The Truth of Water – Answers

• 16Sep

  The Truth of Lead

  Drinking Water No Comments

  Lead in water, especially in Ontario, has been a hot ticket item for a long time. Since a high concentration of lead was found in the drinking water of a London Ontario home a few years ago, the Ontario government has instituted an aggressive new lead regulation aimed at municipalities, requiring them to take a sampling of lead in the older homes in their cities.

  But where does lead come from? Simply, lead comes from lead. Lead water lines, plumbing solder with lead in it, lead fittings, gaskets, and even from old brass fixtures that have lead in them.

  Large amounts of lead exposure over a long period of time can be toxic to human health, but it is especially detrimental to the old, the very young, and pregnant woman.  The elimination of lead in gasoline, paint, etc. has vastly reduced the amount of lead exposure to people in recent years.  However, if you are in an older home you could still be exposed to lead in your drinking water due to the old plumbing and fixtures. So how do you reduce or eliminate lead from your drinking water if this is the case?

  Change your plumbing.

  It’s as simple as that.  By ripping out all the plumbing in your house and replacing it with new materials, you eliminate all possibilities of lead contamination. This is the most expensive way, and there are other ways of dealing with lead.

  Filter it out.

  Both reverse osmosis and certain carbon filters will reduce or eliminate any lead in your drinking water, and can be easily obtained from water supply or hardware stores.

  Run your water.

  In order to contaminate water, your water needs to be in contact with lead for a prolonged period of time.  Exactly how long and how much lead you get in your water depends on the corrosiveness of your water, among other factors. However, the time is measured in hours, not minutes and seconds. The easiest, cheapest and fastest way to ensure there is no lead is to simply flush your tap for a few minutes when water hasn’t been used in a long time.

  There is another way to deal with lead. There has been some discussion on epoxy coating the interior of your pipes. Personally, I think this is probably not a good option considering the filtration and flushing options.

  Lead in your drinking water is a contaminant of concern.  If you do suspect lead in your pipes, it is easily and cheaply dealt with, as we have seen.

  

  Tags: filters, health, lead, pipes

• 13Sep

  Rotten Egg Smell in Water

  Drinking Water 4 Comments

  Carly from New York City Writes:

  What is with that rotten egg smell and taste that you find in various water sources?

  Hi Carly, thanks for the question.

  The rotten egg smell you describe comes from a chemical called hydrogen sulfide.   Hydrogen sulfide is produced by sulfur reducing bacteria that sometimes reside in various parts of shallow water aquifers.

  The hydrogen sulfide is the bacterial by product of it’s metabolic processes when it reduces sulfur for energy.  Basically, hydrogen sulfide is bacterial waste matter.

  Only certain shallow wells have this problem.  It is more likely to occur if you have a dug well or bored well, but it can occur in any well in a shallow aquifer.   Sometimes it’s a seasonal issue, and with other wells it occurs all the time.

  Hydrogen sulfide is a very powerful odour causing chemical.  The human threshold for detecting hydrogen sulfide is a concentration of only 0.0005 parts per million.  At 0.1 ppm, it becomes very displeasing to people.

  As bad as it smells, at the low concentrations found in well water it is not toxic. It’s not even an irritant, it’s only an aesthetic problem.   The chemical is easily removed from water as well.  It’s easily oxidized by chlorine, or another oxidant.  I’ve installed treatment equipment in three locations that have hydrogen sulfide in the water.  I’ve used hydrogen peroxide to oxidize the sulfide with great success.  If the water is a pH of less than 7, the sulfide reduces to colloidal sulphur, which does not smell.  At a pH of greater than 7, it forms sulphate, which also does not smell.  As a bonus, hydrogen peroxide itself reduces to water and produces no chemical by products like chlorine may.

  The chemical can also be removed with an activated carbon filter.  You can either purchase an inline whole house filter, small filters that go under the sink and have a separate spigot to treat only the water you drink or cook with, or there are water jugs with built in carbon filters.  Because carbon filters are an excellent breeding ground for bacteria,  it is of utmost importance to replace the filter at the manufacturer recommended intervals.

  Hydrogen sulfide also is a product of microbiological activity in sewers, and it’s a component of sewer gas.  Often people who complain of rotten egg smell in their water are actually smelling sewer gas.

  Sinks all have what’s called a P-trap in their drains.  I’m sure you’ve seen the goose neck plumbing under a sink.  The purpose of a P-trap is to trap some water in the drain at all times, as a barrier to sewer gas.  With some P-traps of inferior design, as soon as you turn the tap on the flowing water will break the water barrier and allow some sewer gas to come up from the drain.  You will then smell some sewer gas and you will associate it with the water, because you did not smell it until you turned the tap on.

  While the rotten egg smell in your water is an annoyance, it can be easily remedied with some simple technologies.

  I hope this has answered your question Carly.  If you have any other questions or require any clarifications, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

  

  Tags: hydrogen sulfide, rotten egg smell, sewer gas

• 10Sep

  The truth of bottled water – additional resources

  Drinking Water No Comments

  It comes as no suprise to anybody in the water game that bottled vs. tap water is a big issue.  After all, major companies turn a pretty penny on bottled water that is thousands of times more expensive tap.  Companies that market bottled water deliver carfully crafted attack ads that paint tap water as not as safe, good, or healthy as the stuff that comes in a bottle.

