Look What I Found Lurking in My Water & How I Chose My Water Filter
~ by Tera Warner
There’s something about the changing of the season that urges us to clean out clutter, simplify and cleanse. Since having moved from the Laurentians over two years ago, my happy little family has been living on the 23rd floor of a great apartment building. It’s the perfect situation for us with three mostly-independent teenagers and autism on our hands, but not exactly “Deep Nature” living. Since arriving, we’ve been lugging big jugs of store-bought spring water up to the 23rd floor every week, but still hadn’t handled the tap water for baths, showers, etc. Finally, this past week I invited a water-loving nerd, my dear friend Dan, over to show me what was lurking in my water and help install some filters. Read on to see more pictures of what we discovered when we tested spring water, tap water and some small bottled spring water. Frankly, I was shocked.
It Looks Clean, But These Pictures Show the Truth
Please forgive my unsophisticated, unscientific account of what happened below. I’m not a water expert. I’m a water drinker, and I’m not sharing this as deep, spiritual insights into water wisdom, but my personal account of being totally grossed out by what we found in our water supply is shared with the hope that it might be helpful and thought-provoking for you, too.
When we started the water testing investigation, we began with four glasses of clear water. They all looked like a nice, clean glass of water. One was from the tap, one from our store-bought spring water supply, another was a cup of remineralized reverse osmosis water that Dan brought from his house, and another cup was filled from a little plastic bottle of “spring water” that had probably been sitting on a shelf for a very long time.
The first thing Dan did was take his little light bulb tool and dip it into each of the glasses. Based on the degree of heavy metal content in the water, the light bulb would illuminate. Even our spring water had enough heavy metals to illuminate the light. The only one that didn’t was Dan’s reverse osmosis re-mineralized water. You can see the light bulb tool below. We didn’t think to take a picture until the second part of the test, probably because it so shocked and disgusted us!
What You See is Definitely NOT What You Get
The fact that all the water glasses looked clear had no bearing on what was actually in the water. That nifty little tool above was a sediment particle thingy. If you want to know what it’s actually called, ask my friend, Dan. 😉 I don’t really care what it’s called–I understood enough by observing that when vibrating the metal rod in each glass, all the little particles of minerals and algae and metals and other stuff materialized.
If you look at the pictures above, the glasses of water in order from left to right are; bottled spring water (from a little, plastic bottle, reverse-osmosis then re-mineralized water, spring water and our tap water. CHECK THAT CRAP OUT! You can literally see the scum that was inside the taps sitting on the surface of the water. The spring water literally looks like it has algae in it. The only water that was remotely scum-free was Dan’s reverse-osmosis, re-mineralized water.
As you may have imagined, we had Dan help us install a new shower filter, a water filter on the main tap and he even gave us some cool chlorine-neutralizing “crystal balls” to put in the bath. We already notice a big difference with all three!
There’s a lot of talk about spring water, and I think if you can get it tested and are close to it, then it could be great. But in this case, I don’t want enough heavy metals to illuminate a light bulb and algae… meh. I’ll stick to spirulina and steer clear from the invisible swamp scum in my drinking water. When I could walk right up to the spring and get water myself, it was a good thing. But given the conditions of living in the city right now, hooking up with Dan to get on the remineralized, filtered water feels like a great thing for us right now.I don’t want enough heavy metals to illuminate a light bulb and algae… meh. I’ll stick to spirulina and steer clear from the invisible swamp scum in my drinking water. When I could walk right up to the spring and get water myself, it was a good thing. But given the conditions of living in the city right now, hooking up with Dan to get on the remineralized, filtered water feels like a great thing for us right now.
If you have any questions about it, Dan’s your man. I’m not interested in studying the science of this beyond what makes sense and is easily observable for me. Dan’s tests did the trick and I can tell by how I feel, how my skin feels, and how much scum is NOT in my water that this feels good for me.
p.s.
There was another thing Dan did share with us, using his water quality measuring tool (featured below in that little picture). His little chart explains that if the number indicated was between 7 to 24, it was considered excellent quality water. If it was over 100, it was considered unacceptable and not recommended for drinking.
Our tap water measured in at about 184, our spring water was 160 and the bottled tap water measured in at 220+! Dan’s water was definitely in the excellent range. 😉 But, I’m pretty sure he knew his water would pass all the tests, or he probably wouldn’t have been sharing them.
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‘Tis the season to detox and de-clutter. Starting up on March 20th, we’ll be hosting our be clean program. If you’re feeling the spring cleaning bug, this is the perfect program to help you clear out the old and make space for something better. You can read all about the program here:
