Aquaphor

Aquaphor Morion is the ultimate reverse osmosis water filter system.  Aquaphor are the most efficient RO water filters.  The most compact RO.  Easy to fit under sinks. 7.5″ wide. 14″ to 16.5″ tall / deep.  Aquaphor are second to none in their class.  See  http://www.aquaphor.ie/product/aquaphor-morion/

The Morion system offers up to twelve unique filter levels.  In just four water filter stages.  Most reverse osmosis units have five filter levels.  In five filter stages.  They are best in class. (Versus air tank RO systems.)  Aquaphor are the lowest cost to run of all RO types.

Aquaphor can save having to buy filters every year.  Aquaphor RO units lower water use.  No electric required. So saving up to €100 per year. (Over other reverse osmosis types.)  And saving around €500 per year. (Over bottled water.)  Look for 5 year free filter offer when installed.  See  Aquaphor.ie

Aquaphor Morion reverse osmosis is high quality.  NSF rated reverse osmosis.  With high flow 100 gpd NSF membranes.  Also ULP membranes. (For best water recovery.)  Minerals are provided in normal RO operation.  Also extra mineral options / cartridges are available.

Top build quality.  Top reliability.  None electric.  Low water use.  Long life water filters.  Say adios to running costs.  Sayonara.  Au Revoir.  Auf Wiedersehen.  Farewell.  (They are sold in 43 countries to 15 million families with over 70 patents.)

Calculate the cost of bottled water. In just one year alone at €10 to €20 per week ?  It could be enough to buy ... and maintain a Morion reverse osmosis water filter system.  From 5 to 20 years.

Clean drinking water is great.  But lets multiply the effect.  Clean bath water.  Clean domestic water.  With the chlorine and hardness taken out.  This helps skin feel soft and supple.  Less irritations.  Less dryness.

Skin can absorb toxic metals.  Often from well water.  Arsenic, nickel and similar.  Water can be inhaled as spray or vapour.  In showers and baths.  So clean drinking water by itself may not be the complete solution. 

Aquaphor reverse osmosis can be installed at a 1/2 of the RRP cost.  (As part of a water softener offer.)  With free parts.  Also free labour.  And free onsite warranty.  And free filters  For 5 years.

The "Mineral Debate" and bad reporting by "Buyer Beware" RTE December 2008.

On occasion, figures from the broader environmental sciences have debated the lack of classification for minerals in long established EU Drinking Water Directives.  In all European mains supplied tap water or even in sales of bottled water, there are no guidelines to minimise or maximise mineral levels.  Packaging guidelines for labelling and naming bottled mineral and spring waters exist, although many substances like sodium, sulphates and heavy metals usually limited in tap water, have practically no limits in bottled water.

One isolated Soviet era publication in the early 1980's by two Russian scientists, universally condemned by western water experts as being a short six page appendix of another larger but different type of study, used dog and rat studies without reporting important measurements to quantify the health effects of water borne minerals.  Previously the background to this study was used by other Eastern European scientists to bolster opinions within the World Health Organisation but later the ideas were discounted as highly questionable.

One well established technology; reverse osmosis with a rock solid 40 year track record of producing highly potable water, can dispense a mineral content similar to many bottled spring waters when plumbed directly from hard water.  The use of reverse osmosis plumbed after a water softener, provides extremely safe water with ultra low sodium content usually 1/20th to 1/40th of strict EU, EPA and HSE water testing limits.

One good reason for using reverse osmosis systems, is the ability to produce exceptional water quality.  This is by surpassing water quality limits set by  1) The European Union Drinking Water Directives,  2) The Irish EPA water parameter testing limits,  3) The Irish HSE, and 4) The World Health Organisation.

A high level of confused reporting of water quality issues and water testing issues was aired in the "Buyer Beware" programme by RTE in December 2008.  Although the programme set out to make a well presented focus on the unethical sales tactics of certain water filter products, the programme unfortunately steered off course into some very grey pseudo science with imaginative opinions loosely pepper sprayed throughout the report regarding well established water treatment technologies.

The failure of the programme makers to address legislation regarding EPA water testing criteria, was clear as they straddled EU directives by picking and choosing water testing limits and ignoring some limitation values.

Unfortunately, the programme makers approach can mean that water tested as contaminated on private wells and some schemes that users want to make safe, may be incorrectly treated or subject to inferior treatment means because of confusion generated about the validity of water treatment systems.

RTE gave viewers the impression that all domestic RO water filters were able to perform above a level that they are actually designed for.  Suggesting possible risks without making these risks exactly clear.

