I'll stick with my tap water. It really isn't as dirty as people lead on to believe and all this germ defense crap is just bogging down our body's natural immune systems.

Does anyone else find the shape of this thing disturbing? It is shaped a bit like a human and frankly I do not want to drink water from that spout.

Josh,

My issue is not germs, but chlorine and heavy metals. The heavy metals might only be trace, and I am willing to concede that they may be of little concern, but I can smell the chlorine. If I can smell it, I don't want to drink it. I particularly don't want to make coffee with it. I spend far too much time and money making my morning brew to ruin it using stinky water.

I met the designer here in Montreal back last December 07.

This is very interesting product - stainless steel, porcelain, a single rubber seal.

This thing will last a lifetime w/o adding plastic residue.

What it is, is a fancy, beautiful, Brita-like purifier. You add tap water, and by gravity you get charcoal/carbon-filtered water.

I did not buy the product since I had already invested in an under-the-counter system you buy a Home Depot for about 500$.

Having held one in my hands, so to speak, took it appart, etc, I can attest that this is a high quality product.

The filtering system is washable and reusable.

With a Brita, you throw away the filter. With Ovopur, you re-use. Forever.

So Josh you are still using tap water - just getting a better tasting one, with thousands of times less heavy metals.

Bonus : You can use it as a punch / juice dispenser at a party. Just remove the top half, store safely, and use the bottom half filled with Sangria & Ice.

Maybe it's the region. My time spent living in Philadelphia and New Jersey has always had relatively clean water. I never smell, taste, or see anything in the water that sets me off.

heh, I just remembered when I lived in the Adirondacks of upstate New York as a kid, there were times when the tap water was contaminated with "beaver fever" (i.e. a beaver died in the drinking water source). and we would have to boil water before drinking it or buy bottled water (an absurd concept back then). I suppose it really depends on the regional quality of water, personal preference, and cost. I never buy bottled water, and I never will. I owned a Brita in college mostly because I didn't have a sink in my dorm.

Oh, the price is reasonable for such a product.

I was quoted a 599$ Cnd (it was on special) at the exposition in downtown Montreal.

My under-the-counter system cost just about as much with connectors and a special drill bit.

It looks fantastic; it's not going to poison me; it's better for the environment than buying bottled water...
Only one detail missing - how much does an Ovopur cost?

$560 just for the unit. Plus if you download their brochure you learn that you have to replace the filter 3 times a year at $50 each. No thanks. I'll stick with my tap water.

http://naturallyinteresting.com/2008/03/18/why-i-quit-my-brita-water-filter-for-straight-tap-water/

Won't the chlorine just evaporate if you let the water sit for a while? I know that that's what we had to do when we wanted to change the water in our fish tank. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the filter part of the pitcher is less important than the pitcher part of the pitcher when it comes to chlorine removal. Keeping a pitcher of water in your fridge is also sound energy policy, too. Think about it - every time you open your fridge, cold air flows out and warm air flows in, wasting energy and thus money. Having things in your fridge helps counteract this effect. Phone books, food, drinks, heck even empty containers are all helpful on this front, and I would tend to think that the things that have a high specific heat, like water, should serve the role better than those that don't because they can help to cool that initial rush of warm air - evening out the work load for the fridge.

Just read the brochure, and half of the filter elements are, how shall I put this gently, unnecessary. The filter consists of four components: "KDF 55 – A powder made up of copper alloy and ultra pure zinc," Activated carbon, "Microporous bioceramics," and "Quartz crystal."

Ok, the activated carbon is essential - it's a component of every system I've ever heard of, so no dispute here.

Next, the KDF 55 - from the brochure: "through a powerful oxidation-reduction process can neutralize up to 99% of chlorine, lead, mercury, nickel, chromium, and other heavy metals that may be found in drinking water. Not only can it fight the buildup of bacteria, algae, fungi, and scale." Why the copper? Aren't most pipes made of copper? What's more, I would tend to be concerned that this would lead to elevated levels of copper and zinc in the water - in trace amounts these are Ok, but both copper and zinc are poisonous in too high a dosage. I'm also not a chemist, so I can't speak directly to the veracity of their claims that it can remove all of those elements from water, but it does seem unlikely that it would work on both chlorine and nickel given their vastly different locations on the periodic table.

