasons for filtering or distilling your tap water, if you live in the developed Western world are if you are HIV+ and need to minimise infection risks, if you live in an area with large amounts of lead piping still in existence (although even then it's not a huge issue since VERY small amounts of lead make it into the water) or if you just don't like the taste of your tap water.

[FatuousTwat]

I've filtered my water since they had a giardia outbreak a few years ago and I found out that they are still using wooden pipes. At a certain time every year, the water literally smells like shit because of the algae die-off.

[bhodi]

Your biggest problem if ALL you drank was distilled water would be tooth decay because you'd not be getting the fluoride but that's easily addressed.

Not true; there are many countries that don't add fluoride to drinking water and they don't have tooth decay levels higher than those that do. After taking a closer look at this unusual phenomenon, when they then compared the quantity of fluoridated water consumed with the rate of tooth decay, they found no relationship. There are a ton of similar studies, but this is the best and the first to directly chart fluoride consumption on an individual basis to dental costs.

I'm frankly of the opinion that fluoridation of the water is at best a waste and at worst could have serious health effects. The site itself is fairly scare-tacticty, but the studies speak for themselves. Most seem to agree that any benefit to the prevention of tooth decay is from direct contact - mouthwash, essentially - those topical fluoride treatments you get at the dentist. Turns out, ingesting it doesn't really do anything for your teeth.

[Signe]

Yes, I didn't mean that distilled water is bad for you, just that it doesn't do you any good.  Filtering most water in the US probably does nothing significant healthwise, either.  Unless you live in an area where there's some kind of contamination.  I'm only interested in fixing the taste of my water and getting rid of the use of all those plastic bottles.  That's it.  I don't have a problem with tap water for any other reason.  

One of the first things I looked at was the reverse osmosis ones but that seemed a bit extreme for my reasons.  You can get cheapo ones for about $200 but I have no idea when anything needs to be replaced or how much that would cost.  My biggest reason for not bothering, however, is the fact that the small-ish space under my sink seems to be mostly taken up by a GINORMOUS garbage disposal system. 

People do those detox things - I don't know why but they do.  All the poison in your body obviously goes to your feet - just look at them! - so you'd probably be smart to make some of those home-made poison-pulling foot pads we were talking about earlier!  All you toe sucking pervs need to re-evaluate your fetishes!

[stray]

Distilled water isn't really good for you unless you're doing some sort of detox thingy. 

If you're doing any sort of detox thing then you've been hoodwinked and are wasting your time, the concept of detox is unscientific, unproven and highly marketable bollocks.

I don't know if it's in the same category, but one of my friends is a massage therapist, and she literally rings... something.. out of me. I get all jittery afterwards, feel kind of strangely high, and have to go to the restroom immediately. The first time it happened, I couldn't stop shivering.. like I just had some incredible orgasm or something.. and she told me there's a lot of dormant toxins in our muscles... so her method was basically one of loosening them out and "detoxing" me. She'll give me a lot electrolytes/gatorade afterwards as well to further that. There's got to be something to the idea of detoxing. I'm feeling something at least.

[FatuousTwat]

My filter works really well at the taste thing. It's a PUR tower. You just fill up the tank at the top (I cant remember how much water it holds), it lasts a couple of days (and I drink a lot of water), and replace the filters every 6 months or so.

Edit: Just went to go look for it, and apparently they don't make it anymore. We got it at CostCo a few years ago... I'm glad they still make the filters.

[Salamok]

I think distilled water is actually the healthiest water to drink hands down.  It was pretty much the only water i drank for about a decade, I would still be drinking it if I had the extra $30 a month to blow on water service.

[Endie]

I have a UV filter on my water, since it comes from a spring.  It tastes lovely.

[Signe]

I have a UV filter on my water, since it comes from a spring.  It tastes lovely.

When I lived in Taos and Santa Fe, I had spring water.  It really was nice.

[voodoolily]

Your biggest problem if ALL you drank was distilled water would be tooth decay because you'd not be getting the fluoride but that's easily addressed.

