# Drinking RO water



## Axelrodi202 (Jun 7, 2009)

I've become pretty fed up with my terrible tap water over the years, since I mainly prefer to keep soft water fish anyway. The TDS ranges from 300-700 according to the municipal report (pretty sure the upper part of that range isn't even safe for human consumption...). 

I've been wanting an RO/DI unit for a while, but the cost has always been preventative. Recently a reason for one recently occurred to me. Every week my parents spend money to buy "spring" water at the local Costco to serve as drinking water. I figure that if the water from the RO/DI unit could be used for drinking purposes as well it could be a worthwhile investment. 

However I have read conflicting stuff about drinking RO/DI water or even just the RO water (without the DI). One side says that the lack of minerals is okay because whatever food is consumed should provide enough minerals anyways, but the other says that pure water will lead to mineral deficiency and result in health problems (I see intestinal issues mentioned often). But then I've read that the army uses RO for drinking water, so there's definitely a lot of conflicting information out there.

Is RO water good to drink?


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

We've been drinking it for years. I have heard not to use DI water though. 

If you eat lots of veggies and fruits you should get enough minerals from them. 

You could always install just the sediment and carbon block filters and it will still get rid of the swimming pool taste.


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## UltraBlue (Mar 8, 2011)

There are commercial RO systems made for home drinking water supplies, so yes RO is safe to drink.

I think what Aaron said is the most economical and effective way to improve the quality of your home water. A whole house carbon and sediment filter will improve things greatly, especially the taste.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

It's safe in 'small' quantities. If you drink a few liter after exercise, it's not very good. You stripped all minerals and your body needs minerals to maintain it's osmotic pressure. If you drink it without eating or anything cells take op too much water and could explode. This is in theory, I don't know whether we are talking about a quarter gallon of 3 gallon. But still I think it is advisable to remineralize (gh booster) like the powders they use for sporters, if you drink large quantities. I wouldn't drink it as my main source of fluids at least.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Drank RO for years. The only downside I found was that I was able to tell if anything was added to bottled drinking water. Some drinking water tasted just horrible.


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

I heard once that one of the bottled water companies considered marketing RO/DI water as a pure/no contaminants/whatever "health" thing, but nixed the idea when the research panels all concluded that it was tasteless and flat (for lack of a better descriptor). They had to put minerals back in it to get it to taste good, which completely defeated the purpose. '

I don't think RO water would be a health hazard, but I'm not sure replacing 300+ TDS water with 0 TDS water is going to give you any improvement in the taste of the water...


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## fishfiend (Aug 19, 2010)

Drinking RO is fine.


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## lost_punk (Oct 6, 2013)

RO is fine. MY local store less RO in refillable bottles. DI is not so fine. THe lack of the extra ions makes them very unpleasant on your bowels. I used to drink DI quite a bit when i was in the Navy. After a LONG night of drinking i would slam about 16oz of DI. within the hour i'd be ****ting my brains out but my guts wouldn't rumble all day from the hangover.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

A good RO unit leaves almost no ions as well isn't it?


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## lost_punk (Oct 6, 2013)

Yo-han said:


> A good RO unit leaves almost no ions as well isn't it?


 RO water is water that has been passed through a membrane under high pressure. The pores in the membrane are so small that only pure water can pass through and bigger particles like lead and silicates are left behind. It is like an extremely fine filter.

DI water is water that has passed through a DI reaction chamber. Here, dissolved particles in the water are chemically removed through a process called deionization. For example, when something like sugar dissolves in a glass of water, the sugar becomes electrically or ionically attached to the water molecules. Simple RO filtering can not remove many ionically dissolved substances. But because DI'ing is a chemical process, DI'ing water cannot remove many of the non ionically dissolved particles.


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