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Drinking Water Reverse Osmosis Systems

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Are you convinced yet? Drinking Water Reverse Osmosis Systems

We challenge you to go for a week without reading or hearing about a health-related issue involving the water you drink.  Everything from viruses to neurotoxins to endocrine disruptors to poisons to metals such as lead or mercury in the water is constantly being reported. The drinking water sources that report these problems can include municipalities, private wells in a particular area and even bottled water.  When you consider that less than 1% of all water coming into a home is used for drinking and cooking, it’s prohibitively expensive and unfair to assume that a municipality is able to guarantee testing for and removal of all potentially harmful things in your water especially when most exist in trace amounts.  If you’re on a private or small community well system, testing for the harmful items has probably never been done.  Bottled water safety is questionable in addition to the cost, inconvenience, and ecological issues that persist.

What can be done? Install a Vibrant Water, Inc. home reverse osmosis (RO) drinking water system.

How do Reverse Osmosis Systems work and what do they do? Read on.

The typical system consists of:

  1. An inlet 5-micron filter.  Made of pleated paper or extruded polyethylene.   Allow the technical staff at VIBRANT WATER, to suggest which is best for you.  This particle size produces a water significantly clearer than an indoor, well-maintained swimming pool where you can identify heads vs tails on a coin in 10 ft. of water. Technically it reduces turbidity which in-turn is expressed in Nephelometer Turbidity Units (NTU) and tested by light intensity penetration depth.  Its primary function is to take the filtration load off of the RO membrane thus preventing membrane plugging.  This filter needs replacement when accumulated dirt lowers the water pressure to the unit and the volume of treated water declines.
  2. Activated carbon filter.   This can be a compressed block of powdered carbon or a custom blend of special high-efficiency carbon and an incredible material called KDF.  Allow the technical staff at VIBRANT WATER, to suggest which is best for you. Its function is to remove chlorine, chloramines, and organics such as chemical spills and agricultural chemicals from your water.  These all have harmful health implications as well as being damaging to the membrane.  They need to be replaced when chlorine appears at the drain water if a city unit (normal life is 1 year) or after a year on well water sources.
  3. The membrane.  This is the multi-functional “heart” of the unit.  The actual functioning surface is a microscopically thin layer of material that is typically formulated from polyamide supported on a thicker layer of foam-like plastic.  This rejection material is wound like a window shade with a mesh-like water passage material between the various layers.  Water under pressure passes lengthwise through the assembly with the pressure forcing about 50% of the water through the membrane with most of everything dissolved or suspended in the water removed and left in the remaining 50% of the water which is diverted to drain.  Functionally the membrane:
    1. Removes (rejects) an aggregate 96% of everything dissolved in the water if the water pressure is 50 PSI or higher.  This includes salt,  sodium, potassium, hardness, calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, sulfates, arsenic, lead, chromium, fluoride, pharmaceuticals, radioactive materials, organics the activated carbon missed, and traces of everything else.  Notable exceptions to the 96% removal average are nitrates which are reduced by 70% and boron which is about 2%.   The items dissolved are measured as Total Dissolved Solids or TDS expressed in units of milligrams per liter (mg/l) or parts per million (PPM) which are essentially the same thing. As a frame of reference 0-10 PPM is referred to as pure drinking water, 150 PPM would be Great Lakes Water, 500 PPM would be a typical SoCal municipal water, 1500 PPM a typical Baja, Mexico water, and seawater is 32,000 PPM.
    2. Removes suspended items in the water down to 0.001 micron.  This is because of the porosity in the membrane which will filter out viruses, bacteria, cysts, asbestos, microfibers, and uranium particles.  To avoid plugging of the membrane by excess amounts of any of these materials, Vibrant Water engineers will often recommend special prefilters to avoid premature, costly replacement of membranes.
  4. Automatic shutoff valve (ASO).  When first introduced to the market place, drinking water RO units ran water to drain 24/7 and even worse, many units even to this day waste as much as 5 gallons of water to drain for each gallon treated (as opposed to 1 to 1 or better for all Vibrant Water systems).  The invention and use of a valve that stops all flow of water when the water pressure in the storage tank reaches 80% of the incoming water pressure reduces the discharged drain water by 90% or more.  As an example, with 50 PSI inlet pressure, the tank pressure of 40 PSI will stop all flow.  For a family of 4, this reduces daily drain water to as little as 3 gallons for some Vibrant Water, Inc. systems while some competitive units continue to waste 40 gallons for the same application.  With 78 million US people living West of the Mississippi river expected to be in drought areas in 2021 and beyond, these savings can have a huge impact on supplies.
  5. Storage Tank.  Drinking water home Reverse Osmosis systems produce water at 1/100 to 1/10 GPM which would try people’s patience when trying to fill a cup or glass with treated water.  To overcome this issue, a tank with a bladder is included. Water is stored in a sterile polyurethane bladder and air between the bladder and the tank compresses which provides the force to discharge the water at the faucet at a reasonable rate for use.  The only issue with this involves the back pressure from the tank as it fills.  This pressure subtracts from the inlet water pressure causing a net lower pressure across the membrane.  The lower net pressure lowers the output rate of the RO while simultaneously increasing the TDS of the product water.  The last water in a vertical tank will be the first discharged and have a higher TDS than the balance of the water in the tank.  This is referred to as “TDS CREEP”.   Discarding a few ounces of water when first opening the faucet will ensure the best quality.  Vibrant Water engineers can offer equipment suggestions to eliminate the creep.  Do not consider water over water or tankless Reverse Osmosis systems for a variety of technical reasons.
  6. Optional Designs.  Here’s where Vibrant Water, Inc. with its technical staff can be extremely helpful in providing exactly what is best for your needs.  Some examples are:
    1. Pressure booster pump for well systems that have relatively low pressure, high TDS, high nitrates, etc.  Fully automatic on/off.
    2. Delivery booster pumps to service multiple outlets such as stand-alone ice makers, pot fillers, etc.  Fully automatic on/off.
    3. Oversize or smaller storage tanks.
    4. Electrolyte/mineral addition to treated water.
    5. Alkalinity addition to treated water.  Adjustable to achieve the proper form and level of bioavailable alkalinity.
    6. Magnetic fields for lower surface tension.  With or without Fibonacci (Golden) ratio.
    7. Crystals to impart healthful frequencies (vibrations) to treated water.
    8. Structured water as laboratory-verified at the University of Washington and published in The Fourth Stage of Water. Increased density.
    9. Non-electric permeate pump for an increase in treated water quality and quantity.  TDS creep eliminated.
    10. Let your imagination roam and work with Vibrant Water’s technical staff to develop a custom system.
vibrant crystal, vibrant h20, vibrant water

