Stupid question, maybe. My friends gave me one of those water machines that makes hot, cold, and room temperature water. It has a charcoal filter that I replaced, and I washed it inside and out before i plugged it in and filled it up.
The thing is, I notice the water coming from the cold tap tastes funny. Like minerals or charcoal or something. It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t smell bad. It’s more like the well water I had as a kid that had lots of minerals in it. not great.
I made a friend a coffee with the hot water and she said there was something not quite right with it as well.
Any ideas or experience with these things? I really like the idea of having ice cold or boiling drinking water on tap. I’m a man of extremes.
Maybe i didn’t do something right with the new filter or something. I dunno. I just dunno…
where do you live? the tap water is different in different towns.
much of the water here does taste bad right out of the tap, but if it’s noticeably awful then there might be a problem with parts of the machine you didn’t clean. is it an older unit or a brand new one?
I have sampled water from all kinds of so called “water filters” and as I hate any taste at all in water and am very sensitive I can tell you they are nearly all rubbish. mold, bacteria and all sorts tend to grow anywhere inside a water filtration system and take root after only a short spell of a few days, but generally can’t be tasted (for me) for at least a couple of weeks. This is poor quality as far as I’m concerned, so I purchased one of these things:
It is a water filter/ionizer. It basically has a list of advantages, but briefly can be set to kill germs in food, cleanse skin, provide drinking water and more as well as remove absolutely all taste from the water. At least I can’t detect anything, which is to say a lot. There are two brands available for this machine, Panasonic and National. National is set up better for the water in Taiwan. Different levels of filters are available, and prices range considerably, but they all tend to be quite pricey. That tells you how picky I am about my water and that I was willing to pay for a good glass of it. I have been very happy with the service of the machine as well as the people that fitted it and provide the periodic checks and filter replacements.
hanging a charcoal block in a jug of water does very little to clean it…
reverse osmosis sytems for your kitchen sink are readily available, but not cheap and require regular filter changes.
water goes through a three stage mechanical filtering, then a cation exchange resin, then into a pressurised storage tank…and then when you turn the tap, it runs from the tank through an RO system into your glass.
been using it for years with the fish tanks and they love it. zero taste.
hanging a charcoal block in a jug of water does very little to clean it…
reverse osmosis sytems for your kitchen sink are readily available, but not cheap and require regular filter changes.
water goes through a three stage mechanical filtering, then a cation exchange resin, then into a pressurised storage tank…and then when you turn the tap, it runs from the tank through an RO system into your glass.
been using it for years with the fish tanks and they love it. zero taste.[/quote]
Sorry to say I used to have one of these machines and ended up purchasing bottled water after about three months of using it as I couldn’t rid the thing of the taste. Same problem as other machines as inevitably the bacteria and so forth takes to the plastic within the pipes and linings as well as the inside of the water storage tank where the water can sometimes sit for days if not drunk regularly. This means that some people get differing results from this machine, but its basic downfall is that there is a massive surface area as well as water content for things to grow. The smaller machine I have now does away with water storage altogether as well as kills growth with the inner ionizer. The only place for things to grow is within the PVC water intake line which is changed every few months or so. Still, even the water entering the system if infected with growth is still filtered and cleaned out, thus making the machine extremely effective.
The thing I will say though is that the effects of a water ionizer are still a little unknown and some people have concerns that the device can rid water of all of it’s bacteria. This device as far as I am aware was developed by the Japanese who believe that the negative PH of the water can balance the acidity of the stomach after eating acidic foods such as red meat. As the modern average diet tends to be more acidic, there is a belief that the change in diet these recent times is perhaps responsible for causing cancers, although I can’t find any actual scientific evidence to prove this is so. Still anecdotal as it may be, I can’t help thinking that there could be a link even if not actually proven. Many of my old Grandmother’s old wives tales came true after all. The one that sticks in my head specifically was the blue Smarties making children hyper. It was only years later that this was proven. Since then I have tended to be a little more open to possibilities.
I set it to cycle through the boiler, flushed it through several times, ran vinegar through it (like you would a coffee machine) and flushed it again several times. It’s ok now.
I have an in-line charcoal filter that I use to wash veggies in and I use that as a primary source. I also sometimes use the water from that machine that’s down the street. I’ve been to the plant.
The boiler thing boils the water and cycles it through itself. It has a secondary line that runs through a little refrigerator unit for cold water. I really like this function.
The charcoal filters DO do something, as there is a noticeable difference in the taste before and after. As far as I know, things like the brita and that boiler thing of mine work best if the filter is actually sitting in the water, and not just having the water quickly pass through it.
