The major supermarkets, local shops, even the 7-11 stores have all run out of bottled water. There have even been some instances of profiteering, with the prices exceeding 69 baht a bottle. That is sad in itself, but still we all need water. We have tried unsuccessfully tried to order though our local supplier at home and at the restaurant to no avail. While sifting through the endless stream of twitter messages, I saw a suggestion.
A water filter.
The unit suggested by my twitter friend is manufactured by a Japanese company called "Toray". It's a compact unit, that fits directly on the the outlet of your tap and uses a hollow fiber membrane filter, that catches even the most microscopic contaminants. The installation kit provided, has numerous adapters that they say will fit just about all variations in tap design, except for strange non uniform outlets. Eg oval or square.
It can be purchased at the Emporium Department store on Sukhumvit Rd. I suppose there would be other outlets. The normal cost is 4690 baht, but this has been reduced to 2990 baht with replacement filter costing 690 baht. Each filter should last approximately 2 months for normal use. This can be reduced if the quality of the tap water is poor, and high filtration occurs. This is about 600 litres of drinking water.It took only about 10 minutes to install, and then all the fresh, clean drinking water we need.
We have been using this filter for several days now. The water coming out is still clean and fresh. Everyone in the family has been using it for drinking, and no bad side effects.
ReplyDeleteCannot recommend this produce enough!
The water flow from the "pure" tap slowed significantly this morning. I was not expecting this to happen so soon.
ReplyDeleteI replace filter element with a new one, and water flow returned to normal.
Upon inspection of the used element, discover it was full of contaminates.
So, the filter is really doing it's job, but because water quality in Bangkok is so poor, the elements become blocked very quickly.
Another point to note. As we are storing water, the usage of the tap is higher that normal.
The water flow slowing down is rather due to the increasing of sediment/sand amount in the tap water.
ReplyDeleteThe life of such kind of filter is measured in quantity of water that has been filtered: you should refer to the documentation of your filter. If water flow is decreasing it doesn't necessarily mean it has to be replaced.
I also have a similar water filter at home. I have noticed that water flow is decreasing more quickly since this week, most probably due to the flooding around Bangkok.
Fortunately the outside of my filter that collect the sediment/sand can be cleaned up with a brush. Then water flow is coming back to normal.