Drinking water without the chlorine taste or dissolved minerals, from its own kitchen faucet, fitted around your cupboard, your counter and the pressure on your street.
If your Aurora home is on town water, it still carries the disinfectant added at treatment, chlorine or chloramine, and some households taste it in water or tea and fall back on a pitcher filter or bottled water. A crusting kettle points to hardness, which we measure at your sink rather than assume.
An RO system puts better drinking water on tap. A catalytic carbon stage removes the chlorine or chloramine taste and smell, and a membrane holds back dissolved minerals, including the sodium a softener adds. It serves one faucet, not the whole house; our reverse osmosis drinking water systems page covers the equipment.
RO fixes the glass of water in your hand. It does nothing for the shower, the laundry or the water heater.
We fit catalytic carbon ahead of the membrane, since standard carbon removes chloramine poorly. It takes out the disinfectant flavour and shields the membrane, which chlorine and chloramine both degrade.
The membrane holds back most dissolved solids, including hardness and softener sodium, so a kettle filled from the RO faucet does not scale.
Showers, laundry and the water heater get the same water as before. Scale there is a softener's job.
RO is not disinfection; a property on a private well needs a bacteria test and its own treatment first. Nor will it fix corroded galvanized pipe.
Tap water also reflects the pipes and equipment in your house. We check whether the sink gets hard or softened water, since hardness shortens membrane life, and take a dissolved-solids reading as a baseline for the RO output. Salty-tasting softened water means the softener gets checked first.
A membrane fed at low pressure fills its tank slowly, so a gauge goes on the cold line. If it reads low, we check the pressure reducing valve before suggesting a booster pump; other pressure causes are on our Aurora plumber page.
Reverse osmosis installation is mostly planning, so the cupboard still works afterward.
A hardness check, a dissolved-solids reading and a pressure gauge show what the membrane will work with.
We note the cold supply, drain connections and space. If the pipe we would tie into is grey polybutylene or old galvanized, that section is replaced first rather than tapped.
The faucet uses a spare opening or a new hole. A tee and quarter-turn shut-off go on the cold line, the drain line runs through an air gap to a drain saddle above the trap, and a fridge line is run if wanted.
The system is flushed, fittings are watched for weeping and the RO water is compared with the first reading. We mark each cartridge and show you the shut-off.
If the house is on Aurora's town water, coffee, tea and ice from the RO line lose the disinfectant note, whichever of chlorine or chloramine the supply carries.
With a softener in the basement, the RO faucet is the one tap without its sodium, so fill the kettle there. The same hardness reading is where softener installation in Aurora starts.
If the tank refills more slowly than it did at first, house pressure may have dropped rather than the membrane wearing out. A gauge on the cold line tells which.
A short gurgle from the air-gap faucet while the tank refills is normal; water running to drain nonstop is not. Either way, call our Holland Landing shop, north of Aurora on Yonge Street.
Extra cartridges or a remineralizing stage add to the unit. Drilling stone or quartz, a long run to a fridge, replacing polybutylene or galvanized at the tie-in, a booster pump where pressure stays low, and a softener that should go in first all change the scope. Pipe replacement beyond the sink is quoted as repiping. The price is agreed in writing before a fitting goes on.
Sediment and carbon cartridges follow the schedule set at installation, sooner where old galvanized pipe sheds rust.
Slower output, or a reading creeping back toward the tap reading, means the membrane is wearing out. A softener upstream extends its life.
A faucet that sputters out while filling a kettle usually means the tank's air charge is low. We recharge it or replace the tank.
Each filter change includes sanitizing the housings and flushing the tubing.
RO treats drinking and cooking water at one faucet. If scale on shower glass and the water heater bothers you more, water softener installation in Aurora treats every tap and extends membrane life. For chlorine smell in the shower, whole-home carbon filtration treats all incoming water.
Questions to settle before adding a drinking water filter to an Aurora kitchen.
More from AquaTec Plumbing for Aurora Village, Hills of St Andrew and Bayview Northeast.
We test your water, check the pressure and give a written price before anything goes under the sink.