The bioceramics - "This process creates a very porous surface (320 pores per square inch) and
constant far infrared radiation. As well as absorbing chemical or organic residues that might be in the water, active
bioceramics can soften and revitalize the water by reducing the size of its molecules." I can't speak about any biological effects of a porous surface - the only thing I know for sure is that porous surfaces are essentially impossible to clean, so unless the pores have other properties like the ones in wooden cutting boards, all you done is given microbes an interesting surface to crawl over. Unless, of course, the pores are too small for the microbes, and the water has to pass through the pores - then this is a good old fashioned filter. I can, however, speak to the claim about "infrared radiation," it's absolutely wrong. Infrared radiation is just another way of saying "heat." As long as the water and the ceramic are at the same temperature, they'll both be emitting the same level of infrared radiation at each other (it's called black body radiation). The "softens water" claim is wrong, too. Water is called hard when it has a lot of dissolved minerals like calcium in it (that's a good thing, by the way, distilled water isn't as healthy because it will actually rob your body of essential minerals and salt compared to regular water - meaning you'll have to make them up somewhere else. Just think of it this way - we evolved drinking hard water that flowed over rocks and minerals in streams and springs ever since our ancestors left the ocean - we're quite literally built for it). It has nothing to do with the fixed size of the H2O molecules, and a porous filter that doesn't allow minerals to pass is called a membrane that uses reverse osmosis - that would take a long time to run on just gravity.

Last, the quartz crystals - "Quartz is the most common mineral on earth and the third most abundant element after
oxygen and silicon. Used in watchmaking and computing, it is an excellent energy amplifier and conductor.
Quartz crystal sand is used to remove any lingering impurities from the water." That's the entirety of the statement about it. The falsehoods come thick and fast in this one. First of all, quartz isn't an element at all,; it is a crystal made of silicon and oxygen. If you think about it, the quartz will be as largely as non-reactive as beach sand is with the ocean, though saying, "Our filter has a layer of sand," isn't very glamorous. Also, quartz cannot "amplify" energy - energy is conserved, end of story. Signals can be amplified, but you need an energy source on tap to do so. The reason quartz is used in computing and watches is because you can use a current to make it vibrate at a specific high frequency, and counting those vibrations allows you to keep time. In other words, it's used because you can build a tiny and fast metronome with it.

well I think the real concern about the water supply is all the pharmaceuticals in it. And no filter takes those out.

Who is the green movement for? What kind of a solution is pushing $1000? This is absurd. I applaud the concept, but we really have to move the green movement out of the affluent pocketbooks and into the working class.

The price of healthy safe food needs to come down, the price of healthy safe design needs to come down. This has to happen for most people to change their behaviors. How does this happen? End government subsidies for industrial farms, massively tax imported items from China, provide incentives for businesses to stay in the U.S.

We need politicians whose main agenda is changing the way we relate to the environment. When that becomes the central goal, effective and ethical economic, diplomatic, and industrial decisions will follow.

Graham-

Yeah, it's waaaay overpriced.

But, check out the links provided for the other filters. Berkefelds have been around for ages, and are pretty well respected from what I understand - and they sell for a lot less. There are refills, but $150 a year isn't too bad, and if I'm not mistaken, the other products' refills aren't needed as often and are cheaper.

Also, these things last you a lifetime. And while you may not desire one for your current living situation, they are invaluable in an emergency when you aren't able to get clean water.

Whatever way you look at it, we just have to consider the options available when it comes to drinkable water. This is only another one of those filtration systems and for sure, we may or may not like the design features.

Also, another aspect is the area where you live in. If you think it would be healthier to have these systems in tow, you just have to find the right one for you in terms of price and requirements.

Thanks for all the good information about this product, both pro and con. However, does anyone out there know if there exists a portable water bottle that does NOT have any plastic components? And if so, where can I get one (sorry, no aluminum please)?

I have to laugh. I see my neighbours have water delivered to their home almost daily. I walk down the street and a great percentage of folks are sucking on plastic bottles of water. What gives? We purchased an in line water filter system that has a seperate tap dispenser that gives us an endless supply of filtered water. All it requires is an annual filter change that costs about $100 and it filters out the heavy metals and other so called bad for you things everyone is so concerned about. It's simple, runs off tap water and the water is fresh and tastes great. If everyone is concerned about their water, this is a simple solution well worth the consideration. Bye Bye bottled waters! Surely this no nonsense solutions is worth some carbon credits? :-)