Not true; there are many countries that don't add fluoride to drinking water and they don't have tooth decay levels higher than those that do.

Portland doesn't fluoridate its water either, but I had lots of cavities as a kid. We had to have classroom fluoride-rinsing time after lunch every day.

[Broughden]

They also make counter-top reverse osmosis systems in case you don't think a carbon filter will give you pure enough water. That allows you to get around the "no messing with the plumbing" clause of your lease that an under-the-sink system would violate. They're still pretty pricey, though.

We have an in home reverse osmosis system for the kitchen and ice maker. Pay $9 a month rental through Culligan. They clean it and do stuff to it every 18 months or so I think.

[Pennilenko]

Distilled water isn't really good for you unless you're doing some sort of detox thingy. 

If you're doing any sort of detox thing then you've been hoodwinked and are wasting your time, the concept of detox is unscientific, unproven and highly marketable bollocks.

I don't know if it's in the same category, but one of my friends is a massage therapist, and she literally rings... something.. out of me. I get all jittery afterwards, feel kind of strangely high, and have to go to the restroom immediately. The first time it happened, I couldn't stop shivering.. like I just had some incredible orgasm or something.. and she told me there's a lot of dormant toxins in our muscles... so her method was basically one of loosening them out and "detoxing" me. She'll give me a lot electrolytes/gatorade afterwards as well to further that. There's got to be something to the idea of detoxing. I'm feeling something at least.

My wife is a massage therapist.....Lucky i know. That high you get from massage isn't some crazy form of detox, its just dopamine(sp?) and seratonin (sp?) droping on your brain from the feel good that the massage gives you. Think of it as blowing up without the X.

[Arinon]

I've been drinking RO water for over 15 years now to the point that most other water tastes like crap.  It rips out all the sulphates and tannins from the well water we get in the area. 

The local government is actually trying remove all the bottled water in municipal buildings because, well, bottles suck and city water is probably tested much more thoroughly then anything from the bottled water guys.

[apocrypha]

bhodi, you're right about the fluoridation, I should have done some more research before posting that. Nice overview here.

[NiX]

It's started to drop to around -10 (Celsius) during the day, sometimes going down to -20+ if the windchill is bad enough, at night going down to -20. My apartment uses radiators for heating, very shitty radiators. By-laws state it should be 21 degrees inside the apartment at all times. Went out and bought a thermometer today to see exactly how fucking cold it is in here with the outside temperature right now being -4 and it's 19 inside my apartment, it's not factoring in the draft from the windows that oddly enough are considered "outside" maintenance, so the landlord doesn't have to fix them.

I'll post again tonight when it'll probably drop to 16 degrees in the apartment.

[Draegan]

So an update on the whole internet date thing went on. 

Pretty damn amazing.  Spend about 14 hours with her on Saturday and I'm seeing her again tonight.  It's pretty surprising how well we mesh.  Kinda like we've known each other for a long time.

[Cheddar]

So an update on the whole internet date thing went on. 

Pretty damn amazing.  Spend about 14 hours with her on Saturday and I'm seeing her again tonight.  It's pretty surprising how well we mesh.  Kinda like we've known each other for a long time.

Its a dude.

[schild]

It's started to drop to around -10 (Celsius) during the day, sometimes going down to -20+ if the windchill is bad enough, at night going down to -20. My apartment uses radiators for heating, very shitty radiators. By-laws state it should be 21 degrees inside the apartment at all times. Went out and bought a thermometer today to see exactly how fucking cold it is in here with the outside temperature right now being -4 and it's 19 inside my apartment, it's not factoring in the draft from the windows that oddly enough are considered "outside" maintenance, so the landlord doesn't have to fix them.

I'll post again tonight when it'll probably drop to 16 degrees in the apartment.

How's the computer running?

[Oban]

Yeah, if you overclocked that thing to 4Ghz you would not have to worry about radiator heating issues.