"reverse Osmosis Drinking Water" Automats

[pb2003]

What about those "Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water" automats, from which you can buy water for a few baht ? Where is the water being stored ? What about the quality ? Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ? I've looked at their website "watertechasia.com" but unfortunately it's only in Thai language.

[tuky]

As far as I am aware they do not store the water, rather they filter it in real time.

Others might know more about different filtration techniques, but I imagine they are all fairly similar.

[leisurely]

The water tastes disgusting in my experience. A couple of times we have been out in the sticks with the girls and have stopped to fill empty bottle at one. Vile. Maybe it is because it isn't chilled?

[StateSix]

My apartment block has one. Use it all the time. Tastes perfectly fine to me.

I always assumed it was basically tap water that is filtered etc during the dispensing process.

[ThunderDuck]

Agreed ... big improvement over what comes out of the tap.

[GuestHouse]

Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ?

The company uses reverse osmosis as the cleaning method.

Simply put, osmosis is the selective transmission of water through a membrane. The selective bit is the water is transmitted but impurities are not.

The impuritities might for example be bacteria and virus' but will also be 'ions'.

This is all well and good, but leaves the water deficiant in 'ions', including all the minerals that you need to keep you bones and teath strong. OK you get those minerals from other sources i.e. food, but the problem with ion deficiant water is it absorbs ions (leaches ions) from your blood.

For this reason water treated by reverse osmosis (or de-ionization - another technique to remove ions) is not recommended as a main source of drinking water.

Reverse Osmosis and/or De-ionization should really only be applied where there is a real risk of chemically contaminated water.

For normal drinking purposes (and assuming no chemical contamination) micro filtering is perfectly adequate.

Example, if you are using rain water for your drinking source, a micro filter (3 microns) is perfectly adequate..... but then so again is boiling the water.

[chownah]

Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ?

The company uses reverse osmosis as the cleaning method.

Simply put, osmosis is the selective transmission of water through a membrane. The selective bit is the water is transmitted but impurities are not.

The impuritities might for example be bacteria and virus' but will also be 'ions'.

This is all well and good, but leaves the water deficiant in 'ions', including all the minerals that you need to keep you bones and teath strong. OK you get those minerals from other sources i.e. food, but the problem with ion deficiant water is it absorbs ions (leaches ions) from your blood.

For this reason water treated by reverse osmosis (or de-ionization - another technique to remove ions) is not recommended as a main source of drinking water.

Reverse Osmosis and/or De-ionization should really only be applied where there is a real risk of chemically contaminated water.

For normal drinking purposes (and assuming no chemical contamination) micro filtering is perfectly adequate.

Example, if you are using rain water for your drinking source, a micro filter (3 microns) is perfectly adequate..... but then so again is boiling the water.

I am still looking for some credible reference that drinking water that has had all minerals removed is in some way a health problem or detractor of any kind. If you have a credible reference which explains this please let me know. Until I can find this at a credible source I will continue to believe that it is simply an urban myth.

[penzman]

What about those "Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water" automats, from which you can buy water for a few baht ? Where is the water being stored ? What about the quality ? Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ? I've looked at their website "watertechasia.com" but unfortunately it's only in Thai language.

We use it all the time to fill our 5 gallon bottle but I guess it all depends on how well the machine is maintained, cleaned and disinfected.

I remember seeing a gecko inside of one drinking droplets of water from the nozzle, the plexiglass door was missing.

I don't trust the big translucent white bottles, they used to get mouldy in the school where I taught and you can often see them sitting in the sun, uncovered, when loaded on delivery trucks. I remember reading something about the heat and exposure to the sun that creates a reaction with the plastic. Many are not that clean on the outside as well and have leaky caps.

[pb2003]

Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ?

The company uses reverse osmosis as the cleaning method.

Simply put, osmosis is the selective transmission of water through a membrane. The selective bit is the water is transmitted but impurities are not.

The impuritities might for example be bacteria and virus' but will also be 'ions'.