  My last post on the topic showed that this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Bottled water is incredibly expensive compared to tap, it’s under regulated and nothing more than a very clever marketing ploy. True, it is convenient and it doesn’t have the taste and odour issues that some tap water does, but that can be easily remedied by taking a few simple preliminary steps to conditioning your own tap water.

  But don’t just take my word for it.  I’ve found some interesting sites that divulge further information on bottled water verses tap.

  The first comes from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.  Currently the MOE contains some of the most stringent drinking water regulations and laws in North America. I do work for a water plant in Ontario, and I can tell you, the regulations are detailed and the Ministry inspectors are tough, leaving no stone unturned to ensuring every municipality provides safe, clean drinking water from source to tap.  Click here to read a very thorough and well researched information page on bottled water.

  A fitness blog did an excellent and consice piece on some of the common mythes of bottled water. Check that out here.

  An Australian town realized the issue with public perception as well as the overwhelming litter on their public beach from careless disposal of empty plastic bottles. They installed water fountains that filtered the tap water at site to remove any taste and odour concerns.  The fountains are free and visitors are encouraged to drink straight from them or fill reusable containers, rather than further harm the environment with the plethora of the single use bottles.  These two articles here and here detail the story and it’s a great read, I highly recommend it.

  Thankfully, the public perception for bottled water is drying up, so says this article.  Public perception is starting to swing towards the economic and environmental waset that the bottled water habit can provide.

  Speaking of the habit, there’s an excellent website to visit called New American Dream – Break the Bottled Water Habit. It has a plethora of excellent information about why bottled water should not be consumed on a regular basis.

  Visit the resources, and make the informed decision, the tap water decision.

  

  Tags: bottled water, give up bottled water, resources, tap water

• 08Sep

  Why water is wet.

  Other No Comments

  Moog from New Jersey writes:

  Why is water wet?  Or does it just feel wet because we’re all so dry?

  Thank you for the question, Moog.

  We’re definitely not dry.  As a matter of fact, we humans are mostly water ourselves, about 75% in fact.

  To answer that question, we should first define wet.  According to a google search, wet can be defined in two ways relevant to your question:

  1. covered or soaked with a liquid such as water; “a wet bathing suit”; “wet sidewalks”; “wet weather”
  2. moisture: wetness caused by water

  It would seem that water in and of itself is considered wet.  One might surmise that this is because it is a liquid. I would say that’s wrong because the air around is is a liquid yet we don’t consider it wet.

  I think we consider water “wet” because of two important properties of this liquid:

  1. It’s density. It’s much denser than air so when we come into contact with it, it feels much more substantial.  Unlike air we can feel it, see it, touch it and taste it.
  2. Surface tension

  Water has a very high serface tension.  That means that water is very attracted to itself, and it tends to adhere to other things.  If you dunk your head into a bowl of water, most of the water remains in the bowl but some of it remains on your head and in your hair because of surface tension and adhesion.  Unlike the liquid air, water stays on you and you feel it and call it “wet” until it evaporates.  When it does evaporate, you no longer feel it on you so you are dry.

  I hope this answers your question.  If you have any other questions or require further clarification to this question, please do not hesitate to write in at any time.

  

  Tags: dry, surface tension, wet

• 06Sep

  The Truth of Reverse Osmosis

  Filtration 1 Comment

  John from Ontario Writes:

  What is RO water

  Hi John

  RO is short for reverse osmosis.  It is simply a type of filter, so RO water is water filtered through a reverse osmosis filter.

  Reverse osmosis is the highest level of filtration that man has devised.  There are many different types of filters, and this one is classified as a membrane filter.  That is, the water has to pass through a thin membrane, which allows molecules only of a certain size to pass.  Most membranes contain physical pores of a certain size, except reverse osmosis.  This membrane contains no physical holes. Rather, it uses it’s own molecular structure to accept water molecules to pass through and reject almost everything else.

  The benefits of reverse osmosis is that it filters out just about everything leaving almost pure H2O.  If you had a water source that was not very secure – like a shallow well on a farm, and you were concerned about things like pesticides, herbicides, and nitrates – then a reverse osmosis filter would be the best choice for you.

  There are several downsides to R.O. filters.  Because they are such a tight filter, the water must be very, very clean before hand otherwise the filter will clog up very quickly.  Also, drinking pure H2O isn’t particularly good for you for two reasons:

  1. Gasses are allowed to pass through the membrane, including CO2.  Because there is nothing else for the water to react with, it combines with the CO2 to make carbonic acid. This makes RO water acidic and corrosive. It will usually come out at a pH of around 6, depending on the content of CO2.
  2. Water is called the universal solvent for a very good reason.  Plain H2O is very good at dissolving a wide variety of substances.  Natural water is very rich in minerals because of this, and much of the minerals vital to our good health come from natural water.  Think of plain H2O like a sponge, needing to soak up minerals.  It will do this from your own body, making this an unhealthy long term choice to drink. It is especially bad for women with or at risk of getting osteoporosis.

  Most water professionals consider RO a last resort technology, for the above two reasons.

  I hope this answered your question.  If you have any other questions or require further clarification, please do not hesitate to write in again.

  

  Tags: Filtration, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, RO water

« Previous Entries   Next Entries »