Water

Despite beliefs to the contrary, our tap water might be "clean", but it is not "pure". Tap water contains chlorine, flouride and chloramine, all of which help reduce water born diseases, but which also have detrimental impacts on soil microbes. This page lists products you can use to purify water of these minerals. We have teamed up with "Friends of Water", a California based family operated/owned business, to supply you with these products.

• Dual Housing Countertop for Flouride and Standard filtration ($289)
• Dual Housing Countertop for Flouride and Standard filtration - Chrome ($359)
• Dual Housing Countertop for Chloramines and Standard filtration ($289)
• Dual Housing Countertop for Chloramines and Standard filtration - Chrome ($359)
• Dual Housing Undercounter for Flouride and Standard filtration with faucet ($309)
• Dual Housing Undercounter for Chloramine and Standard filtration with faucet ($309)
• Triple Housing Undercounter for Chloramine, Flouride and Standard Filtration with faucet ($449)
• Inline KDF/Coconut carbon filter for fridges ($99)
• Gardenmate (Aquamate) Chlorine filter for gardens ($69.95)

Note:  Prices do not include installation or shipping. Please consult or contract a plumber to prevent air leaks, bubling noises, etc. We are not responsible for faulty installation.

We now have both shower and bath filters (available upon request - Please call 512-870-8062) that greatly reduce chloramines. The units listed above are our most popular items.  If you are looking for something more specific, please follow the navigation instructions listed below.

In order to navigate the choices of systems, we can provide you with the following guidance:

1.  The housing for a water filtration system can go above the countertop or below the countertop.  The undercounter models come with a seperate tap/dispenser that you can install above the countertop. The countertop models come in white, but also have a chrome version that costs about $70 more. Countertop units have a spout attached to the side of the cannisters, and a diverter which dispenses filtered water from the top of your regular faucet.

2.  How many water lines do you want to filter? (see the next item for the available cartridges) Units come in either 2 filter or 3 filter system capacity. We also hope to offer whole house filter systems in the near future, but the expense is usually 4-8x the undercounter or countertop models.

3.  The available filters are (prices are for replacement filters): 

• Standard KDF/Coconut carbon at 5 microns ($49.95); 
• Finer filter KDF/Coconut carbon at 1 micron absolute ($69.95);
• Flouride Removing Cartridge ($69.95);  (see below for more info)
• Nitrate Removing Cartridge ($74.95);
• Chloramine Removing Cartridge ($64.95); (see below for more info)
• Arsenic Removing Cartridge ($99.95);
• Radiation Removing Cartidge ($69.95)
• Gardenmate/Aquamate Refill Cartridge ($34.95)

Flouride

In November 2006, the American Dental Association announced that ingestion of fluoride is dangerous for babies. They have notified their members of this, but we are not aware of any effort to notify the public. You can read more about this and other risks of drinking fluoride at the Fluoride Dangers page.

Fluoride is easy enough to remove if you use enough of the right filter media. These fliters use as the media activated alumina. Activated alumina is not the material we know as aluminum.  It is aluminum oxide, the same natural substance as sapphire and rubies, but without the impurities that give the gems their color.  Aluminum is a more highly-processed man-made material fabricated in part by the addition of fluoride!  Activated alumina is a resin with a very high surface-area-to-weight ratio, with a lot of tunnel-like pores that run all through it. This means that there is a lot of surface area against which the water interacts, thereby removing fluoride.  Should there be leaching of materials from the first canister, the filter media in the second canister removes it.  Customers who have tested these filters in their homes have reported 0 fluoride when new, and 0 fluoride after 6 & 7 months of use. View a research study report on the effectiveness of Activated Alumina. 

This page describes the fluoride water filters offered by friendsofwater.com: fluoride water filters. 

Chloramines

In recent times, a growing number of municipalities have started adding ammonia to the water supply.  They are doing this for two reasons. One reason is to replace chlorine, which some scientific studies suggest chlorine is carcinogenic. The other reason is that adding ammonia changes the chemistry of chlorine so that it continues to serve as a disinfectant but lasts  longer.  The new chemical is called chloramine.  By definition, chloramines are harder to remove than chlorine.

Research published in 2007 by Dr. Michael Plewa indicated that the disinfection byproducts (DBPs) created from the use of chloramine are much more toxic than the DBPs of chlorine. Studies also indicnte that chloramines can increase the amount of lead in water, particularly when the treated water runs through older lead pipes. 

Chloramine DBPs are currently not regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.  As far as we can determine, there still have been no scientific studies done to determine the risks to epidermis, respiratory, digestive or epidemiologic systems. There also seem to be no allergy tests for chloramine. Nonetheless, this chemical is being formed in the water supply of people all over the country. As a young man, the Big Splash at friendsofwater.com worked in the Dermatology Department of Mass General Hospital in Boston.  One thing he learned was that you must study something for years in clinical settings before you can make definitive statements about health effects.  But over those years, that doesn't mean that harm isn't being done!

Health problems experienced by many people from exposure to chloramines include: severe skin rashes; dry skin; scaling skin; erupting, oozing skin; skin described as having chemical burns; skin outbreaks 'like hives'; swollen ears; extreme fatigue; hacking coughs; sneezing; nasal congestion; itchy eyes; burning eyes; swollen eyes; raspy throat; peeling fingernails; stomach aches; yeast infection; and ammonia toxicity from consumption, especially for those with liver, kidney or urea cycle diseases. Many many people have reported that stopping exposure to chloramines led to dramatic improvement in health conditions within days.