An Easy Do-it-yourself Bypass for Water Filters

The compact whole house filter pictured above is a decade and a half old.  While age may have taken its toll on its appearance, the unit has functioned flawlessly over the years with no more care than an annual cartridge replacement.  The filter is protected from freezing in winter by a removable cover.

A bypass valve is a handy addition to a filter. It allows sending water to the home even if the filter has to be taken out of service for repair or replacement. In this installer-built bypass system,  water enters from the right. The filter is shown in service position. The top valve is closed and the two lower valves are open. To bypass the filter, close the lower right valve and open the top valve. With both lower valves closed, water (unfiltered) can be sent to the home even if the filter is disabled or removed.

Getting the Lead Out

by Pure Water Annie

Pure Water Gazette tech wizard Pure Water Annie tells you how to protect your drinking water from lead.

The most common advice for removing lead from drinking water tells you to remove the source of lead. This is excellent advice, but unfortunately home owners have no control over lead entering the home from external sources.

Lead most often comes from piping. If the water supplier still has lead pipes in service, or if your home has old copper pipes with lead solder joints, that is probably your source of lead.  If you can’t remove the source, then “removing” the lead usually involves corrosion control through pH and alkalinity adjustment, adding calcium (e. g. with a calcite filter) to the water line, or using a phosphate-based corrosion inhibitor.

This sounds complicated, and it is. Most of these strategies must be done by the supplier and are outside the control of the individual home owner.

A common whole house strategy for lead removal that is sometimes recommended to home owners is using a standard ion exchange water softener. This, too, can be tricky, because flow rates have to be kept low, and often the source of lead can be in the home plumbing itself. If so, a softener, by removing the calcium from the water, can actually promote corrosion and leaching of lead and make the problem worse.

For homeowners treating lead, the best strategy is to treat only the drinking water.  Lead is an ingestion issue. It is not taken in through the skin during bathing, so if you can break your habit of drinking water from the bathtub, whole house treatment really isn’t needed.

Here you have several good options for drinking water.

Point of Use Treatment

There are carbon cartridges with excellent lead removal properties from reputable makers that can be used in countertop and undersink filters. These usually consist of a an ion exchange medium that is molded into the carbon. Such filters can be inexpensive and very effective.

Activated alumina, most often used for fluoride reduction, can be used as well for lead removal, but since its effectiveness is pH-dependent, be sure you know what you’re doing.  KDF combined with carbon has also been shown to be very effective at removing lead, but results should be verified if you’re going to trust your life to it.

Another very effective way to remove lead from drinking water is with a steam distiller.  Distillers work well, but they can be inconvenient, expensive to operate,  and  they often require lots of attention.

Without doubt, the best home treatment to assure lead-free drinking water is a reverse osmosis unit.  RO serves as an excellent lead barrier and removes 95% or so of soluble lead. RO units are relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain.

Reverse osmosis by its nature removes 95% of lead from incoming water.  RO is the most effective drinking water protection for the home.

Q

What Water Does for You

Drinking water at bedtime does more than make you pee

Hydration

Drinking a glass of water before bedtime helps the body replenish the fluids it loses during the day. The human body is mostly water, and it is vital to keep it hydrated so it works properly. The body doesn’t need to excrete a lot of fluid during sleep so providing it with water before bedtime helps it to maintain hydration.

  Water helps the body burn calories efficiently

Keeping your body well hydrated increases its metabolic efficiency and helps it maintain an ideal weight. Water is a natural calorie-burner. Many people sip ice water to burn calories and help lose weight. The belief is that cool water makes the body work double time to keep warm and this burns calories. Clearly, if you drink a lot of cold water at bedtime you will burn extra calories making trips to the bathroom.  That’s our theory, anyway.

Water helps you sleep

Drinking water naturally balances the body’s vitamins, nutrients and minerals, replenishing what it burns up during the day. Drinking water before bed balances the body’s hormones, energy levels, muscles and joints, which relaxes the body. During sleep, water has time to reach and replenish every part of the body. Many people feel that they sleep more soundly and consistently by drinking water before bed, leaving muscles, vitamins and minerals in harmony.

Water clears your body of toxins

One of the best benefits of drinking water is that it acts as a natural cleanser. The body attracts many toxins from food and the environment. Cleaning it out consistently helps keep it healthy and functioning well. Drinking water before bed will provide your body with the cleaning agent and the time to clear out your system.  The digestive tract, muscles and skin benefit from the cleansing process. Clearly, the cleanest water you can get is best at clearing your body of toxins.

