Testing Water Filters

Just letting the water sit in open air for an hour lets most of the chlorine boil off. I used to have a recipe for making bottled water at home. You fill the bottle with tap water, then wait overnight before putting the cap on. Leaving the cap off overnight lets the chlorine escape so the water tastes better.

The absence of something in the water is never a bad thing. You obviously want less of what can harm you. Less of what benefits you doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Consider what dissolved solids are missing from bottled water… and the argument is immediately destroyed.

i only drink distilled water for the past 25+ years—a gallon per day of just plain pure water with no minerals please.

Use it to make my coffee and the coffee makers last forever without all the corrosive chemicals and reactions. Look inside your hot water heater the next time it fails to see all the minerals. Look inside the boiler of an espresso machine to see destruction if tap water is used.

don’t need any hard water extra calcium minerals to form stones in my kidneys;

don’t need any fluoride for which the body has no metabolic functional usage (i brush my teeth with fluoride toothpaste but spit it out), its a shame they poison the water supply with that stuff in the name of “modern” dentistry; and its a shame that they sell a version of distilled water with fluoride added back in and market it to parents of young kids. And 100% grape juice that you would expect to be healthy is loaded with extra fluoride from the water they use to mix the concentrate. Too much Fluoride will cause white spots to form on kids teeth.

also don’t need any chloride, iron, copper, lead or mercury, etc—yep just don’t need to drink any of that.

You do want minerals in the coffee water as they affect the coffee taste. You can even get packets of mineral powder to add to the water, and there is a whole book about it, “Water for Coffee” by Christopher Hendon, and Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood. Book review:

There is descaler (Urnex etc.) that you can get for your coffee pot, to clean out the built up minerals once in a while.

That’s some interesting reading, i might try adjusting my water for coffee to see if i can tell the difference.

When i was a kid i bought a carbide lamp and plastic helmet to use in spelunking, crawling around in small caves and sinkholes. What a mess carrying the carbide gravels and water for refills compared to the ease and efficiency of lithium battery LED lights of today.

Later as a college puke i built a clear plexiglass test fixture to measure the rate of stalactite formation by leaching carbonic acid (water charged with CO2) across a bed of limestone rocks. It seems that the formations have a central tube like a straw that lets the liquid pass thru the middle, then it drips and precipitates out the minerals on the tip and outer surface.

Also built a clear plexiglass honeybee hive that was mounted on a swivel arm inside the lab classroom with a flexible hose to outdoors, so we could watch them work, follow the queen bee, etc. Fun things with plexi…

Later still as a working stiff i was doing espresso machine repairs, service and installations, so i have drank my fill of some good coffee, and seen my fill of some fouled up boiler tanks and plumbing due to all them good minerals.

Europe may not put fluoride in their water; the US does as a way to “help” our teeth and dispose of a nasty by-product of aluminum production. i think folks can take care of their teeth with fluoride toothpaste since it is the surface contact between the tooth and the F ion that replaces the Ca ion in the enamel; it has no dental effect from within the body. Why must the government poison the water supply with fluoride when everyone has access to toothpaste and fluoride rinse products?

What kind of filter removes fluoride— that would be one to find, but none exist except distillation.

In addition to bacteria and viruses, don’t forget about the necessary benefit (with the right filter) of removing parasites, like cryptosporidium and giardia, which are in the natural water sources of almost the entire planet now, even in the wilderness. If you go backpacking/camping anywhere, and you obtain your water from a source found in nature, you need a water treatment system that can remove or deactivate the parasitic organisms, many of which are encased in hard cysts that are resistant to many treatments.

I grew up in one of the first municipalities of the USA to have fluoride added to the water system, and I am very grateful for that. They actually added too much to the water system, and I have mild white stains in my teeth to show for it (not noticeable by others), but I was more than compensated for that with teeth that have not had any cavities in 59+ years. No harmful health effects have been noted from the fluoride added to drinking water systems - it is not “poisoning” the water supply.

I had thought of those as bacteria, but if they are not, then ok, add them too. Thanks for bringing this up.

I would not use any of the activated carbon filters for biologicals in water, they are aesthetic filters, to be used on water that is already safe to drink (either municipally treated or tested well water).

Even the RO filters have many stage filtering and the first stages are usually activated carbon. So again i would use it on already safe water.

Bort: I agree 100%. I didn’t intend to suggest that an activated charcoal “filter” alone would be effective at removing or deactivating parasites, viruses, or bacteria.

Fair enough, i was replying to the concept and not you specifically.

He did not measure harness. He measured dissolved solids.

He played a game of statistics with his audience. People relate to numbers whether it’s horsepower, temperature, or lumens.

Quality water has minerals that you need. These minerals contribute to dissolved solids in water. I want those. I don’t want radioactive dissolved solids though.

If you’re not getting those minerals from your diet, try taking supplements.

Important to note that most filters will not do viruses - at all. Purifiers might (depends).

The finer filters like those for backcountry water go down to about 0.2 or 0.1 microns these days. That handles the majority of things but the type of filtration device and media, plus how it's used determine the effectiveness.

