Pure water

Post by **alex_holden** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 5:46 pm

Because bacteria may get into it during the bottling process.

Post by **dalebrignall** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:47 pm

i would be intrested in finding out how long our water takes to get to us .there is an under water river and the submersiable pump is 220 feet down.

Post by **emmerson** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:49 pm

I'm 66. never drunk any water other than what comes out of the tap, eat a fried breakfast every day, and walk two miles a day with my dogs. I've just had an MOT at the Doctors, and been pronounced 100% fit.
Sorry, but bottled water and special diets etc, are all baloney!
We've all got to die of summat!
It's not the dieing that's important, its the life you lead before.

Post by **mike.perry** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:02 pm

Before you go don't forget to include your Morris Minor in your will

Post by **emmerson** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:47 pm

I would, but I can't think of anyone I dislike enough!!

Post by **ColinP** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:36 pm

Squiggle,

to go back to your original question.....

Tap water will contain magnesium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate - this is dissolved from the limestone (principally) and other rocks that the water passes over. Where the water passes over hard rock (e.g. basalt), there's very little dissolve carbonates, and you get "soft" water.
Where the water comes from a limestone area you get lots of dissolved salts and you have hard water.

Drinking water is treated by filtering out all the bits - starting with logs, tyres etc, then through smaller filters - the last stage is usually fine sand. At this point the water is physically clean, but no attempt has been made to take out the bacteria or virus present.
The companies now add chlorine (a fer parts per million) - this reacts with organic material in solution and removes it - this mens that any bugs have no food to live on, so they wont breed.

Obviously it's tested for various quality standards in the course of its treatment.

There's a drawback to hard water - when you heat it, some of the dissolved salts precipitate as Magnesium or calcium carbonate - the "fur" in the kettle.
This effect is reduced by "water softeners" - these replace the Ca and Mg (calcium and magnesium) ions with sodium ions - which is why the softeners use bags of salt to regenerate them. Sodium salts are much more soluble than calcium and mangesium ones, so you don't get the fur.
You should not drink any water from a water softener - the sodium ions concentration can be large, and as you stated originally it's not good for you!

Every water softener system (domestic) should be installed so that you have drinking water available direct from the mains!

It is possible to use different techniques to produce pure water - but tests have shown that people who drink pure water actually suffer - the body loses calcium ions (from the bones) - so it's better to stay with the normal drinking tap water...

If you dislike the chlorine smell/tasteyou can put a jug of tapwater in the fridge - most of the chlorine will evaporate within an hour or so - or you can use a "Brita" type filter. Rememebr that these are also good growing sites for bugs & algae!

Cheers,

Colin

Post by **dalebrignall** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:44 pm

colin,that means that my well water is healthy for you then.we pump it from an underground aquafill 220 ft down.

Post by **mike.perry** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:24 pm

You can't beat a good technical reply.
Cheers, I think I've learnt something.

Post by **mike.perry** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:08 pm

Because bacteria may get into it during the bottling process.

So it manages to stay pure for 6000 years then some bloke in the bottling plant contaminates it!!!

Post by **alex_holden** » Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:49 pm

If they added chlorine it would last longer. ;)

Post by **Squiggle** » Sun May 03, 2009 3:47 pm

ColinP wrote:Squiggle,

to go back to your original question.....

Tap water will contain magnesium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate - this is dissolved from the limestone (principally) and other rocks that the water passes over. Where the water passes over hard rock (e.g. basalt), there's very little dissolve carbonates, and you get "soft" water.
Where the water comes from a limestone area you get lots of dissolved salts and you have hard water.

Drinking water is treated by filtering out all the bits - starting with logs, tyres etc, then through smaller filters - the last stage is usually fine sand. At this point the water is physically clean, but no attempt has been made to take out the bacteria or virus present.
The companies now add chlorine (a fer parts per million) - this reacts with organic material in solution and removes it - this mens that any bugs have no food to live on, so they wont breed.

Obviously it's tested for various quality standards in the course of its treatment.

There's a drawback to hard water - when you heat it, some of the dissolved salts precipitate as Magnesium or calcium carbonate - the "fur" in the kettle.
This effect is reduced by "water softeners" - these replace the Ca and Mg (calcium and magnesium) ions with sodium ions - which is why the softeners use bags of salt to regenerate them. Sodium salts are much more soluble than calcium and mangesium ones, so you don't get the fur.
You should not drink any water from a water softener - the sodium ions concentration can be large, and as you stated originally it's not good for you!

Every water softener system (domestic) should be installed so that you have drinking water available direct from the mains!

It is possible to use different techniques to produce pure water - but tests have shown that people who drink pure water actually suffer - the body loses calcium ions (from the bones) - so it's better to stay with the normal drinking tap water...

If you dislike the chlorine smell/tasteyou can put a jug of tapwater in the fridge - most of the chlorine will evaporate within an hour or so - or you can use a "Brita" type filter. Rememebr that these are also good growing sites for bugs & algae!

Cheers,

Colin

Hey, what a comprehensive reply! Thank you.

But the "Brita" filters exchange products = sodium.

Or that's what they told me some years ago when I was studying this kind of issue.

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Life has been soooooo busy. Looking after sick neighbours and their mad chinchillas! Hamsters, bunny, guinea pigs etc.....

Post by **ColinP** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:03 pm

Hi,

I've been away a bit as well..

The "Brita" filters - I've just cheked up on the website - and you're right. They are ion exchange filters....
I thought (having taken a couple apart) that they were just activated charcoal - which removes the taste of chlorine etc...

We have a Triflow system at home - this filters the water through activated charcoal (which absorbs the taste components) then filters through a 2 micron ceramic filter (that will remove bacteria).

Part 2 of the essay(!)
To producre pure water you have a couple of of options:-
1) Distill the water - either from the air by cooling (like the "frost" that forms in a fridge) - or by boiling and cooling.
This is the traditional way, but is quite energy inefficient.

2) Reverse osmosis.
IF you apply lots of pressure to a water reservoir, and have a very fine membrane as a wall, then you can get pure water out the other side. This is quite energy efficient, and is usable in domestic applications.
It's not a home-service item though it will last for many years.
(we use them at work to produce thousands of litres of purified water.)

Both methods produce water that is very pure - remember that pure water will dissolve almost anything so it's difficult to keep it very pure - I'm talking of part per million contamination - i.e. traces only.

If you need pure water at home, there are domestic systems available (reverse osmosis) they do use a lot of water, but are quite energy efficient and reliable. Obviously, you can use this for washing etc., but it is more common for drinking only.

Cheers,

Colin