We had an old hard water treatment system that was broken. The tap water from this old system gave me a severe headache so we bought bottled water. I was buying about 10 gallons a week, or about $10.00 per week, that is over $500.00 per year. I looked over the available literature and found 3 systems that could provide us with drinkable water for about 9.7 cents per gallon vrs $1.00.
After studying each of these systems we decided to go with an Aquasana whole house water treatment system. I did a diy installation of the drinking water treatment unit in the garage where the old water softener used to be. This water treatment process gave us filtered water for baths, showers, dish washing and washing clothes.
This hard water treatment system uses no salt to condition the water. It can filter 300,000 gallons of water before it should be changed out. I added a water meter in line to the system that displayed gallons of water used up to 9,999,999 gallons to determine how much water we were using.
We added an Aquasana Premium Under counter Water Filter for a drinking water treatment system under the kitchen sink to get drinkable water. This filter extracts the impurities down to 0.995%. This is the equivalent or superior to the bottled water and I don't acquire a headache from drinking this water.
I installed a special faucet on our porcelain sink in the kitchen for this filtered water. I drilled a hole in the porcelain sink to mount this faucet. This is a tricky job and must be done very exactly. If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself then have a plumber do it.
I studied the advise and recommended tools on how to drill porcelain. You can purchase a special drill set that is quite expensive just for drilling holes in porcelain. I decided to make my own jig to drill a 5/8" hole for this new faucet. I purchased 2 brass washers, the largest had 3/4" inside diameter which I glued to the sink with a rubber based glue at the place for the new faucet.
Let the glue dry for 10 minutes or more and then take a Dremel tool with a diamond bit to route through the porcelain inside the 3/4" washer down to bare metal. This is a very tricky process as you do not want to crack or chip the porcelain under the brass washer. Keep the working area cool by putting water inside the brass washer while you are drilling to keep the temperature of the drill bit and brass washer down.
The second step is to put a 3/4" outside (OD) and a 1/4" inside diameter (ID) brass washer in the center of the other brass washer. Also you need a 1/4" OD and a 1/16" ID spacer to place inside the smaller brass washer. This gives you the exact center for the faucet. Use the Dremel tool with the diamond bit again to drill a guide hole through the center of the spacer and through the porcelain down to the metal.
The third step you need to remove the spacer and small brass washer but leave the large brass washer glued to the sink. It is a heat sink for the porcelain below it. Now drill a 1/4" starter hole through the porcelain and metal sink at the place marked above.
The fourth step is to take a 5/8" carbide hole saw drill bit and meticulously drill a 5/8" hole in the sink. Make sure the hole saw drill will fit into the center of the large brass washer with good clearance from the washer. Use a low speed drill and keep water on this hole drill and sink to keep every thing below the boiling point of water.
After finishing the hole, take a small hammer and screw driver and carefully knock this brass washer off, being careful not to break the porcelain on the sink. Porcelain is unforgiving and is very difficult to fix. Remove the surplus glue off the sink, you should have a clean hole through the sink with no chips or cracks in the porcelain. The shroud of the faucet should cover up any cracks. You can mount your new faucet on the sink.
Attach the hoses to your new faucet from the final stage filter per the manufactures instructions. Turn the water on and look for leaks. Re-tighten any junction that leaks. Let the water run through the filter per the manufacturers instructions. Now you can test the taste of your own Aquasana Premium filtered water treatment system.
