Water filters

[Lone_RT_rider]

So, the rental place I live in has a taste in the water that needs to go. I'm not a fan of purchasing bottled water, so I want to buy an under the sink filter for the kitchen faucet. I've done the pre-requisite google search, but would love some first hand experiences.  It's city water, not well. There's a slight smell, but a weird taste. It is not a sulfur smell.  I've been on a well before and know that smell all too well. There's no Iron that I can tell (city water). 

 

Thoughts?

 

And no, I'm not moving.... ;)

 

Shawn

[Sonor]

You should be able to contact the county/city/water section and ask them to test it or at least provide guidance as to the cause.  That will help you decide which filter to purchase. And who knows, maybe it is something wrong with their mains or feeders and they need to do some work.

[John Ranalletta]

1 hour ago, Lone_RT_rider said:

So, the rental place I live in has a taste in the water that needs to go. I'm not a fan of purchasing bottled water, so I want to buy an under the sink filter for the kitchen faucet. I've done the pre-requisite google search, but would love some first hand experiences.  It's city water, not well. There's a slight smell, but a weird taste. It is not a sulfur smell.  I've been on a well before and know that smell all too well. There's no Iron that I can tell (city water). 

 

Thoughts?

 

And no, I'm not moving....

 

Shawn

 

The water in our Carmel, IN apartment had high dissolved solids and chlorine smell/taste.  We tried a zerowater filter/pitcher for drinking water.  It worked well, was way too expensive and when the media expired, it lent a very unpleasant taste to the water.  As we were in an apartment, we resorted to buying drinking/cooking water from a grocery store. 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Ann Arbor has a problem with dioxane and PFOA/PFAS creeping through the water table.  They've already reached some source wells and shown up in the water supply; the city has tried to stay ahead of in part by adding more filtration, but they've occasionally been caught off-guard with levels that exceed "acceptable" (and there's considerable debate over what should be considered "acceptable" levels for these contaminants).  

 

So a few years ago we added an Aquasana AQ-5300 to our kitchen sink.  It's NSF-certified to strip a lot of contaminants out of tap water.  Dioxane isn't on that list, PFOA/PFAS are, and there are so many other organic chemicals that get caught by it, I'm pretty confident it's probably also reducing dioxane by a large margin.  

 

Comes with its own tap, so if your sink has a vacant knockout available, you're all set, it's easy to install.  Not cheap, but the filters are large so you get a decent flow rate; we can fill a half-gallon pitcher in maybe 25 seconds.  

 

Not sure it'll fix your taste problem, as our water tasted fine before this.  Maybe reports from other users could help answer that question for you.

[Lone_RT_rider]

Quote

15 hours ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

Comes with its own tap, so if your sink has a vacant knockout available, you're all set, it's easy to install.  Not cheap, but the filters are large so you get a decent flow rate; we can fill a half-gallon pitcher in maybe 25 seconds.  

 

Not sure it'll fix your taste problem, as our water tasted fine before this.  Maybe reports from other users could help answer that question for you.

 

 

There's no extra sink knock out and since it's a rental, modification of the granite counter top is problematic at best. I was hoping for an undersink unit I could splice in, but you brought up something I should have considered, and that's flow rate. If I just splice an under-sink unit into the main line for the sink faucet it's going to drastically reduce the flow rate. My next though is to use a "whole house" unit as an under-sink unit. 

 

The smell I am getting is an distinct chemical smell. It may be chlorine or something similar to it.  It's been a long time since I have been somewhere I didn't want to drink the tap water. I was spoiled in the upstate of SC.  

 

Shawn

[Hosstage]

Does the house have a water softener? It won't necessarily solve the problem, but it helps.

 

Some faucets have a separate handle built in that allow filtered water or house water to flow through the same spigot.

Something like this:

https://www.homary.com/modern-water-filter-kitchen-faucet-pull-out-kitchen-faucet-in-polished-chrome-matte-black-swivel-kitchen-faucet-solid-brass.html?sel=4144&gclid=Cj0KCQiA3Y-ABhCnARIsAKYDH7sRNhN4HJztZGAAJ3e1Vg_8zoRaQ9iDALpm1NIg2Cf7X6LIYM9jRIMaAmRCEALw_wcB

[Oldironken]

Not an under the sink unit, but the wife has us using a Berkey system, not cheap but it works well for us. Eliminates 200 + contaminates and we also use the Fluoride filters.  

 

All water we consume goes through it 

[Rougarou]

I use these filters.

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

On 1/17/2021 at 9:48 AM, Lone_RT_rider said:

My next though is to use a "whole house" unit as an under-sink unit. 