Vibrant Crystal Water System

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Note: This item has been discontinued.
Click here to see the replacement system; Structured Water Reveres Osmosis. 
The “best” drinking water is often asked for. We spent extensive time developing what we’re convinced is a water system product that produces perfect drinking water which we define as

   – Safe

   – Provides maximum hydration

  – Tastes great

Let’s take a look at the steps it takes to create perfect drinking water as offered in the Vibrant Crystal reverse osmosis treatment system.

First water is filtered down to a 5 micron level. 5 micron size is 1/15 the diameter of a human hair

Second the water goes through multiple filter media that kills residual bacteria, removes chlorine , removes chloramines, removes heavy metals and removes organic compounds

Third water is forced through a membrane with a pore size of .0001 to .002 micron which prevents passage of bacteria , viruses, and cysts while simultaneously removes on average 96.5 % of everything dissolved in the water including pharmaceuticals, uranium and hundreds of other elements and compounds.

Fourth  a water driven pump is employed that maximizes water use efficiency and improves stored water quality

Fifth water passes through a special no odor resin that further reduces any post membrane dissolved solids and adds electrolytes, alkalinity and molecular hydrogen while adjustably increasing the pH.

Sixth water passes through multiple magnetic fields to synthesize water in a stream cutting through the Earth’s magnetic lines

Seventh water goes through a vortex to erase negative messages

Eighth water passes over hematite and quartz crystals to impart natural frequencies

Finally, water runs through coconut based activated carbon to ensure a polished, sophisticated taste

Learn more here.

reverse osmosis water, vibrant water, vibranth20

Reverse Osmosis Filters: What’s in it for You?

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I live in an apartment. On the second floor. In the city. Call me a water snob, but I don’t drink the municipal water. And for the first year I lived here, I naively schlepped cases of water bottles up a flight of stairs. Don’t get me wrong. I had great biceps because of it. But in spite of the physical benefits, I noticed that the bottles were being left around the house, half-finished.

I cleaned my teenager’s room one day (a random nicety), and found no less than twenty bottles of water, finished to varying degrees, behind her bed, in her closet, in her covers. I did the math. This was actually kind of expensive.

Not only was I collecting more garbage and tired of carrying it from the store, but the cost was also disheartening. I tried a filter pitcher, but always forgot to change the cartridge and I didn’t like the taste. The truth is, I loved the taste of bottled spring water.  

I hit Google and started my research on alternatives to bottled water. I wanted the health benefits without sacrificing taste and cost. I stumbled on the mysterious (not really) world of reverse osmosis.

I was particularly interested in ensuring the water I drank did not contain lead, fluoride, and pesticides (along with other common contaminants like sulfates and chlorine.) My municipal water source included fluoride, and that’s not for me. By the way, I encourage you to obtain a free copy of your area’s most recent water quality report. Be an informed consumer!

Keep in mind that treated water may still contain small amounts of contaminants, referred to as MCL (max contaminant level.) An MCL is an acceptable level of a contaminant present but still safe to consume.

There is no shortage of water treatment products on the market, but there are some that are better than others. Some characteristics of the best reverse osmosis water filters include where they are manufactured, the quality of the parts, cost, and what exactly do the products do?

RO filters exist for both home and commercial use. In my case, I purchased a home RO (reverse osmosis) filter for under a thousand dollars. I was spending about 650 dollars a year on bottled water. The decision for me was easy. Not only was my RO filter easily installed under my sink, it just needs minimal maintenance once a year.  

Because I am a water snob, I opted for an RO with hydrogen boost properties (perfect for getting antioxidants.) Like my own Fountain of Youth.

I feel like I made a wise decision opting for an RO filter vs. continuing to buy bottled water. It feels good to know I made an informed decision and can be confident in knowing what I’m drinking as well as helping rid the environment (and lackluster teenagers) of bottled water.