What To Do About Drinking Water?

[jacobjm1]

Greetings,

So I just purchased a Mazuma 3-step water filtration unit (carbon, resin, ceramic) that I hooked up to the tap yesterday. The water coming out of the tap was already clear, and I'm not sure how much improvement the filter helped. The water is still metallic tasting. Granted, I wasn't expecting Evian to start pouring out, but there seems to be no improvement in taste...

Do you think the water is any cleaner with this filter or am I just wasting my time? I hear that most Thai's drink bottled water (which in many cases is just filtered water), but not sure what others experience have been. I thought about going with Sprinkle, but I understand they also bottle some of the hotel water hear, and that doesn't taste very good either I think.

Are there any good Thai mineral waters that are inexpensive?

Thoughts?

Thanks

Jacob

[ripstanley]

I drink any bottled water. I live in a village and have wondered if the cheap water I drink is safe. I am still healthy after 8 months continuous drinking. I do drink a lot of water a day. I am no medical expert but I will continue to drink the cheap bottled water. Clean my teath with tap water.

[sirineou]

Drinking water , with out the regulations that we have in the west, is a problem in Thailand.

Unfortunately some of the problems from drinking contaminated water, might not become apparent until after years of use. So the only way to be reasonable assured is to have the water tasted by a qualified lab.

I am not familiar of the water filtering system that you have, but id you have a taste then there are dissolved minerals in the water, that might or might not be safe.as far as I know, Pure water has no taste.

[cooked]

I bought a similar water filter because there was a metallic taste to the water, and it worked. However I don't think that these filters remove bacteria, which usually isn't a problem unless there is an usual infiltration of your water supply somewhere, which can happen anywhere.

[sotsira]

Minere is a good qaulity Thai mineral water that is inexpensive.

[jacobjm1]

thanks guys for all the advice, really appreciate

[AyG]

Just a few comments:

(1) The OP's system appears not to include UV treatment of the water, leaving the risk of bacteria still in the system. During the floods my partner (who's an chemical engineer specialising in water treatment) set up a home filtration system and then tested the water produced in the lab at work. Even after UV treatment there were still some E. Coli bacteria left. (For those who don't know, E. Coli usually come from faeces - human and animal.) We ended up boiling all water produced before drinking it to be safe. Personally I wouldn't trust any of these home water treatment system - particularly because the domestic consumer can't test how well they're working.

(2) The metallic taste may be from the coating they put on the resin to keep it "fresh". If you check the instructions it may say that you should discard the first x litres.

(3) Bottled water isn't filtered. It's produced by reverse osmosis, treated with ozone and irradiated with UV.

[Jayman]

my home water filter is 7 stage. 3 pre stage filters..then RO then a post filter before it heads into a filter (maybe wrong term) that actually adds minerals back to the completely depleted water and out through the UV unit.

The water tastes truly wonderful. We fill glass bottles and cool it in the fridge or drink straight from the tap. System was maybe 15k thb installed which more than paid for itself in savings from cases and cases of bottled water. We used to get the big 5 liter bottles delivered to the house till we all got sick from them. Not sure how well those bottles get cleaned.

In any case the yearly maintenance is 4000 to have the guy come and change out all filters and replace the lamp.

The whole system comes from a nice Irish guy named Tom who had been in the business for years and decided to semi retire in Thailand. He's in pattaya and does all the work himself and guarantees everything. Everything is imported by his company. We've been using ours for probably 3 years now with no complaints and actually lots of guests drink it and comment on how nice it tastes.

You get what you pay for and a 3 stage filter alone is crap here in los.

Sent from my GT-I9100T

Edited July 16, 2012 by Jayman

[lopburi3]

Actually ceramic filters do remove most bacteria (down to the size stated) so are an added safety precaution (most sickness is due to bacteria overload - not from just a few) and the 3 stage filter mentioned is the normal restaurant type addition for treatment of city tap water. But not knowing posters source hard to make any judgement, except he seems to be more concerned with taste. As mentioned these filters need to be run for an extended period when new before drinking use.

[ravip]

I am confused.

