Anybody’s who’s ever been climbed a mountain or got lost in the woods will tell you that water is so underrated. Just ask that guy whose arm got trapped under a giant boulder from the movie 127 Hours. When you think about it, you’re three parts water, plain and simple.
A few months ago, I got tired of spitting my drink from the tap every other time I had to get a drink. Most days, it left a bitter after-taste in my mouth, like I just gargled with battery acid and when things got from bitter to worse (i.e. that roiling feeling at the pit of your stomach), I got fed up and decided to get a water cooler for my family.
I went online and a lot of the machines I found were either very cheap to own but can put a semi-serious dent on our monthly budget. I asked around from a few friends who’d agreed that our local tap water teetered dangerously towards being undrinkable. Here are the common mistakes people make when looking for water chillers.
Not testing the local water supply.
This isn’t about sampling your tap at specific intervals of the day and sending vials to geeks in lab coats. If an utter klutz like me can get a water sampling kit (available at your local hardware shops for a couple of pounds) and stick to the package directions, anybody who can walk upright on hind legs can.
Testing your water will not only tell you if your water is safe, it’ll help you estimate how much filtration you’ll need from a mains-fed unit. There’s two and three stage filtration and unless your home address reads Chernobyl, there’s little reason to get UV-filtered water.
Not monitoring water consumption.
Not too many of us drink with graduated cylinders but it’s very important that you can, at the very least, get an intelligent guess at how much water your family needs each week. Don’t believe reviews when they say the average family drinks so and so. It’s a very relative proposition and a mistake a lot of buyers make.
If your kids aren’t water guzzlers like my own, happy brood then you’re better off buying bottled water. The caveat however, lies in that these things can take up a lot of space especially if you’re not unlike my partner, who’s absolutely paranoid about running out of stuff, then do invest on a bottled water rack.
Not signing up for a free trial.
Not a lot of buyers are particularly aware of free trials. You ring up a company and they install a model or unit of your choice and you’ll get a chance to live with it and see how good or how bad it is in the real world, beyond the glossy pages or the dazzling websites. Starting at a low, low price of free – there’s absolutely no reason not to get one.
Have I missed other common mistakes? Have you been in the same boat before? Let me know in the comments below.
Beant is a family woman and an incompetent clod who can’t tell a hammer, a spammer and a spanner apart. Between getting lost in woods and hogging the remote, she writes for wateringwell.co.uk, an industry leader in water cooler and water chiller solutions.