You can get an undercounter reverse osmosis system for not much more than $100 that would save you a lot of trouble and expense. If you want to get really crazy hook up a deionizing filter after it to get <10 ppm water.

RO systems are excellent for water purification as well and certainly more convenient if you own your home. So I will restate, I don't understand why RO or distillation systems aren't far more common.

they are expensive, require an expensive plumber to install, potentially another source for leaks, and require regular cleaning. i'd rather just pay $10/month for gallons and gallons of bottled water.

I haven't found that to be the case.

https://www.amazon.com/Whirlpool-WHER25-Reverse-Osmosis-Filt... that is $130 and the kits are very easy to install. In 13 months you'd have it paid off and you can make all the water you want.

They've definitely come down in price but you're still talking 130 + installation + $80 in filters per year + leak potential. It's almost break even. Unfortunately there's still the problem that my wife being from a 3rd world country won't drink anything out of the tap that hasn't been boiled no matter how much it's been filtered due to no rational reason.

Basic systems will waste 4 gallons of water for every gallon of purified water depending on input pressure and temperature. Lower input temperature and pressure will increase waste and lower output.

I just searched for RO systems and found it interesting that their storage tank is made of plastic.

I wonder if drinking water stored in that plastic tank is healthier than using one of the on-faucet systems like Pur.

RO water has to stored in plastic be because it is acidic. Most people don't realize that after you RO filter your water you need to add alkalinity back to it. Also if you get the ppm too low, it will leach nutrients from your body when you drink it. It's not healthy to RO/ deionize water then just drink it without adding some CaCO3 to bring the ppm and pH back to a reasonable level. Some multistage filters do this to some extent, but it really needs to be tested to confirm the levels are acceptable and that the filter system is working as expected. The brief interaction with a polypropylene liner is not a problem at all at room temperature though.

Doesn't drinking distilled water in significant quantities remove important minerals from your body?

No that is a common myth. Food has plenty of minerals etc compared to what you get via tap water.

https://www.healthline.com/health/can-you-drink-distilled-wa...

From the very article you linked to:

"Because it doesn’t contain its own minerals, distilled water has a tendency to pull them from whatever it touches to maintain a balance.

So when you drink distilled water, _it may pull small amounts of minerals from your body, including from your teeth._"

How does this contradict lr4444lr's claim "drinking distilled water in significant quantities remove important minerals from your body"?

Are you arguing it is a matter of degree, that while distilled water does remove minerals from your body, the "myth" is that it is significant?

> Food has plenty of minerals etc compared to what you get via tap water.

How many minerals do you receive from food and how do you know this is sufficient?

There is research showing a (weak) correlation between hard water (high in mineral content, as opposed to the low/zero mineral content of distilled water) and cardiovascular health, eczema, and dermatitis:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896978... Studies of water quality and cardiovascular disease in the United Kingdom

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393510... Ecological association of water hardness with prevalence of childhood atopic dermatitis in a Japanese urban area

https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(16)30187-7/ful... Association between domestic water hardness, chlorine, and atopic dermatitis risk in early life: A population-based cross-sectional study

Upon further research I have changed my stance, I had never seen this WHO report before. It’s old but they recommend not drinking water less than 100 ppm.

https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha...

The minerals you can get elsewhere, but it seems some people get surprised by the taste of demineralized water and dislike it.

Correct. I remember seeing a show about how Dasani (IIRC) drinking water is made. The person leading the show around said something along the lines that 'at this stage the water is so pure it does not taste good, so next we add minerals back in.'

Not true, but misinformation is probably a major factor.