For viruses you need a minimum of 0.02 and 0.01 is the accepted standard. This reduces flow rate considerably, and if the water is not nice and pristine-clear then of course you get quick clogging. The media for this super fine filtration is usually polyester felt, pleated.

That said, the much "larger" standard filters may get some viruses trapped or stopped. This is more likely with depth media like those carbon filters that are 1/2" thick or better. With the more popular and cheaper hollow fiber membrane (tubes) media now, there's really no hope for viruses to be caught and if users force water under higher pressure than the tubes can withstand before the pores expand, then in that case zero viruses and also a good chance that some smaller bacteria may make it through. (this is one reason that "absolute" should never be used with this type of media...but tell that to Sawyer who popularized it....Sawyer sucks for tech knowledge and honesty/transparency...although their products are generally ok). But...viruses typically don't float around on their own in the world but are usually attached to other larger particles that the filter may catch - no guarantees, however, and also no guarantee that in subsequent use that the virus may be forced off of its particle and into the flow. The other hope is that with mineral buildup (or god forbid, biofilm) some viruses and other things smaller than the filter pores may get caught then, but at that point you have other issues to address.

That dye in the PF video? Much much finer than viruses....and it's not really a particulate, which is why almost nothing removes it. Same for kool-aid and many drink products...they'll come through the same color when they exit a filter.

Also, minerals in water, dissolved or in particulate form, do not equate to a guarantee of stones in the body or any other harm. There are many types of stones (in a whole rainbow of colors!) and how they are formed is generally not what you would think (e.g. you are what you eat) although sometimes it can apply.

I've not read about this...what's the thinking about pure water being harmful for the body? A little more acidic than with added minerals, or what?

The claim I’ve heard is that pure water somehow leaches minerals from your body if the minerals are not already in the water.

Hmm, maybe there is something to it. I found this with a web search and haven’t read it yet: https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf

Minerals that cause hardness are part of the TDS measurement but are not the entirety of it.

People who start with a conclusion and work backwards can interpret evidence to get the conclusion they started with.





Doesn’t seem very useful and it isn’t research findings, per se, just review of many aspects over many decades, most of which don’t seem to be entirely applicable. It’s focused only on ingestion of water and the possibilities (that word is used in most of the chapter) of leached metals - which is a legit concern - and reduced minerals via consumption. It ignores human physiology and food intake, though, but I can see where it could be of concern in people that have exceptionally poor diets/food choices or where malnutrition and low caloric intake is the norm (and it’s sad that should be the norm anywhere…).



I may dig around a little more on the subject this weekend…definitely don’t want to wallow in a rabbit hole of alternative health pundits, though. Certainly open to learning but there is so much uneducated bunk hypothesis out there these days and people take it hook, line, and sinker.

For my water at home, I've been using carbon filters for the last 30 years or so, and it's just for taste and reduction of chlorine byproducts, whatever silt or particulates are floating about, and hopefully any lead making its way through the system. I learned more about this stuff from lab work and years of backpacking and I'm glad I had some of the resources I did...and that most of that was before the huge change in marketing came about. Tough to find good legit knowledge these days and to wade through all the muck of misinformation or underinformation.

Water quality is a hotly debated moving target I think. Well around here it is anyway. I can tell you what has worked for me over time in two particular situations.

The farm: The well water is pretty clear so that makes it easier. Right out of the well the water hits a 25 micron filter and goes to outside faucets, sprinklers, and water troughs for the animals. After that it heads inside the house where it hits a 5 micron filter and a Uv loop. It then goes to the indoor fixtures. The Uv lamp is changed yearly and will kill pathogens at up to a flow rate of 15 gal/min. The 5 micron filter lasts about two years, sometimes longer. No chlorine, iodine, or water softener is used. Every year I send a water sample to the county extension service for testing. The results are thorough and it costs about $80. If there are any red flags I’ll hear about it. If we had sulphur or something disagreeable like that we would use charcoal. Been lucky that way.

Wilderness trips: In the old days I added 6 drops of fresh chlorine per gallon of water with a contact time of at least 24 hours in order to kill waterborne pathogens. Cloudy water is settled in buckets overnight and the clear water decanted off in the morning before adding chlorine. I hate the taste and smell of chlorinated water so three capfuls of hydrogen peroxide per gallon is added to the water after the chlorine has done it’s job for a day. This deactivates the chlorine and imparts a nice sweet taste to the water. Won’t hurt you none. 4 hour contact time for the peroxide. I used the Katadyns and other filters for many years with success, but it’s a lot of time and work. Nowadays I start with clear water and use a Steri Pen, available at Amazon and other places. It’s quick, easy, and requires no other chemicals in order to kill pathogens. Care must be taken not to cross contaminate. In all these years no one has gotten sick from any of my water thank goodness. Some have turned a shade of green listening to my tired old camp stories though.

I use the Steri Pen Opti Adventurer
Steri pen

That was a disappointing review dissolved solids are not a great benchmark. I would be more concerned with things like heavy metals, chloramines VOC’s and various other chemicals which would not AFAIK register on that cheap (free with a filter) TDS meter he had.