People who live on a property plagued with water sources that has been infiltrated with salt cannot give enough praise in their reverse osmosis reviews. Anyone would have to conceed to RO systems' ability to clean up such water. For people who do not have that problem, however, the bulky, expensive RO systems are difficult to justify. In this article I want to make a reverse osmosis water treatment comparison with today's more modern technology.

In large areas of the US people are dealing with brackish water, or water with high mineral content. I have been offered such water that I just could not drink due to the strong taste or smell. I have also tasted the water after it was filtered with a RO system and, although the owner's though it tasted great, I always found it to be "stale" tasting.

This "flat" taste is a small thing, but it is a symptom of something larger. The flatness comes from the fact that the RO process removes ALL the minerals from the water. We need trace minerals such as calcium and potassium to maintain good health. Also, this demineralization produces slightly acidic water and such water in our bodies will try to return to a neutral pH by leaching calcium from bones or teeth. If you use a RO system, you may want to consider adding mineral supplements to your diet.

Many experts in the areas of health and nutrition feel water stripped of minerals is unhealthy if, used on a long-term basis, since cancer seems to only exist in environments which are acidic.

RO systems filter by forcing water through a semi-permeable membrane. Any molecules larger than water molecules are separated out and removed. The amount of force required may necessitate an auxiliary pump.

The pores of the membrans are so small that even with sufficient pressure much of the water cannot be forced thru the RO membrane and is simply flushed. This adds to the operating costs.

Chlorine is usually used to kill the living bugs in our well water or our city water and, since chlorine molecules are smaller than water's they will not be filtered out. Neither will any of the thousands of synthetic organic chemicals that trouble our water supplies today. To remove these items, RO systems must be used in conjunction with some sort of carbon filtration.

Water passing through a filter of any sort will somewhat reduce the water pressure and this is certainly true of the RO systems. They are very slow and, if you want filtered water for say, bathing, you will need a storage tank capable of maintaining water pressure.

When these units are assembled with the filters, pump (if needed), storage tank, etc., there are a lot of things to go wrong and the largest areas of gripes in the reverse osmosis reviews is over maintenance costs and start up costs. Even with plumber installations they are subject to higher operating costs and maintenance issues.

Ninety-five percent of households in the US get their drinking water from some sort of chlorinated source such as a well or a utility company. If that's the case with you as well, you might want to compare a selective filtration system (also called multi-stage) against the RO system.

Selective filtration uses activated carbon that is blended with a chemically charged filter resin that is compressed in a solid block having tiny, submicron pores. No 'Rube Goldberg' system here. The bad water simply flows in one end of the filter, with household water pressure, and the good, clean, healthy water flows out the other end with the healthy minerals (selectively) intact. All heavy minerals are removed by ion exchange.

No pumps, no storage tanks, no extra maintenance and operating costs, no need for mineral supplements. You just hook them up and they function relatively maintenance free giving you clean and healthy water for your family.

What's the conclusion?...Don't use your body as the filter and don't assume all filters are the same, as you have seen, they are not.