If your household buys bottled water, a reverse osmosis system usually pays for itself. Use the calculator with your own numbers.
Bottled:
Reverse osmosis:
How we calculate it
Bottled cost is gallons per day times 365 times your price per gallon. RO cost is the system's price spread over five years, plus a year of replacement filters at the maker's listed prices. We leave out the water the RO system sends to the drain and its small electricity use, which vary by home.
Beyond cost
- No cases to carry or bottles to recycle.
- Filtered water on tap for cooking, coffee and your ice maker.
- Check the system's NSF/ANSI certifications for the contaminants you care about.
Questions
Is RO water as good as bottled?
A system certified to NSF/ANSI 58 removes most dissolved solids. Many bottled waters are themselves purified by reverse osmosis.