Along with all of the normal health benefits of drinking water, simply having a glass before bedtime each night can have a big and positive effect on lifestyle. People find that they sleep better and have more energy.  Improved digestion, weight loss, greater alertness and a general feeling of well-being can result from a nightcap of good old H2O.

The above was adapted from an article in Water Technology magazine.

by Chanie Kirschner

I know. The Gazette has already put up half a dozen “how much water should you drink” articles, but they keep writing them so we reprint one now and then. This article is helpful if you want to know how much water someone at the Mayo Clinic who has never seen you and knows nothing about you thinks you should drink if you are pregnant and how much you should drink if you aren’t pregnant. The Gazette’s advice on the topic, and we’ve been consistent on this since they started writing ” how much water” articles, is get a drink whenever you’re thirsty. –Hardly Waite.

Everyone’s heard the old refrain — drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Turns out that’s not entirely accurate. The Mayo Clinic recommends about 13 cups a day for an average male and about nine cups a day for the average female. But the actual amount of water a person should drink in a day can vary based on where you live, how much you weigh, and what kind of lifestyle you lead.

Water makes up 60 percent of our body’s weight and is absolutely imperative for our organs to function. Since we are constantly losing water through sweat, urine and even our breath, drinking enough water is crucial. If you become dehydrated, you will lose energy and become nauseated, headache-y, and tired. Severe dehydration can even send you to the hospital so drinking an adequate amount of water is crucial to maintaining your health on a daily basis.

If you exercise, you are losing more water than the average person. Therefore, it’s important to drink water before, during and after your workout — an extra 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups should be sufficient for a short workout. If you’re doing prolonged exercise, like running in a marathon, you have to drink much more than that.

In the summertime or if you live in a warm climate, you’ll also need to drink more water than the recommended amount. That’s because heat can make you sweat more and lose fluids faster.

You’ll also need to drink more water than is usually recommended if you’re sick with a fever, vomiting or diarrhea. If all you’ve got is a pesky cold, drinking water can also help keep your nasal passages hydrated and prevent you from getting sicker.

Another instance where you need to drink more water? If you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. The Mayo Clinc recommended that a pregnant woman drink at least 10 cups of water a day and a nursing woman to drink 13 cups of water a day. That’s because nursing drains your body and can leave you dehydrated if you’re not drinking enough. Not to mention that adequate hydration while breastfeeding can ensure an ample milk supply. When I had my last child, the hospital lactation specialist told me to drink one cup of water each hour of the day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. — that’s a lot of water!

How do you know if you’re drinking enough? You can count the cups you drink or you can just peek in the toilet after you pee — you should be peeing a clear or light yellow liquid. If your urine is dark yellow or cloudy, you definitely are not drinking enough.

This is a lot of water to drink for physical health, but drinking water can have an influence on your emotional health as well. A 2014 study found that, if you’re not drinking enough water, drinking more water will better your mood and increase general positive emotions. If you’re already drinking a good bit of water during the way, keep it up! The same study found that folks who drank a high amount of water over the course of the day experienced a decrease in their happiness levels if they decreased their water intake.

If water isn’t your thing, you can also safely substitute juice, milk or coffee for a cup or two a day. Since I was never a major water drinker, I like to combine 1/3 cup juice with 2/3 cup water. My husband says I like to drink juice that way because I grew up on watered-down juice from a can. Maybe. But at least it helps me meet my daily water intake goal!

Source: Mother Nature Network.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Water Powered Sump Pumps Can Be Major Water Wasters

In thousands and thousands of homes across the United States a plumbing product lurks, capable of carelessly wasting hundreds of gallons of water, when it’s completely unnecessary for these products to be installed.

The product is called a “water-powered sump pump.”  It is installed primarily as a backup device to a primary sump pump. In a heavy rain – flood situation – ground water under a house rises and pours into a sump pit where an electric sump pump pumps this dirty rainwater out of the basement, keeping it dry.

If the power goes out and the primary sump pump is inoperative, that’s when these water wasters kick in. They can draw up to 600 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour, pumping rising ground water up and out of the sump pit. Most water-powered sump pumps use 1 gallon of fresh water for every gallon of dirty ground water they pump out.

Based on an estimated population of 50,000 to 100,000 water-powered sump pumps in the U.S., the total fresh water consumption is estimated to be 795 million to 1.5 billion gallons per year!

It’s easy to see the completely un-necessary waste of fresh
drinking-water through the use of water-powered sump pumps.

Water powered backup pumps are unnecessary because battery powered pumps are readily available.