Purifying our Water

Water is something many of us take for granted. Although we try to conserve and minimize our impact with efficient fixtures and rain barrels, it's not always easy. Partly because we live 10 miles from one of the greatest resources of freshwater in the world.

However, there are increasing reports of contamination in Lake Michigan. Since our tap water comes from the lake, hearing about the rising levels of Fluoride and Chromium-6 (the villain in Erin Brockovich's story) concerned me. What effects would this and other contaminants have on our family's health? Why isn't testing for a probable carcinogen (i.e. cancer-causing substance) mandatory for our water? Well not being one to wait for the wheels of bureaucracy to resolve this public health issue, I began looking for a water purification system.

After a bit of research, it seems a Reverse Osmosis (RO) water treatment system is really the best assurance for having pure water. So for the holidays, we bought one for Humphrey House. It took awhile for things to settle down so I could install it - and even longer to write a post about this.

The RO system involves an extra faucet near your kitchen sink, and a lot of room in the cabinet underneath it. We went with a Watts reverse osmosis system.

Installing it into our Zodiaq counters could have been quite difficult, but we had four holes already drilled - one for the main kitchen sink faucet, one for the handle, one for a pullout sprayer, and one for a soap dispenser. We decided we could ditch the soap dispenser and put the special RO faucet in its place, so that saved a lot of work.

Otherwise, installation was pretty straightforward. One of the more challenging aspects was to try and find room under the sink for everything since we have two bowls (which means two drains), a dishwasher line, and a garbage disposal under there already. The RO system consists of a filter unit and a large storage tank. The tank is needed because it takes some time to filter the water properly, so you need to store the treated water so when you turn on the faucet there is enough ready to come out.

It took some playing around to see what configuration would leave us with at least some storage room under the sink. I finally decided that centering the tank behind the center column would work best. The filter system nicely attached to the wall of the cabinet, so we can slide sponges or towels underneath if we need to. But as you can see from the photos, it's pretty tight down there!


This actually gave us a good opportunity to purge many of our toxic cleaning products that had been stored down there and keep them out of way from little hands. We recently got a Activeion ionator HOM Portable Cleaner and Sanitizer which permanently replaces the need for most chemical cleaners anyway, so the timing was perfect.

Anyway, now if we want some clean fresh water, we simply have to lift the handle on the special RO faucet (on the left in the photo below) and out it comes!

There were some gurgling drain noises made by the system as it filled up the first time and was used for the first week or two, but now it has quieted down and is unnoticeable when its refilling the storage tank.

The best part about this is the lack of any odor from the treated water, and the simply pure taste. I swear once you try this and then try tap water you will notice the taste and smell and appreciate your reverse osmosis system when you come home. I know we do!

Escalating the Curb

After 143 days, we've become sick of the questions and furtive glances from the neighbors, so today we decided to let the neighborhood know that the construction horses in the middle of our block are not ours, but instead are brought to us by the village's Public Works department. We handily included the dept contact number as well.


Jen also left (another) message with the "village manager" regarding this. It should be noted, however, that we don't really want to start a war; we just want resolution.

Trimming Out

Turns out the pipe from the water shut off in our yard to the water main was made of lead (gotta love 100 year old construction!) so the village came out and replaced that for us while we still had a gaping hole in our front yard. They're still repaving the street, but at least our water will be safer now.

On the inside, we've been busy working to clean up after we had mass graves dug inside a room we thought was done. Now, we're really almost done with it. Jen's studio may have a 1 inch water pipe running through it, but we've tried to mask it by painting it the same color as the walls. Last weekend was full of finish / trim work. For both this room and the music studio we:

1. Got foam-backed berber carpet and cut to fit in each room, and then secured it to the concrete with some super-sticky adhesive. We were able to do this without any seams since both rooms were relatively small. The floors feel so much better already!

2. Installed 90% of the trim needed for both rooms. Jen's studio still needs a bit around the interior glass block window, and the music studio needs some capping pieces at the top of the wainscotting. This made the room look so much brighter, and a healthy contrast to the deep purple walls.

3. Earlier in the week, Sara came by on her day off and painted the big family room, and Jen finished off the fireplace on Saturday. This room is incredibly bright and spacious and is really impressive to walk into now. A little trim and carpet in here, and we can cross another room off the list. All the hard work and planning is finally paying off!

They're coming for you, Barbara ...

As I keep reminding Jason, Halloween is on its way ... and we thought we'd get into the mood with a little wanna-be cemetery in the front yard.

And we thought we might as well go Ellivytima on the house (that's amityville in reverse) and install a sacred burial ground in our basement, to make up for the lack of haunted history 'bout the joint. Check it out!

Okay, okay, you got me. Fright Night freak though I may be, I wouldn't go *THAT* far. At least not until I have a bigger yard or corporate sponsorship. What you actually spy with your blogger eye are the holes dug by our trusty plumbing contractors to upgrade our water service. While this one-day job has now stretched into THREE days (plus a personal day for me, I can't figure out what to do about tomorrow yet) I have been assured it will all be over by 5pm tomorrow.

Thank god for deodorant.