Tap water verses Filtered water verses bottled water

(Which should also may or may not be filtered)

Yesterday I purchased a ZeroWater 23 cup filter and it came with a TDS Meter to test “Total Dissolved Solids” in the water. I tested our tap water and it was 256ppm or parts per million and I also tested our bottled water from Nestle (Pure Life) and it tested out at 55ppm although that may have something to do with minerals that have been added back into the water after filtering. I then tested the water out of the new filter and it tested out at 0ppm and it says once the meter says the water is 6ppm you should change the filter. I also did a taste test with the ZeroWater filter and the bottled water and tap water. The ZeroWater filter is the best tasting water in my opinion as well.

My boss says he actually likes the taste with the minerals in the water. I do not like drinking the water out of the tap at my work (Murray) and while I worked in the lab at OC Tanner we tested the company water drinking fountains for metals and surprisingly we found high metal content in many of the drinking fountains especially those that were not used as often as the others were.

The cost of the 23 cup container with one filter was $39.99 at Smith’s Market Place and you can get it for the same cost at Target.

Extra filters cost from $10 each if you buy in bulk up to $16 dollars each if you buy one at a time.

Apparently you can filter about 16 gallons of water so after the initial investment you are spending about 63 cents to a dollar to filter a gallon of water which is much less than bottled water although my wife got a deal on 3 gallons of the Nestle Pure Life in 16.9 oz bottles for $1 per gallon (12.5 cents a bottle) at NPS National Product Sales but you have to haul that back and forth from the store and the bottled water once again was 55ppm dissolved solids which could be salt, metals, minerals etc…Normally water costs 1 or 2 dollars a bottle which comes out to about 8 dollars a gallon and more if you are at the fair and pay $3 a bottle.

The ZeroWater has a 5 layer filter so we will be using this for a while but for now I am very satisfied with the product since my wife does not like drinking tap water and our water in the fridge stopped working because the tube I believe froze because the kids have messed the freezer settings. The last time it happened we took everything out of the freezer for one day and the water started working again after the tube thawed out.

Some other questions and concerns are: Yes this filter takes everything out so you have Zero on the TDS reading but does it take out things that we need like minerals? I suppose if we are eating right we can get most of our minerals through food. I would be interested in your thoughts about filtering and water.