Update... so the guy came out today (hour late) and apparently our water has 666 PPM of debris floating in it. He's a "certified water specialist" so I need to give him the credibility he deserves. Then he takes two glasses from my cupboard and removes two tea bags from a box of Lipton in his briefcase (great sales tool). Fills one glass with tap water (cold after it had run 10 seconds) and one glass with his bottled water (11PPM). Puts a tea bag in each glass and we microwave it for 4 minutes. Pulls glasses out and shakes each tea bag equally, removes and disposes of tea bags. Unbelievable the difference in tea: the tap water tea was black like coffee and the bottled water was gold, like the example on the box. Smelled both glasses and the tap water tea definitely smelled worse. Incredible! The unit he is selling is $825 with install.
Those of you that have installed your own are they easy to install? I'm not Mr Handyman but I can figure some stuff out. The nice thing with having them do it is I know it is done right and the only thing I have to do is write the check.
"666 ppm debris floating in it??"
What the he!! is that?? You already know that you have city water with chlorine and a bunch of other naturally occurring elements in the water, right?
What you want to ask him is..."what's in my water???" If he is legit, he will have it analyzed, and tell you, a break down of those particulates in the water, so many calcium, iron, phosphorous, etc. ppm.
Then go read up on it....see what can and cannot be improved without the expense....maybe his system is the best way, but telling you that you have 666ppm debris is hokum pokus.
The tea bag is pretty gimicky... here is what is happening; the particulates in the water are working like solvents as they hit the acidity of the tea leaves, and yes they will extract more tea than water than has taken the particulates out prior to use. You can do the same thing with distilled water, purchased at the store.
As far as the smell is concerned....(boy what a salesman) hot water always will extract..or more accurately dissipate and odorous when water is heated.
Aside from the issues of de-ionized water, eating pipes and having other issues, as it runs thru the piping, know that you could eliminate all this by just having bottled water delivered to a dispenser that sits off in the corner of your kitchen. Hey...it's drinking water...won't help your wife's scalp, or with stinky water when you heat it, or scaling.
By the time you figure the expense to install, and keep buying filters, and that the filter is doing it's thing and leaving the residue at the entrance of every drop of water you are taking in....perhaps the bottled water delivery is far better???
All I know is that you can take perfectly good municipal water that has chlorine in it, and try and make coffee, tea, or anything else, and it will stink too...at least until the water cools again, then guess what??? NO more stink.
Good luck on whatever you do...but if it were me...I would call that guy up and tell him that you have decided to get bottled water delivered to the house...becaus his price is too high...and then watch the other sale-man come out and the price drop...perhaps significantly....
