I haven’t had diarrhea from the Family Mart water so will continue
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It’s OK to drink filtered tap water in certain areas. For example, Taipei city gets its water from Feicui reservoir, which is well protected. But in Taoyuan and parts of New Taipei, they get their water from Shihmen reservoir, a more polluted area. I would boil the water before I drink it in those places. Some rural areas get their water from groundwater, and I would definitely not drink the tap water, even with a good filter. So find out about your water source first before you drink filtered tap water.
I wonder if there is anything in Taiwan water that can cause or contribute to kidney stones if drinking it for a long time.
Heard they are painful.
Distilled water is probably the safest for those really worried.
Not sure about taiwan, but many bottled water companies are themselves distilleries and beer companies.
Could you just put “raw” taiwan tap water in one of these bad boys and the water would end up 100% pure? Should it be put through some type of RO filter or boiled first?
I think I’m going to get one of these.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078RHGLBL/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B078RHGLBL&pd_rd_w=5M1uD&pf_rd_p=8a8f3917-7900-4ce8-ad90-adf0d53c0985&pd_rd_wg=n6PS1&pf_rd_r=THK63VX31C4BT71PA0FR&pd_rd_r=f66c2837-6f9e-11e9-ae85-d37b4766c647
from the amazon link
I’ve always wanted normalized blood (wtf does that mean)
Looks interesting. Seems to both boil and remove impurities. And small for the counter top.
All the YouTube reviews i just watched say it uses ALOT of power and adds some serious $ to your power bill.
It looks pretty cool tho.
Pfft. Totally worth it, I mean abnormal blood. Say no more. 
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I’m in for for the brain boost 
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cant comment on that machine but at first glance it does seem rather small and as such seems not as effective in the sense of efficiency or getting impurities out.
distilling anything is essentially just making a given liquid reach boiling point (100C for water) and turning it into a gas. when it goes up, it condenses and collects and runs down a collection “port”.
the question is this: what are you trying to purify the water from? if its heavy metals, theoretically they are heavier than water and thus get left behind. logically there are variables. one being if the boiled water surface, where the gas starts to rise, is only centimeters away from the collection point, some of that heavy stuff will get sucked up with the heat. maybe a bit extreme of a thought, but a real point to think about when buying a shitty ebay style Chinese piece of crap. look into alcohol distilation they write it out very well and easy, just think you are separating alcohol and water the same way as contaminants and water. though each contaminant will have a different method. some agriculture -cides, for example, will collect in water and evaporate easily. so if your water is coming from a lake or pond (not likely in much of taiwan), heavy metals are not really the main worry.
distillation will boil and take care of biological problems, usually. i still filter either way to get rid of man made issues. if im hiking up somewhere without man made contamination (aside from air rain) then i just boil to get rid of the bio baddies from the rotting corpse upstream.
The boiling water machines do not filter but only keep water hot to make tea or drink it. People here do not like to drink cold water, which is considered a health hazard, even to doctors. Actually, especially to doctors.
There are several options regarding water. Buying large bottles at supermarket, having gallons delivered, boiling and then Brita, or buying a plug in purifier machine. Of the last one option, there are many choices but you need to ask permission from the landlord to install. Landlords here also hate any kind of holes or drilling, DIY or otherwise.
There are more or less intrusive choices of machines, prices range from several thousand NTD, maybe 12 or 15 higher ranges. But it is the most practical and long term cost effective to keep your health.
Main danger here comes from heavy metals rather than bugs. And most pipes are not to be trusted, in spite of good quality water being pumped for distribution.
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I noticed that even really young children drinks piping hot water! Why is it a health hazard? Strange because WHO said drinking hot drinks may cause cancer.
Chinese medicine tradition. Ying and yang and body “heat”. Scientifically, makes no sense. Maybe it started as a way to have people boil water when it was not potable.
I personally wouldn’t trust anything but a regularly maintained RO (reverse osmosis) system. There is no real clear method for how to handle your water here. But RO is at least scientifically proven to effectively clean water. It all depends on many different variables (where you live, how often your tank is cleaned, pipes that bring the water to your sink, source of water…etc.) I’d say play it safe, your kidneys will thank you. Even if the water isn’t making you sick, who knows what it is doing to your body.
Productivity boost…doesn’t drinking more water make you need take more trips to the bathroom? I’d say that makes you more unproductive.
The problem with RO is that you have to remineralise the water. So someone, presumably the company that you bought the filter off, has to give you some artifical remineraliser which is supposed to be representative of the mineral content of the water from a natural source, say a spring.
Then it comes down to whether you entrust a company to do this without stuffing it up…
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That is true. No method is perfect but I would still take RO over the alternatives.
Questions:
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Does RO remove chemical pollutants from water?
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Does RO remove harmful bacteria/parasites from water?
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Are there other options that fulfill both these functions at a reasonable prize?
Yes to the first two questions. Not sure about the 3rd but I got my RO system for a pretty decent price at rt mart.
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Define decent. 