Thailand is a country with a population of 67,091,089 (July 2012 est.) plus a couple of millions of returning and complainig tourists and another lot trying to get PR there.

How are they existing without proper drinking water? Are they all sick?

On Evian?

(Just thinking about good marketing slogans)

[Jayman]

I am confused.

Thailand is a country with a population of 67,091,089 (July 2012 est.) plus a couple of millions of returning and complainig tourists and another lot trying to get PR there.

How are they existing without proper drinking water? Are they all sick?

On Evian?

(Just thinking about good marketing slogans)

Not sure what you are getting at buy thais tend to get water from a bottle. Either they have large bottles delivered or they go fill them up themselves at corner water vending machines.

The problem is that it's rare to find a machine that is being maintained per the manufacturer specifications. Just like Thais will change their oil and not the oil filter. They don't change the filters in these machines as often as they are supposed to. So when the machine is brand new the water might be great. But after 6 months or so you now how to question the quality of that water. Thais tend to do things maintenance on the cheap and only when it breaks. This is not how I want my water quality maintained.

I am much happier the way I have my own system and I can verify that all the filters are changed on a regular interval.

[jacobjm1]

Minere is a good qaulity Thai mineral water that is inexpensive.

I ended up taking your advice. I like Minere a lot, and at 54 THB for 6L is a pretty good deal. I threw out the water filter thing, it was just hogging up to much space on my little counter.

[Lite Beer]

Everything you ever wanted to know and more.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/385634-bottled-water-is-it-safe/page__hl__

[lovetotravel]

Everything you ever wanted to know and more.

http://www.thaivisa....safe/page__hl__

Yes, great discussion there. Also:

Even bottled water here is suspect, but what can you do? Getting good drinking water is a global problem, not just here in Thailand.

[Jayman]

Everything you ever wanted to know and more.

http://www.thaivisa....safe/page__hl__

Yes, great discussion there. Also:

http://www.thaivisa....-being-treated/

Even bottled water here is suspect, but what can you do? Getting good drinking water is a global problem, not just here in Thailand.

I told you what I do. I filter all my families water with a 7-stage system that is fitted under the sink in where no one can see it. Then we store in glass bottles for the fridge.

I very very good in knowing my family has clean (non suspect) drinking water all the time.

[sotsira]

Minere is a good qaulity Thai mineral water that is inexpensive.

I ended up taking your advice. I like Minere a lot, and at 54 THB for 6L is a pretty good deal. I threw out the water filter thing, it was just hogging up to much space on my little counter.

If you shop around you can get it cheaper than that, most supermarket chains sell the 6L containers for around 45bt.

[Jayman]

you should know that most all the plastic bottles used in Asia leech chemicals into the water that you then ingest. Might be clean going into the bottle but is it clean coming out?

[jacobjm1]

you should know that most all the plastic bottles used in Asia leech chemicals into the water that you then ingest. Might be clean going into the bottle but is it clean coming out?

True, I am well aware. I did see that documentary called "Water" I think. Unfortunately in Thailand, you either need to attempt to filter the tap water (which I've had so-so luck with) or you need to buy bottled water.

At this point, I think it's pick your poison...and I pick bottled water.

[Jayman]

you should know that most all the plastic bottles used in Asia leech chemicals into the water that you then ingest. Might be clean going into the bottle but is it clean coming out?

True, I am well aware. I did see that documentary called "Water" I think. Unfortunately in Thailand, you either need to attempt to filter the tap water (which I've had so-so luck with) or you need to buy bottled water.

At this point, I think it's pick your poison...and I pick bottled water.

I understand that you had a 3 stage filter so it's no surprise to me that you had no luck with it. You get what you pay for in this world. If you invest in a proper imported system and maintain it like it's meant to me then you will find it produces much better tasting water than any of these singha factories.

Of course the choice is yours. You started a thread on "what to do about drinking water" and I have spelled out exactly what I do for my families healthy drinking water needs.

