RO water used for drinking will definitely harm you long term.
RO water has most of the ionic molecules removed.
The laws of Chemical equilibrium will cause these missing ions (some are
essential) to be removed from your body, thus causing a long term
deficit. Consult with you Primary Health Care Provider and work out a
regimin for replacment of these chemicals.
Larry should get a NEW physician! .... its not whats in the water; but,
what such water REMOVES from you.

RO doesnt remove *all* the bacteria from water. RO membranes are not
that efficient, nor precisely made. What Larry states is a common
problem with poorly maintained or poorly designed RO systems: when the
'dead' bacteria that are trapped on the membrane decompose, the cell
contents mix with the effluent water. Some of these decomposition
products (endotoxins) are toxic and are FEVER producers. The worse the
system maintenance the greater potential to get sick; and it takes an
'expert' to maintain properly. An RO machine that is not running
*flat-out* 100% of the time is a brewery for bacteria.
Thats why I dont have filters or RO machines on my boat's water system
..... and Im deeply involved in filtration/membranes/RO, etc.

Larry W4CSC wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 17:13:14 -0700, " Olly wrote:


Watermakers remove almost all the TDS - supposedly 99+% - so the water
is like distilled. Is it unhealthy to drink nothing but distilled
water - no mineral content - for years while cruising.


I've been drinking distilled water for over 5 years. The only thing
I've noticed different is I haven't had a common cold in....well....5
years! I don't even get stuffy nose on it.

I'm told by a doctor, a medical doctor, that elemental metals and
other pollutants in tap water cannot be absorbed by carbon-based life
forms. It must be ORGANIC in nature. The reason I went to a
distiller is I got tired of laying screaming in pain from the kidney
stones the local drinking water kept producing in my kidneys from the
elemental calcium. Some fell out....many didn't....one they had to go
after up through the plumbing! I'm cleaned out, now. Pure distilled
water is the finest flushing agent, the real job of the water you
drink, there is. It leaves no deposits of bad things like elemental
calcium or heavy metals like zinc, cadmium, lead in your body......

Now, about the RO problem........

I'm sorry the website won't load any more, but there was a news item
on yahoo warning people about a bacterial problem with RO water making
people very sick. Remember those cruise ships with mass sickness?

RO systems DO block bacteria from passing through the
membranes.....good. But, unfortunately, the bacteria piled up by the
billions against the membrane under high pressure are BREAKING DOWN
into their component parts, including the TOXINS in the bacteria that
make you sick. The TOXINS are much smaller, very molecular, and pass
THROUGH the membrane into your drinking water. Of course, companies
with vast investments in RO systems would rather you never saw such a
thing, which may be why it disappeared off Yahoo, mysteriously.

Searching for problems with RO systems on the net is very hard to do
with all the keywords on EVERY sales page of EVERY RO seller on the
planet keying your search.

If you talk to RO sales people, ask them, "Why do I need a UV
sterilizer connected to the output of my RO water system?"

Think about the why until you get to pop the question.....(c;

Distillers are not without their problems....either......

Many common aromatics, almost anything ending in "ene", is
DISTILLABLE! If you have, as we do, dissolved aromatic contaminants
like benzene, xylene, toulene and other industrial solvents will
distill in my plant. These contaminants give grocery store distilled
water for your iron a "metallic taste". Mention drinking distilled
water and people cringe at the thought of drinking water that tastes
like metal....uggh!

Lucky for us, activated carbon filtering causes these ions to attach
themselves freely to the activated carbon....making the carbon
filtered distilled water just delicious and free of these
distillables. Some of the distillables don't condense around 100C and
the condensor of the distiller is too hot to re-condense them. They
float off if you leave the outlet open with water dripping out, not
sealed. Unfortunately, valuable alcohols are one of them.....sorry.

My carbon filter consists of a gourmet store NYLON food baster body
filled with activated carbon (not charcoal) with a little cone of
coffee filter paper to keep the carbon dust from contaminating the
output in the bottom of it...the pointy end. The rubber bulb has been
removed from the body of the baster and a slot cut in its end opposite
the hole the body fit into. The bulb is forced over the outside of
the baster body with the narrow end pointed towards the spout of the
body to form a soft "plug" that will hold the baster carbon column
vertical when the plug is stuck into the open end of my 5-gallon glass
water bottles. a small hole allows air in the bottle to escape as the
drizzle of distilled water fills it over several hours. The carbon,
itself is amazingly easy to obtain in a very pure, very active state.
Go to any WalMart and look on the shelf of the fish tank department!
A whole pound of activated carbon comes in a nice plastic jug with
white cap for about $3. Changing the carbon column after every
distilling process, which goes on here about 3 days per month, 24/7,
and you will empty this pound of carbon in about 10 years. The
distiller company charges LOTS more, but admitted they get the carbon
from the same place as WalMart does.....same stuff.

I've donated pure, distilled water to my ham radio club outings on my
refridgerated cooler. They love it, too....drinking all the jugs dry
on a hot day. "I never knew it could taste this good!", is a normal
reaction.

City water tastes like crap in comparison and after seeing what's LEFT
in my distiller's boiler AFTER I boil off 25 gallons of pure water
from it....I just can drink SEWAGE any more...Yecch.

What I can't figure out is why someone doesn't make a water DISTILLER
that operates off the engine's waste exhaust heat, instead of heating
up sea water to dump overboard. It would make LOTS of distilled water
in the process of cooling the exhaust to under 250F.......??? All
we'd do is make it out of stainless steel.....and use seawater to cool
the condensor!....

The whole Navy drinks distilled sea water.....as do their steam
boilers.







Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?