Foraging in my own Basement - How Embarrassing...

I am almost embarrassed to admit to this story but it is the truth.  For the last 2 years, I have been developing an idea that we should have a water purification system for our drinking water.  Not knowing much about this, I did not know what it was, just that it existed out there in the world.  For the last month or so I have seriously pursued research about filtration systems and looked at lots of different information.  Finally the decision was made by Mike and I that we needed a system to ensure our family had the safest drinking and bathing water.

Why?  Because Journey is still young and worth it!  And we are worth it too!  There are so many contaminants in our water like pesticides, heavy metals, chlorine, chloramine, flouride and whatever else runs through the city water system.  Even bottled water is not any safer than the water deemed safe by our city government standards.  Our government has determined "safe levels" for all of these contaminants and I am sure they are doing their best but I think a safe number is even less than their safe number.

In my research, I decided that a reverse osmosis system was the best household purchase for drinking water and that is what I wanted. I vaguely remembered that when we bought our house 10 years ago, it came with a water softener system in the basement.  We used that for a while but quit when we thought perhaps dumping that salt into our water was just another chemical additive and did not understand any benefits or risks associated with that.  See how new I am to thinking about our health?  Even being a nurse for 25+ years did not equip me to do much but push prescription meds and wait for the next disease to strike someone I loved.  It did not occur to me to think about what we were putting into our bodies until my miraculous recovery occurred just from major dietary changes, thanks to Isagenix!  That started my brain rolling and it just won't stop.

So anyway, about the water...   Even after lots of research I wanted an expert opinion so I called the Culligan man.  Bill came to our house and tested our water (no surprises there but still levels of contaminants that displeased me).  He then went down to the basement to see what kind of space we had for his new Culligan system that would remove Chlorine, Soften the water, and pipe Reverse Osmosis filtered water up into my kitchen to the tune of about $5,000.

We were still stunned by the "sticker shock" and saddened that we did not have that money right now when we followed Bill to the basement.  Here is what we all found there:

Bill happily pointed out the Rainsoft water softener system and the Reverse Osmosis water filtration system that we had in the basement the whole time!!  Who knew????  I never even paid attention to the myriad of canisters and pipes on that dark wall..  and guess what else?  The manual was right down there next to the system.  Just chalk this one up to a really blond moment I guess.... or "city girl new to healthy ideas".... or inattentive homeowner..  who knows....

He was excited to replace it all with a shiny new system but needless to say we thanked Bill without giving him a sale and when he left we called Rainsoft.  A service rep is coming out tomorrow, bringing replacement filters and doing a check of the system to ensure it will work properly...  but I am fairly certain we will get it all accomplished and get this system up and running for less than $500.  That is less than we were prepared to spend on healthy water so win-win!  (Except for Bill - he did not make a sale last week)

I have since discovered some dilemmas about water systems.  Water softeners do introduce sodium to your water, which is not good for gardens so the softened water must be diverted away from the garden hose.  Softened water also strips your water of potentially helpful minerals like calcium but with dietary supplementation that is not a concern of ours.  Our softener does not remove chlorine or chloramines from our water so we will have to purchase 2 vitamin C shower filters that will make our shower water safer.  But the reverse osmosis drinking water system will be wonderful.. filtering out almost all contaminants in the kitchen from flouride to chlorine and lots in between. 

It seems there is so much to learn.  I suppose there were not this many choices in the times of the real pioneers but there was also not a convenient way to do this much research on the choices that did exist so I am grateful to be a "new suburban pioneer" woman with so many options and resources available to me.  So the moral of the story is that there are treasures everywhere, even if it is walnuts in your own backyard or a water filtration system in your own basement.  Keep your eyes open to new possibilities and have faith that your needs will be met!