Hi, I've moved to a new home and town, and have different water than before.

I currently use a zerowater filter then add KHCO3 per rpavlis recipe and it works well. I'm also in the process of plumbing in my Londinium R, but basically just using an external reservoir of the above water and an external pump/accumulator, and bypassing the internal pump of the LR. Numerous reasons for this (pump failed, variable preinfusion pressure, etc.), but I figured while I'm at the plumbing gig, maybe I want to do a "real" plumbed in set up and sought out what the local water is like.

Here's the water quality report from 2020 (North Richland Hills, TX).

I notice chlorides are a bit high, but otherwise interested in suggestions for how to (or IF to) treat this water, if there's a better way than my current zerowater+khco3? Plumbed in filter/ion setup? BWT BestMax?

Thanks much,
Jeff

N6GQ wrote:I notice chlorides are a bit high, but otherwise interested in suggestions for how to (or IF to) treat this water, if there's a better way than my current zerowater+khco3? Plumbed in filter/ion setup? BWT BestMax?

Given the borderline chloride, I'd say hat if you do plumb it in your best bet would be a conventional softener system rather than the Bestmax or any of the other popular WAC resin (decarbonizing, hydrogen ion exchange) systems. You would end up with alkalinity up in the 107 -131 mg/L range, which might be more than ideal for pourover coffee but fine for espresso. And that high alkalinity might help you worry less about the chloride corrosion risk.

Of course the zerowater / rpavlis would be your most worry-free option.

Thank you Pat, appreciate the assist!

Thinking about this a bit @homeburrero...if I put a HCWS from Homeland in on the inbound tap water, I'd still need to remineralize it after it passes through the softener, yes? I guess I'd have to install it and test the water to see how soft it is once its passed through? I think this is one of the non-WAC filters right? Thanks...

N6GQ wrote:Thinking about this a bit @homeburrero...if I put a HCWS from Homeland in on the inbound tap water, I'd still need to remineralize it after it passes through the softener, yes? I guess I'd have to install it and test the water to see how soft it is once its passed through? I think this is one of the non-WAC filters right?

You don't want a remineralizer here. It's not needed and would not add much anyway. The HCWS is a conventional softener, exchanges sodium ions for hardness minerals -- uses a SAC rather than WAC resin. You'll end up with low hardness, high alkalinity water. It has activated charcoal that will remove chlorine, but the chloride in the water will stay the same.

Thanks sir...