Mine came from http://aquapurificationsystems.com/

the owners name is Tom.

system I use is similar to this one http://aquapurificationsystems.com/ro103.html

Edited July 22, 2012 by Jayman

[Morakot]

my home water filter is 7 stage. 3 pre stage filters..then RO then a post filter before it heads into a filter (maybe wrong term) that actually adds minerals back to the completely depleted water and out through the UV unit.

The water tastes truly wonderful. We fill glass bottles and cool it in the fridge or drink straight from the tap. System was maybe 15k thb installed which more than paid for itself in savings from cases and cases of bottled water. We used to get the big 5 liter bottles delivered to the house till we all got sick from them. Not sure how well those bottles get cleaned.

In any case the yearly maintenance is 4000 to have the guy come and change out all filters and replace the lamp.

The whole system comes from a nice Irish guy named Tom who had been in the business for years and decided to semi retire in Thailand. He's in pattaya and does all the work himself and guarantees everything. Everything is imported by his company. We've been using ours for probably 3 years now with no complaints and actually lots of guests drink it and comment on how nice it tastes.

You get what you pay for and a 3 stage filter alone is crap here in los.

Well that is truly wonderful indeed and very convenient. But it strikes me as having very high opportunity costs, if one considers a 6L bottle of treated water (own brand, reverse osmosis and UV filtering) costs B25 at Tescos. An economy of scale that no home filtering system can beat. I acknowledge the convenience though.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Morakot

[Jayman]

my home water filter is 7 stage. 3 pre stage filters..then RO then a post filter before it heads into a filter (maybe wrong term) that actually adds minerals back to the completely depleted water and out through the UV unit.

The water tastes truly wonderful. We fill glass bottles and cool it in the fridge or drink straight from the tap. System was maybe 15k thb installed which more than paid for itself in savings from cases and cases of bottled water. We used to get the big 5 liter bottles delivered to the house till we all got sick from them. Not sure how well those bottles get cleaned.

In any case the yearly maintenance is 4000 to have the guy come and change out all filters and replace the lamp.

The whole system comes from a nice Irish guy named Tom who had been in the business for years and decided to semi retire in Thailand. He's in pattaya and does all the work himself and guarantees everything. Everything is imported by his company. We've been using ours for probably 3 years now with no complaints and actually lots of guests drink it and comment on how nice it tastes.

You get what you pay for and a 3 stage filter alone is crap here in los.

Well that is truly wonderful indeed and very convenient. But it strikes me as having very high opportunity costs, if one considers a 6L bottle of treated water (own brand, reverse osmosis and UV filtering) costs B25 at Tescos. An economy of scale that no home filtering system can beat. I acknowledge the convenience though.

We bought it purely based on economy. We looked at how much we spent per month (from our spending history) on bottled water for the family and worked out how many months before the filter would pay for itself. We have not regretted it. We have had it several years now and the yearly maintenance on it is about 3-4k which is done once a year by the farang that sold us the unit. All filters changed as well as the UV bulb.

My problem with buying water from the delivered bottles is that I have no idea how well they are cleaning the containers and how often they change the filters. If it's anything like their cars then they change the filter when the car is broken on the side of the road. My entire house got sick after we had some bad water delivered that had proven fine for months. Why risk it.

Even the machine around town that you can pay small to fill your own bottles. They might works lovely when they are first installed. After 2 years how many times do you think they are serviced? Think about it. TIT after all. I have never regretted for 1 minute the money spent on our water filter system. It might even be the best household purchase we have ever made. The water ALWAYS tastes incredible

my home water filter is 7 stage. 3 pre stage filters..then RO then a post filter before it heads into a filter (maybe wrong term) that actually adds minerals back to the completely depleted water and out through the UV unit.

The water tastes truly wonderful. We fill glass bottles and cool it in the fridge or drink straight from the tap. System was maybe 15k thb installed which more than paid for itself in savings from cases and cases of bottled water. We used to get the big 5 liter bottles delivered to the house till we all got sick from them. Not sure how well those bottles get cleaned.

In any case the yearly maintenance is 4000 to have the guy come and change out all filters and replace the lamp.