RTE's common sense factor seemed to take a nose dive later in the TV show and it was very clear the programme makers and scientists actually knew very little about domestic reverse osmosis and the reality of water potability and water testing legislation.  Other false assumptions then prevailed in the programme which were later questioned by many water specialists who saw this as irresponsible reporting.

The RTE reporting raised inconsistent doubts about RO technology therefore including top brands like General Electric and Siemens products - world leaders in RO technology.  RTE was lucky not to be put into bankruptcy by these industrial giants if it was suggested that well proven RO water technologies were other than safe.  RTE later listed an apology on their website to one Dublin based company actually selling safe distilled water (zero mineral) to health clubs and gyms.  RTE paid them an out of court settlement of 10,000 Euros.

Companies like GE and Siemens understand the application of their RO technologies.  Whilst not getting confused in thinking that the human body is like a copper pipe, as reporters on the show had seemed to portray.  GE and Siemens understand water corrosivity (low langelier) when used in pipework systems, at the same time they do not compare the human body to metal pipework.

The public often trust technical issues given by scientists on TV.  But RTE producers messed up badly.  RTE ignored our body's complex hyperstasis systems, the high calcium foods that we regularly eat, our need for vitamin D as a factor of bodily calcium absorption, high TDS in saliva, variations in stomach acidity and the absorption of organic minerals depending on age.

They ignored the fact that low mineral bottled waters like Volvic are similar to RO water sometimes lower in minerals depending on RO models.  And millions of consumers over decades drinking Volvic and the forty year track record of millions of users of reverse osmosis systems with zero reported health effects.

The programme also suggested to more or less forget about public water testing - they confirmed it cost 3 to 4 times more to test water than it actually would cost from many HSE certified labs - and instead suggested drinking the likes of Cork tap water (that was easily able to fail Irish EPA testing limits for fluoride), as mentioned on the programme.  Yet the TV presenter quoted Cork City as having "Ireland's finest water".

This has to be some of the dumbest RTE flippancy and sheer nonsense yet broadcast.

An article, compiled by Nicola Commins, Seán Lyons and Richard J.S. Tol, appears in the Quarterly Economic Commentary, Summer 2009, published July 16.  The authors report that in 2007, the fraction of people, by county, whose drinking water failed to meet EU regulations ranges from 52 percent in Cork North to 100 percent in urban areas.  Using water quality as a parameter to show the same data, the organization reports that in 2007, 35 of the 48 standards were breached by at least one sample of Irish drinking water.  For example, more than 60 percent of the people who were supplied with drinking water in 2007 were supplied water that did not meet the EU quality standard for coliform bacteria.  “At first sight, these results are alarming.  There are substances in Irish drinking water that make people ill,” the authors wrote.

Mineral water, (by definition - water molecules that contains dissolved material) is water that usually contains at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids, and typically from 0 to 250 ppm of dissolved solids for spring waters.  Impurities found in mineral water and borehole water such as sulphur, give water a rotten egg odour and taste.  A mineral can also be defined as any solid containing a uniform structure such as rock.

By definition, mineral water is impure.  These impurities can add a foul taste and depending on the dissolved mineral and can even be unhealthy (eg. lead, arsenic, sulphates, etc.).  Also by definition pure water is a much safer water that is just water molecules without colour, taste or odour.  When minerals are introduced into water they can often mask the taste of underlying impurities that are not so desirable to the human body.

We require a certain amount of trace minerals to maintain our health, certainly.  However, organic trace minerals found in safe composition in foods are needed in such small quantities that anyone with a balanced diet will have no need to overload their systems with added minerals.

There are uncertain and varying levels of impurities in all types of mineral and spring waters.  So there may be practically no mineral content in spring waters.  Other mineral waters heavy in impurities can exceed EU Drinking Water Directives. (For impurities set for tap water).  By margins of 200%, 300%, 400% and more.  Many of these are listed on MineralWaters.Org

People can develop a powerful belief that they can do something very simple to improve their health.  By drinking mineral waters with higher exposures of certain trace elements, you can be taking a significant risk.  You may have no idea of the identity or level of the dissolved impurities.  All too often bottled waters fail simple microbiological testing, in high percentages.

As for the taste of water, pure water is defined as having no taste.  Popular spring and mineral waters have 0% to 0.01% by volume of minerals.  So the effect of taste is really insignificant. There are no calories, vitamins or any real nutritional content.  So it is more a question of avoiding bad tastes and impurities, not so much whether taste masking minerals are present.

A safer and more cost effective approach to drinking water in Ireland is to drink filtered water.  You'll be drinking a much purer, healthier water.  Without taste and odour causing impurities.  And without ingesting potentially dangerous dissolved solids of an unknown origin.