Drinking Water

[Rod]

Colin, I have noticed a definite improvement in the water from Albox since the new system was installed bringing water from the hills. I used to put in lots of PH minus into my pool to stabilise it but use hardly any now ( I top up from the mains ). The shower water seems better but I do use a water softener anyway.

[olly]

But what about the installation costs? You've not mentioned them.

[tandas]

Replaced our filters for the sum of 12€ this weekend water tastes fine and we have had system for 10 years so paid for itself I reckon.

[olly]

Has anyone tried working out the cost of having an osmosis system fitted + filter replacement prices per litre of water used, against buying bottled water at 99centimos for an 8 litre bottle?

[ColinC]

There hasn't been a lot of rain this year for sure.. My son and his family live in Australia, they used to live out in the sticks where there was no "town" water. They had 2 x 35,000 litre water tanks that were filled from the guttering off the roof, and came into the house via a single filter and pump. In the 3 years they lived there they never had to buy in water. If they wanted drinking water they kept some pre boiled water. For cooking of course it came to the boil and killed everything off. They are still here to tell the tale and so are millions of other Aussies and Americans etc who do the same..

Our water is delivered by tanker and is good quality and low cal. But we have rain diverted into the tank (for when we do get rain) and comes through a 3 stage filter. We don't drink it so we buy about 4 x 6 litres a week from Lidls for drinks (whether boiled or not).

I do understand that the water in Albox is particularly poor quality and I certainly wouldn't drink that straight from the tap.. It makes sense to me that if you have a reverse osmosis system to recycle the waste one way or another

[alfie]

Only problem Tetley, is that there ain't much rain around for much of the year!

[Tetley]

Just gutter rain water into a tank ,makes great tea or boil it in the oven wile the cookers on then cool it and bottle it for drinking,it aint rocket science....... :)

[Rod]

In my case the water deposit is not far away and I connected some longer pipe to it and diverted it there. If that is not possible buy a 220 ltr. water butt from Longo's or similar and run it to that. You can then use it for watering plants etc.
Just a matter of drilling a small hole through your wall under the sink to send it outside.

[Not_Asking_Much]

It was a while ago that I measured the loss on our new unit. I have slightly more important things to do generally! My test showed one gallon waste for 3 gallons available (approx) so I have no idea where the 4 gallon waste and 20 gallon waste figures come from.

However, when you consider (as I mentioned) the very small amount of water involved for personal consumption, to me it seems well worth it to have drinking water on tap. You can change the filter set yourself very easily. If you wish to re-use the waste water, it's easy to divert it under the sink. (the black pipe in our case is the waste)

Living here, we recycle just like we did in the UK, and it seems a great shame to find our local basura bin crammed full of the large plastic bottles. It takes all sorts I suppose, but it's not a huge problem to us to bag up the recyc and use the yellow and blue bins as we pass them on the main roads.

[Chrissie and Bob]

Thanks.  The Company we are buying from, to be fair, have been very very up front about the wasteage of which we were not aware; it's just that we do not want to waste such a precious commodity and are trying to find a solution to salvage ANY water that may be wasted!

[Not_Asking_Much]

There is almost as much garbage talked about RO as there is Panga. Internet forums are really NOT ideal for factual information.

Some organisations (motivated by ?) claim that 20 gallons are wasted for every one delivered. Utter tosh!

RO is fine for domestic drinking water and kitchen needs. The vast majority of your household water has no need at all for purity if you think about it. (a 5 micron filter easily suffices for that) The small amount we need to be really clean is minimal.

Additionally, I measured the waste ratio as accurately as possible with a brand new RO unit and it came to 35% waste, which is just over a third. (and you can easily reclaim that)

Think about how much people here throw away on over-watering their gardens, and other wasteful practices with water. Think about how much you personally need to be ultra clean, and you'll realise how insignificant this matter is.

What about the fuel and pollution for the supermarket run with a boot full of water bottles? What about the phenomenal amount of plastic bottle waste?

(oh, and RO removes solids AND bacteria...)   

[Chrissie and Bob]

We are thinking of having a R O system fitted.   Is your deposit close to the house?  After reading the comments a little bit wary of having one fitted now.   We had one in our previous home but did not have a water deposit which, I understand, are not the most healthy of systems?

[Rod]

Just pipe my osmosis water straight back into the deposit.

[alfie]

To go back to an old post about living in Velez Blanco, it might be cold, but at least you can drink the water straight out of the tap!

[cougar]

Stick with the bottled water, filters remove solids, but not bacteria :tiphat:

[giz]

Even that will not remove radon from the water, nothing will .  Our doctor told us use bottled water only!

[Karen4]

We stopped using ours because for every gallon of water that is drinkable it will waste around 4 gallons. Unless you are able to maybe divert this "wasted water" into the pool, for example, it really IS a total waste of resources and money.

[irish-red]

We had an osmosis fitted 10 years ago, holds 11 litres. Recommended.

[windug]

   
   Can anyone recommend a good fixed system which could hopefully make Arboleas water fit and healthy to drink?

   Perhaps bottled water is the only answer.

   Windug.