Drinking water I litre -1 baht. Is this water really drinkable?

[bartender100]

> The slot machines are supposed to have a filter and UV light but often they are not working.

Simple filters are not much use. Unless the filters are changed frequently, they do more harm than good as the bugs breed in the filter.

The better machines use Reverse Osmosis to purify the water. R.O. is the only thing which will remove dissolved solids (besides distillation).

But as before, so much dependes on how well (and how often) the machines are serviced......

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but I cannot be bothered to read all of the posts................

Get yourself a TDS machine, dirt cheap, available in Thailand and a godsend for assessing the water purity from RO machines:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Water-Quality-Tester-Hydroponics/dp/B009HMVDNA

Jackflash is absolutely correct regarding servicing whilst the emphasis should be on 'how well'. Our hotel has an RO water purifying machine. I tested said machine with the TDS meter. Reading 95ppm. Hotel tap water reading was 70ppm. I informed the hotel management the RO filters need replacing. I happened to be walking out when the RO service guy arrived so being inquisitive, I watched. The filter tubes are clear and, apart from the carbon and RO filter, the filters should be white. The filter tubes were BLACK not dark brown but black. The hotel was 4 years old and obviously the machine had never been serviced. I was quite surprised by the manner in which the service guy operated. He replaced all the filters, except the RO, with one type of white filter. When I picked up a filter to examine, he even told me the filters were identical. The machine should have 4 different types of filter ranging from a coarse carbon to a fine white filter and of course a new RO membrane. The RO membrane is expensive (about 1500 baht) so this was not replaced.

I tested the water, after the machine had been serviced, and the TDS was now reading 110ppm. Worse than before the service. I made further inquiries and it appears the hotel uses an underground well for their tap water and only has a Thai water authority connection for the RO water machine hence the discrepancies.

When I informed the hotel management of my findings they promptly informed me my TDS machine was obviously broken. I know this is not the case as there is one brand of bottled water that reads 3ppm on my TDS machine. Also, we use RO water from a nearby shop where the owner changes the filters every 3 months. The TDS reading varies between 5 and 30ppm. Perfectly acceptable and good quality water.

Hope you find this useful

Any idea where you can buy TDS machine in Thailand? Google does not tell me

[oTwoPies]

Apologies for the delay in replying but my 'follow topic' email was delayed. You can try these sites:-

http://maitakdad.tarad.com/product.detail_576449_th_3078335

http://www.cmseller.com/?name=knowledge&file=readknowledge&id=42

Our meter was supplied by our Coway RO machine distributer