apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I use Brita, and, thanks to an earlier AT post (maybe AT:NY) I now use a Soda Club machine to carbonate it -- miraculous!

I grew up drinking well water and have never been able to adjust to "city" water, so I keep a Brita on the counter so that I have filtered water at room temperature to use for cooking and tea. I have a regular pitcher in the fridge that I keep full of filtered water as well. My friends all thought I was crazy when they saw what I was doing, but now they're all doing it too.

my parents use filtered water it tastes amazing. when i moved out i had to adjust to tap water. not so bad. better for my teeth. less trips to the dentist since i moved out. :) go the tap water drinkers!

The tap water here is safe, but not great-tasting. However, I'd been putting up with it until this Fall Cure. Then I finally got my Brita pitcher up and running, and the water is so much better! I'm definitely drinking more water at home now. I have a slim-line Brita pitcher, and I keep it in the fridge. And there's a glass of water next to me as I type this!

We have an under-sink osmosis filter; the water tastes great!

We've been using the Brita on-tap system for years, and it's great. The pitchers don't work for us, mostly because we really need that red warning light to remind us to change the filter.

* Fluoride in your tap water IS NOT good for your teeth. That's a poorly supported but widely accepted myth brought to you by the chemical companies that sell the fluoride to the water authorities.
Check out www.fluoridealert.org for more info on this.

* Brita DOES NOT remove fluoride, and Brita filters are non-recyclable unless you ship them to Germany. I used to use Brita religiously but I have since dumped Brita because of the inability to remove fluoride, chlorine, and pharmaceuticals.

* Chlorine is not safe for human consumption and in the shower it dries out and ages your skin prematurely. Even breathing chlorine vapor is bad for your health.


My solution to the above problems:

1. I use a portable water distiller to remove the fluoride and most everything else (Love 4 Distiller for $140 via Ebay seller verycleanwater1691). After each gallon batch of water, there's always a slurry of smelly pasty stuff left behind in the boiling chamber which is kind of freaky. I have no idea what it is, but I'm glad I'm not drinking it. There is a branded version of the exact same distiller called Waterwise 4000 and it costs twice as much.

2. I use a slimline shower filter from Lowes ($20) to remove the chlorine. The filter lasts 6 months, and showers are chlorine-free. I actually fill my water distiller from the shower for better chlorine filtration. Distillers don't remove 100% of the chlorine so this is a good alternative.