American Roadtrip wrote:
SNIP...So far what I know reverse osmosis is the best...
I would question this assumption in the original post before going too much farther. RO water, while probably the safest water to drink, is certainly not the "best" water. The RO process removes everything from the the water including the "good stuff" like minerals etc that our bodies need. What is left is a purified water that reads rather acidic on a ph scale and is therefore not as good for the body as a ph neutral water such as a quality spring water. Major brands such as Dasani, Evian, & Nestle are all highly hyped and marketed purified RO waters.
We ran a whole battery of tests here locally as an experiment based on curiosity to see where our municipal water stacked up against the big boys. In all, we tested 23 brands of purified, spring, municipal tap, and well waters. Our admittedly less than perfect scientific analysis actually found Fiji spring water to be the "best" with Poland Spring (a regional brand) a close second. Even no-name gallons of spring water off the grocery store shelf scored better than RO waters. Our municipal water scored toward the bottom of the middle group of the spring waters. One caveat to remember is that spring waters are usually from municipal sources and multiple sources can be used under one label. For example, Poland Spring can come from any one of at least 4 different municipal sources so variations will occur. BTW, when in doubt, read the label. Bottlers are required to denote whether it is purified or spring water on the label.
I won't enter into the Chlorine / Fluorine debate. Smarter people than myself have already chimed in with some great information on this to help us all make the best decision for our own needs. For what it's worth, I use a twin canister carbon and KDF system for my home drinking water and a single canister in-line Carbon/KDF for the TT. One thing to remember about KDF is it's propensity to solidify if left to dry (i.e: between uses or seasons). Keep it wet if you go this route. I bought some caps for the filter and store it full of water between uses and replace it annually ($30) rather than wet store it in the off-season.
And lastly, distilled water is not for drinking. Save it for the iron, powersports batteries, and cigar humidor.
Sorry to be so long-winded. I hope to at least have added some value to the conversation.