This is all well and good, but leaves the water deficiant in 'ions', including all the minerals that you need to keep you bones and teath strong. OK you get those minerals from other sources i.e. food, but the problem with ion deficiant water is it absorbs ions (leaches ions) from your blood.

For this reason water treated by reverse osmosis (or de-ionization - another technique to remove ions) is not recommended as a main source of drinking water.

Reverse Osmosis and/or De-ionization should really only be applied where there is a real risk of chemically contaminated water.

For normal drinking purposes (and assuming no chemical contamination) micro filtering is perfectly adequate.

Example, if you are using rain water for your drinking source, a micro filter (3 microns) is perfectly adequate..... but then so again is boiling the water.

Interesting comment, Guesthouse. Do you know what kind of cleaning method the drinking water companies use here in Thailand ?

[GuestHouse]

I am still looking for some credible reference that drinking water that has had all minerals removed is in some way a health problem or detractor of any kind. If you have a credible reference which explains this please let me know. Until I can find this at a credible source I will continue to believe that it is simply an urban myth.

I have based all I have said on my own understanding gained while working in the process industry - much but not all of my experience has been in water treatment, and in particularly demineralization. I have also discussed this subject with process engineers who work almost entirely on water projects. The comments I have given have been consistent with my own knowledge and the advice I have been given from these water specialists.

But, if it is a credible source you want, take a look at this report from the W.H.O.

Credible Reference - The World Health Organization I think they are quite clearly not spreading an Urban Myth.

[chownah]

But, if it is a credible source you want, take a look at this report from the W.H.O.

Credible Reference - The World Health Organization I think they are quite clearly not spreading an Urban Myth.

I looked at and read most of the article. It is a "Draft for review and comments

(Not for citation)" that I gather is some information that someone would like added to the W.H.O. Guidlines for Drinking-Water Quality.....but I'm not sure. It is clearly marked as a draft and not to be cited. The date on the cover is 2004. The author is F. Kozisek...no indication of education level or position at W.H.O.

Mostly it seems to me to be about what "possible" health problems "might" occur. It does talk about some animal studies whose conclusions are not really pertinent to this topic (which the author states if you read carefully exactly what is written). It also mentions some studies on populations of peoples but it does not give enough details for complete understanding of how the actual study was carried out. Most of these studies were done in the USSR. One of the most quoted documents was from a W.H.O. internal document from 1980. An internal document does not usually get reviewed fully (from what I have seen in most organizations) and are not meant for publication in their existing form...just like this article is meant for review and comment. It is possible that there is some credible research mentioned here but there is so much misleading stuff as well that it gives me an overall impression of non-credibility. I want to thank you for this information but I will continue to be a sceptic until I can see some other stuff on this topic. Since drinking demineralized water seems to be widespread these days it seems to me that if there was a credible health threat then it would be broadly discovered and talked about. I'm actually going to look for some more information on this and see what I can find....there might be something to it.....but....I want to finish with a quote from the link which demonstrates in a small way one reason why I am still sceptical:

"The evidence in terms of experimental effects and findings in human

volunteers related to highly demineralised water is mostly found in older

studies, some of which may not meet current methodological criteria."

Chownah

[chownah]

Guesthouse,

Good news.....I think I've figured out what's up at the W.H.O. The W.H.O. has an ongoing interest in research on drinking water quality and the "rolling revisions" are in fact sometimes people giving their suggestions for updating the W.H.O.'s recommendations. I found the latest (at least I think it is the latest) statement by the W.H.O. on drinking water quality and the paper you gave the link for is even mentioned there. Here is the link:

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health...onsensusrep.pdf

I think this information is credible and I think that it is worth reading.....it seems that for many people dietary intake of minerals will be adequate but in some situations it might not be....if I were drinking alot of de-ionized water I would read this for sure.