 

Aquasana has those too.   Not cheap, but less than I thought they would be, and it'll give you 7 GPM.   I'd guess a plumber could do the work for a few hundred bucks.  Is your landlord on board with you having something like this installed?  Maybe split the cost?  You get tasty water out of the deal, and the landlord ends up with a rental property that can boast tasty water for the next tenant.  

[Lone_RT_rider]

I was thinking something more like this.  I wonder if I could connect that to the main cold water feed under the sink.  

 

Shawn

 

[Lone_RT_rider]

On 1/17/2021 at 1:57 PM, Hosstage said:

Does the house have a water softener? It won't necessarily solve the problem, but it helps.

 

Some faucets have a separate handle built in that allow filtered water or house water to flow through the same spigot.

Something like this:

https://www.homary.com/modern-water-filter-kitchen-faucet-pull-out-kitchen-faucet-in-polished-chrome-matte-black-swivel-kitchen-faucet-solid-brass.html?sel=4144&gclid=Cj0KCQiA3Y-ABhCnARIsAKYDH7sRNhN4HJztZGAAJ3e1Vg_8zoRaQ9iDALpm1NIg2Cf7X6LIYM9jRIMaAmRCEALw_wcB

 

That's definitely an option that would allow me to do a lower flow filter that was strictly used for drinking water. Thanks for sharing that.  Not to mention, that's a better faucet than came with this rental. 

[ESokoloff]

On 1/18/2021 at 7:05 AM, Rougarou said:

I use these filters.

 

Look more like strainer(s) to me.  

[ESokoloff]

My wife & I have been using this filter for several years (changing cartridges at least yearly). 
 

Foot Note: Our tap water quality is pretty good tho.

Edited January 19, 2021 by ESokoloff
Added content

[Paul De]

Search on this high-ish flow under sink kit from 3M. 

Filtrete Maximum Under Sink Water Filtration System 3US-MAX-S01  

 

I put one on our kitchen faucet at place in the Northwoods because the water had a funky taste and it eliminated the problem,  they claim about 6 months of service life per carriage.  The entire kit is under $50. The genuine 3M replacement filters are under $35, but there are third party filters that can go for $10 less than the 3M filters.

 

If you want to not concerned with lead reduction 3M offers a slightly cheaper filter which is also sold as a kit, or replacement filter.

3US-PS01 ~ $30 or less

 

Even though 3M call these high flow under sink filters, I found the pressure drop a bit too much for my liking, as it took too long to fill a pot. So I bought a second one and put the filters in parallel which made the pressure drop to the faucet almost unnoticeable...And  yes this will double the cost to replace filters, but since the flow through each filter is halved, they will last twice as long. YRMV for when taste starts to degrade.  You only need to buy two push to connect PEX T fittings to set up two filter kits in parallel as there is ample hose in the two kits.

 

3M also offers other compatible filters that are even higher flow than these two, but keep in mind these higher flow filters also tend to filter out less of the offending odors and taste.

[Lone_RT_rider]

Paul, that's exactly what I'm going to try. I've ordered two kits. Can you do me a favor and post the plumbing and fittings you used to run them in parallel? I'm more than capable of going to Home Depot and rigging something up, but I'd rather have a known proven direction. Thanks! 

[Hosstage]

Parallel feed, something like this, water feed to a T, out to two filters, back to a T, on to the faucet.

My drawing and handwriting skills leave something to be desired...

 

 

 

[Paul De]

19 hours ago, Lone_RT_rider said:

Can you do me a favor and post the plumbing and fittings y

 

Exactly what Hostage posted  above

 

 

Sorry I can't post a picture of the actual install because we will not be at that location for some weeks.  Mounting is really dependent of the space and plumbing layout in the cabinet below the sink, but do keep in mind you need to allow for good access to replace the filters from time to time. When I mounted them I fussed to get the filters as high as possible so there was plenty of clearance to remove and replace filters and to keep marital harmony of the loss of space for some of the crap supplies my wife insists must be stored under that sink.  I mounted one filter on the back wall of the cabinet near the corner and one close but not too crowded on the side wall of the cabinet. This video is pretty much what you do except for adding the supply side T fitting and the return side T fitting for parallel installation.

 

If you are going to do the two kits in parallel,  you need to go on line, or mask up and head over to the local hardware / big box home improvement store and buy two 3/8 in. Push-To-Connect Polypropylene Tee fittings.  Between the two kits you should have enough blue 3/8" OD polypropylene tubing, but if you have an install with a lot of distance between filters (not recommended) then buying some extra tubing will save a second trip to the home supply store

 

Nice install video

 

 

[Hosstage]

Just a quick aside to the mentioned space management, we store the poisons under the sink, but put the cookies up high out of reach of the kids.

Seems a little skewed...