The whole system comes from a nice Irish guy named Tom who had been in the business for years and decided to semi retire in Thailand. He's in pattaya and does all the work himself and guarantees everything. Everything is imported by his company. We've been using ours for probably 3 years now with no complaints and actually lots of guests drink it and comment on how nice it tastes.

You get what you pay for and a 3 stage filter alone is crap here in los.

Well that is truly wonderful indeed and very convenient. But it strikes me as having very high opportunity costs, if one considers a 6L bottle of treated water (own brand, reverse osmosis and UV filtering) costs B25 at Tescos. An economy of scale that no home filtering system can beat. I acknowledge the convenience though.

I have gone both ways. Buying bottles and making it at home and the unit I have has more than paid for itself by now. I don't have to drink water stored in plastic. I don't have lug around cases of water. I control the quality. No shortages will change my cost or supply. How was it during the floods when there was huge shortage of bottled water at the stores? I didn't experience any of that.

[Morakot]

We bought it purely based on economy. We looked at how much we spent per month (from our spending history) on bottled water for the family and worked out how many months before the filter would pay for itself. We have not regretted it. We have had it several years now and the yearly maintenance on it is about 3-4k which is done once a year by the farang that sold us the unit. All filters changed as well as the UV bulb.

My problem with buying water from the delivered bottles is that I have no idea how well they are cleaning the containers and how often they change the filters. If it's anything like their cars then they change the filter when the car is broken on the side of the road. My entire house got sick after we had some bad water delivered that had proven fine for months. Why risk it.

Even the machine around town that you can pay small to fill your own bottles. They might works lovely when they are first installed. After 2 years how many times do you think they are serviced? Think about it. TIT after all. I have never regretted for 1 minute the money spent on our water filter system. It might even be the best household purchase we have ever made. The water ALWAYS tastes incredible

I have gone both ways. Buying bottles and making it at home and the unit I have has more than paid for itself by now. I don't have to drink water stored in plastic. I don't have lug around cases of water. I control the quality. No shortages will change my cost or supply. How was it during the floods when there was huge shortage of bottled water at the stores? I didn't experience any of that.

Well, I didn't expect anything else but convincing arguments from you, Jayman. Good stuff. I'd say, if there are more than 2 people in the house it would take easily less than 10 years to get even with the water buying. One point for clarification, I was talking about a supermarket chain with a high reputation for quality, not some kind of roadside merchant.

We spend about B100 per week for four 6L bottles, which is about B5000 per year. Yes, fully agree with the self-sufficiency issue, especially if one lives in a disaster-prone area.

[nocturn]

im pretty happy with sprinkle.

24 x 18.9 litre coupons about 1500 baht last time i looked.

delivered every monday, for the last 10 years.

just put the empty bottles out front of the house with the coupons in the neck.

my house goes through around 3 bottles every 2 weeks litres a week from a water cooler.

sure beats waking up hungover with no water in the house.

Edited August 8, 2012 by nocturn

[Morakot]

im pretty happy with sprinkle.

What is the brand of your sparkling water?

Edit: I just saw, it's for a water cooler. Can anyone recommend a brand for sparkling water?

Edited August 8, 2012 by Morakot

[Jayman]

im pretty happy with sprinkle.

What is the brand of your sparkling water?

Edit: I just saw, it's for a water cooler. Can anyone recommend a brand for sparkling water?

Singha seems pretty popular in Thailand. They have flavored ones as well.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Jayman

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The problem with many of the assessments/comments offered above by those buying their bottled water locally is that NONE of us have any reliable means of assuring this or that brand of bottled water is really safe or free of problems, or even that some provider isn't simply bottling local tapwater with absolutely no treatment. I think it's pretty obvious to say there is little or no meaningful health regulation enforcement by the Thai government or the water producers.

Recall the recent news reports here about vast quantities of the wastewater (sewage) being produced in Thailand being released directly into water sources either with no treatment or little treatment, and how many of the limited number of sewage treatment plants either aren't operating or are operating at limited levels because of maintenance and/or equipment parts issues. It certainly makes one wonder just how well the drinking water treatment plants are run even in places like BKK, leaving aside the likely more problematic places upcountry.

The vast flooding last year spurred me to pay a lot of attention to water purification methods. And clearly, filtering and treating drinking water with small amounts of bleach or boiling are the most assured means of having safe drinking water.

So my approach at home in BKK has been to run my house tapwater thru a U.S. sourced PUR countertop water filtering basin (where I regularly replace the multi-stage filter cartridge on the correct schedule) followed by boiling in a water kettle, and then cooling that water and ultimately refrigerating it for drinking.

At least, through that means, I'm controlling and monitoring the process...and not leaving it to persons/companies of unknown reliability.

[negreanu]

Acqua Panna, forget all the filters all the other cheap stuff.

Quality water, quality taste. Just a tad expensive here.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The National Resources Defense Council, an admittedly pro environmental group in the U.S., conducted a four year study on the bottled water industry some years back.... And that was re the U.S.'s industry, not their counterparts here in Thailand.

Some of its findings:

An Exploding Bottled Water Market

• There has been an explosion in bottled water use in the United States, driven in large measure by marketing designed to convince the public of bottled water's purity and safety, and capitalizing on public concern about tap water quality. People spend from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they typically do for tap water.
  
• Some of this marketing is misleading, implying the water comes from pristine sources when it does not. For example, one brand of "spring water" whose label pictured a lake and mountains, actually came from a well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a hazardous waste dump, and periodically was contaminated with industrial chemicals at levels above FDA standards.
  
• According to government and industry estimates, about one fourth of bottled water is bottled tap water (and by some accounts, as much as 40 percent is derived from tap water) -- sometimes with additional treatment, sometimes not.
  

Major Regulatory Gaps

• FDA's rules completely exempt 60-70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States from the agency's bottled water standards, because FDA says its rules do not apply to water packaged and sold within the same state. Nearly 40 states say they do regulate such waters (generally with few or no resources dedicated to policing this); therefore, about one out of five states do not.
  
• FDA also exempts "carbonated water," "seltzer," and many other waters sold in bottles from its bottled water standards, applying only vague general sanitation rules that set no specific contamination limits. Fewer than half of the states require these waters to meet bottled water standards.
  

Bottled Water: As Pure as We Are Led to Believe?

• While most bottled water apparently is of good quality, publicly available monitoring data are scarce. The underfunded and haphazard patchwork of regulatory programs has found numerous cases where bottled water has been contaminated at levels above state or federal standards. In some cases bottled water has been recalled.
  
• Our "snapshot" testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of water by three independent labs found that most bottled water tested was of good quality, but some brands' quality was spotty. About one third of the bottled waters we tested contained significant contamination (i.e., levels of chemical or bacterial contaminants exceeding those allowed under a state or industry standard or guideline) in at least one test.
  

The source web site from NRDC is good reading in terms of what is and isn't known about bottled waters. As I said above, the buyer typically doesn't really know what is or isn't arriving in their bottled water -- regardless of the store shelf price.

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/exesum.asp

[Rsquared]

Been here almost 2 years and have an "eSpring" water filter that uses UV as well as fibre and charcoal filtration.

Admittedly a little costly at 28k Baht, but I was sold on the fact that all the tests done with different samples....including bottled water, did not stand up to what this filter produced.

I live out in the sticks and we rely on rain water and sometimes we top our tanks up with irrigation water supplied from the local village dam, so for drinking purposes I feel very safe using this filter.

I don't like using bottled water, simply because there's a tiny bit of "greenie" in me and I don't like all the plastic bottles, but there's not much I can do about that.

But please check out eSpring, I'm sure you'll be impressed, plus it doesn't take up much space.

Cheers.

[cooked]

I read somewhere that if you drink the contents of 100 bottles of water, you will have ingested the equivalent of one (empty) bottle. This has been linked by some sources to cancer and stuff...I have seen bottles being refilled in small eateries from the tap, meaning that in addition to the obvious, the quality of the bottle is deteriorating each time, making it even more obnoxious. At least in Portugal we could drive once a week to a certified clean source of spring water.

It's not all gloom and doom, nobody died from drinking water.