water quality - filters

[hedwig]

this has nothig to do with permaculture:

The Brisbne water tastes horrible and I found a book in the library "ausstralians drinking water". So I decided to by at least one of this Britta waterfilters. A friend of mine told me that she read in the Ökotest-magazine
that the filtered water is worse than unfiltered (the tests where made in Germany) that there is sometimes more nitrat than bevore and a lot of silver.
I am not shur weather to drink unfiltered water or keep on filtering. Botteled water is simply to heavy and wasteful. My children are one and three.
We do not want to by an expensive filter-system.

[baldcat]

I live in country Vic and we have "Cleaned" town water straight from the grampians.. and it tastes horrid.

I purchased a Stafani water filter system.. I think it was about $150 from the mitre 10.. It hold 10 litres and has a ceramic filter that lasts about 3 months. You can apperantly take the filter out and clean it. But I have just replaced instead.. What my partner and I have found that we can measure the amount of water we are drinking, by taking notes how much water we put into the container ever night.

The unit sits on the bench and just has a tap to disperse the water. It's not rain water quaility but it isn't far off :D Hope that helps.. oh I forget to mention, most of the stand alone systems have about an inch fudge factor involved .. By this I mean where the tap is, to where the bottom of the pot is.. So if any solids, or nasty stuff should get through it sits on the bottom rather than going into your drink..

[Tamandco]

My mum's got the same water filter as Baldcat and she cleans the filters (candles as they're more correctly called) herself. Apparently these types of filters have been used for decades and are very good.

The water that comes out of it tastes good too.

Tam

[hedwig]

and what's about the Britta filter? I yet bought it month ago the sell it in each supermarket.
I wonder if the water is worse than bevore (like the test of Ökotest says) or better.

[baldcat]

I'm not to sure about Britta... As a personal rule I never buy anything from a supermarket that isn't food, or a cleaning product of some type..

As far as I'm concerned they shouldn't be selling things like DVD's, CD's, Magazines, Water filters, pots and plates etc etc... . There are proper homeware, and music stores for that.. Just another thing the supermarket giants are trying to take away from the small business...

(sorry small rural town boy)

Umm.. I look around the net for you and see what I can find...

[baldcat]

Here is a good one to start you off..

http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.com.au


City tap water can have no confirmed E.coli or fecal coliform bacteria. FDA bottled water rules include no such prohibition (a certain amount of any type of coliform bacteria is allowed in bottled water).
City tap water, from surface water, must be filtered and disinfected. In contrast, there are no federal filtration or disinfection requirements for bottled water.

Most cities using surface water have had to test for Cryptosporidium or Giardia, two common water pathogens, that can cause diarrhea and other intestinal problems, yet bottled water companies do not have to do this.

City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals, such as phthalate (a chemical that can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles); some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from the regulations regarding these chemicals.
City water systems must issue annual "right to know" reports, telling consumers what is in their water. Bottlers successfully killed a "right to know" requirement for bottled water. [/quote]