Home Water Cooler / Dispenser recommendation


 

Ron G.

TVWBB Wizard
Getting sick of buying bottled spring water (disposing of / recycling all those bottles, plus room wasted in fridge)

Thinking of getting a home unit that takes the 5-gallon returnables

Looking for
  • Something that won't be "fugly" when sitting in the corner of our Kitchen
  • Cold and Hot Taps
  • Quiet and reliable

Unsure about the merits of Top-Loader vs. Bottom - although I would think that top-loading is simpler and more sanitary (siphon hose does not need to extend into bottle) while bottom-loaders are less obtrusive and easier to load.

What are your experiences?
 
Ron, not hot OR cold, but we get the plastic bottles from Menards for 5 bucks...
can refill them for 30 cents a gallon at Pick n Save
the pump cost 9 bucks at Lowes

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works GREAT
 
I hear ya' Bob -

Actually - our CITY TAP is pretty darned good. (Comes straight from the icy waters of Lake Michigan, just a few clicks out from Jones Island Waste Dumping [er, I mean "Sewage Treatment"] plant) After the "crypto" thing in the 1990's - Milwaukee upgraded their filtration to what I've heard is a state-of-the-art system (one of only a handful in the country). I had the Crypto and believe me - it's only the sort of thing that I would wish upon Terrorists (picture your body attempting to turn itself inside-out through your anus...)

OTOH - SWMBO has bought into the bottled water craze (rolls eyes)
Also, she's one of those women where if you're at least semi-smart - you pick yer battles

We're trying to reduce our sugar / soda consumption and the bottled water has been convenient - plus in the Winter, I like hot tea, so one with a hot-tap would be good
 
Since the crypto bs, even having well water, I'm not playing <political reference snipped>...er, I mean, I'm not playing the Devils game.
 
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Sounds like some nasty stuff back then.
Not sure how politics might play into all that, but you never know, and I refuse to go there. :)
Back in '87, on a remote fly-in fishing lake in Canada, the drinking water was straight from the lake.
Next to fresh from a spring it was the best I've ever had, and made great camp coffee too.
 
Let’s face it: sometimes, municipal water just flat-out sucks. Mostly because of the chlorine, but the bigger issue is you never really know if there’s been some kind of problem down at the treatment plant. Today we should realize that water filters are very important for us . Most under sink water filter systems come with a dedicated faucet. By using a dedicated faucet instead of hooking into your main faucet, you’re conserving h2o and saving money. Instead of purifiying every drop of liquid you run through your faucet (cooking water, washing the hands, water for plants, doing the dishes) you’re filtering only the water you plan on consuming.
 
My whirlpool sxs has a water filter that traps a lot of crap along with chlorine,its about $55 dollars and I change it 1-2 times a year.We do buy bottled water for lunches ect ,I also run a whole house filter that removes the same along with a water softener so I have pretty good water
 
Our tap water isn't bad at all, so we got a 2 1/2 gallon water dispenser for it from Wal-mart. It's about the size of a case of beer, but only 2 1/2 - 3 inches wide, and only cost about $5 bucks. I take a half gallon thermos of water with me every day, plus Pammi has a water bottle that she fills up daily. It lasts about 3 days before we need to refill it.
 
We use reverse osmosis system 6 stage I think, put it in when we built this house 2001 and I replace the filters every six months I buy them in bulk so not to bad but the water is super clean and I have run to the refrigerator ice maker and to the sink then under the sink we have a instant hot water heater so the faucet has two sides one cold one hot works great 17 years only replaced the heater once and it was still under warranty.
Our city water has way to much chlorine in it and it smells the filter system is great for all foods, tea, coffee , hot chocolate, cleaning rice, etc. it gets a work out.
 
We use reverse osmosis system 6 stage I think, put it in when we built this house 2001 and I replace the filters every six months I buy them in bulk so not to bad but the water is super clean and I have run to the refrigerator ice maker and to the sink then under the sink we have a instant hot water heater so the faucet has two sides one cold one hot works great 17 years only replaced the heater once and it was still under warranty.
Our city water has way to much chlorine in it and it smells the filter system is great for all foods, tea, coffee , hot chocolate, cleaning rice, etc. it gets a work out.

I think I'm going this route, other than the hot side, I'll have to heat water the old fashioned way. I already have a RO/DI unit that I think I could tap off of before it hit the DI (de-ionizer) filter. Also got some sort of filter that increases the pH. These RO filters move very slowly - takes my other ro/di 90 minutes to make 5 gallons, so this new one has a 3.5 (+ or -) pressurized storage tank. This kind of filter also produces waste water, so I'm thinking of running an exit line to the pool which is always suffering from evap (fill it a couple inches every 1-2 weeks).

One concern is that the the thing being constantly connected to the city side, even if the RO/DI isn't outputting water, if the receiver tank is full, the thing will still output water out it's waste line - I'm not OK with that (haven't seen how this new one combats that). I've tried pressure controlled switches that connect to a toilet-like float in the storage tank, that didn't work, so now I have an electric switch (not installed yet) to do the same thing (close the water valve that goes to the filter). Hope it's not a royal pita - it'll just feed the fridge/ice & a small tap on the sink.
 

 

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