Chownah

[GuestHouse]

I mentioned this to our process engineer who specialises in water projects. His comment was that he believes a significant risk to health in drinking de-ionized water is that de-ionized water will seek ions from whereever it finds them. De-ionized water will absobe very much higher levels of contaminates it comes into contact with.

So if you place d-ionized water into a, say a lead pipe, or a pipe joined with lead solder, it will absorbe more of the lead than normal water would.

Anyway, I think it has been demonstrated that De-ionized water should not considered as definately safe, and that this is not an urban myth....

[lopburi3]

As this water is processed at point of sale the bit about lead pipes is smoke and mirror talk in my opinion. Anyone running any water through a lead pipe would be asking for trouble (and yes they did that 100 years ago). But I hold no faith in the argument that this water is taking minerals from your blood. That is an urban myth in my book; until there is a lot more proof than there seems to be now.

[bkkmadness]

Is the water really processed in the machine where you buy it?

A lot of people use RO units for keeping specific fish that are delicate both in the UK and here and we actually used to sll the water to them at the shop I used to work at many moons ago. It was a slow process creating the RO water though, and to work efficiently had to literally drip through the unit to remove its impurities efficiently. We had stocks of barrels of the water filling every night so it was ready for customers the next day, it was certainly not an almost instant process.

Maybe it was just the system we was using though.

[kat]

Does the company use a different water cleaning technique than the usual drinking water companies ?

The company uses reverse osmosis as the cleaning method.

Simply put, osmosis is the selective transmission of water through a membrane. The selective bit is the water is transmitted but impurities are not.

The impuritities might for example be bacteria and virus' but will also be 'ions'.

This is all well and good, but leaves the water deficiant in 'ions', including all the minerals that you need to keep you bones and teath strong. OK you get those minerals from other sources i.e. food, but the problem with ion deficiant water is it absorbs ions (leaches ions) from your blood.

For this reason water treated by reverse osmosis (or de-ionization - another technique to remove ions) is not recommended as a main source of drinking water.

Reverse Osmosis and/or De-ionization should really only be applied where there is a real risk of chemically contaminated water.

For normal drinking purposes (and assuming no chemical contamination) micro filtering is perfectly adequate.

Example, if you are using rain water for your drinking source, a micro filter (3 microns) is perfectly adequate..... but then so again is boiling the water.

So, what water do you reckon is best to drink here?

[bkkmadness]

The best water is probably your imported mineral water that you can buy from the villa market for some mad price (50-80 baht a bottle?), but realistically I don't think theres any problem with that RO water from the units and you can't beat the price.

[chownah]

Sounds like noone has read the link I posted....I think it is pretty credible....I can understand that reading technical stuff puts many people off...so...I'll give my take on it and hope that those who disagree will feel free to give their opinions.

In a nutshell (in my opinion) the article says that very young children should not have ro water as their only water source at least as a precaution until the lack of minerals issue is better understood. You should not make baby formula with ro water as a routine thing....once in a while is probably ok. If you live in a part of the world where certain minerals are lacking in the food supply then its best to drink water with minerals in it (not ro water which has no minerals). If you are at risk for certain types of heart attacks you should probably not drink ro water as a regular thing since there are credible studies that show that ro water would raise your risk by a small amount. And the bottom line...for me....is that if you eat a healthy diet containing enough minerals then drinking ro water will be no problem....or if you take mineral supplements it will be no problem....calcium is the main mineral contained in natural waters that seems to be the main thing to be aware of along with magnesium and trace minerals.

If you worry about the water you drink every time you drink it, that will probably be worse for you than whatever is or is not in the water.

Edit: Whateveryou do, don't just take my word for it....be responsible for your own health please.

Edited February 3, 2006 by chownah

[GuestHouse]

I think that sums it up nicely.

For my part, on the basis of my own knowledge of water treatment and the advice of the water treatment professionals I work with I do not drink RO water and I certainly would not drink demin water.

I drink bottled mineral water and when I eventually get my place built (fished), I'll be putting a 80 meter bore hole down and drinking that (micro filtered and regularly tested).