#there was no water in the filter pitcher and i didn’t bother to refill it

[shadowtraveled]

i very stupidly forgot to ingest liquids for a few days last week and my throat has been so dry ever since is there a workable solution to this beyond “just drink a gallon of water right now”

[worldbaseproduct]

Watts Premier RO-Pure 4-Stage Reverse Osmosis System

If quality and convenience are what you’re in the market for, then the Watts Premier RO-Pure 4-Stage Reverse Osmosis System is the water filtration system for you! This design is the newest member of our reverse osmosis family and it is a snap, literally. These water filters change out at the push of a button. You don’t even need to turn off the water supply to the system and there’s no waiting for the system to depressurize. Each individually contained filter just snaps into place. Including the membrane! It doesn’t get easier than this.

Watts Reverse Osmosis Water Filter

This four stage reverse osmosis water filter system consists of:

Stage 1 five micron Sediment water filter that traps particulate matter like dirt, rust, and silt that will affect the taste and appearance of your water.

Stage 2 is a five micron Carbon Block water filter that helps ensure a greater reduction of chlorine and other materials that cause bad taste and odors (these are called PRE-filters because they filter in front of the reverse osmosis membrane).

Stage 3 is the heart of the reverse osmosis system, the RO Membrane.  This 50 gallon per day semi permeable membrane will effectively reduce TDS (total dissolved solids), Sodium and a wide range of contaminants such as Lead, Arsenic, Percolate, Chromium, Copper and Radium. It will also remove over 99.95% cysts such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium. The larger production membrane of this state of the art system also means this system has been designed to reduce Nitrates and Nitrites from your drinking water. It is important that this system is properly installed and maintained with a minimum incoming water pressure of 40 psi for it to operate as designed.

Stage 4 is a high quality Carbon water filter (this is called a POST-filter because it filters after the membrane).  The filtered water passes through the membrane and enters the storage tank.  When you’re ready for a taste, it will leave the storage tank and pass through this fourth stage on its way up to the faucet.

The end result?  Crystal clear, high quality, and great tasting water!

Watts Water Filters:

1 – 5 Micron Sediment Water Filter: Reduces Dirt, Sand and Rust.

1 – 5 micron Carbon Block Water Filter: Reduces Chlorine, Objectionable Tastes and Odor.

1 - 50 GPD Thin Film Composite Membrane: High production thin film composite membrane that separates unwanted impurities from your water.

1 - Carbon Post Water Filter: Enhance the water’s taste.

Watts Premier RO-Pure 4 Stage Reverse Osmosis Reviews:

Our municipal water is horrible. It smells like a swimming pool and is very hard.

I purchased this unit from Costco not Amazon. When I pulled it out of the box I started to think that it was going to be complicated to install. The well written directions made it easy to install the unit. All of the connections except for the water supply are quick connect which are secure and easy to make.

After the unit was installed and I opened up the water supply I could hear the water gurgling and the waste of the RO running down the drain. The directions call for draining the first tank of water which I did. The second tank that we sampled was the best water I’ve ever had from home. It is far better than a Britta pitcher. It has a crisp, clean taste without any chlorine smell.

I let my kids sample the difference by trying 2 cups, one from the faucet, one from the filter. My 9 year old son didn’t even need to drink to tell the difference. Once he took a taste of the unfiltered tap water, he pushed it away and said it was horrible. He hung on to the filtered water.

Now we can refill reusable bottles and I don’t have to haul cases of bottled water home. It is better for the environment and much cheaper. We are drinking more water rather than soda because it tastes good and is easy to get to.

Another added benefit is that I put a tee in the connection as the instruction described and routed the water to my Samsung Fridge. The Samsung water filters cost about $40 plus shipping from Amazon. Now I can stop buying these filters every six months. The quality of the water from the Watts filter is much better than the Samsung filter.

The only negative part of the install is that the storage tank takes up a fair space under the sink. The directions say that you can put the filter/storage up to 25 feet away with 1/4 inch line or further with a 3/8′s line. In reality the space under the sink was taken up with a bunch of junk that we never used and having good water at the sink is a much better use of the space.

UPDATE 4-10: Someone contacted me through my Samsung fridge filter review and pointed out to me that Reverse Osmosis can waste a high ratio (1:3) to (1:5) of water make its final product. You can hear the water running down the drain after you use the faucet. The sound bothers my wife so I put the drain plug in as a mute. I am considering running a line to my drip sprinkler system.

The water is absolutely fantastic. Smooth and no more chlorine or odd fish smell from the city water. After install the water hardness is at 0 as well as the Nitrile and Nitrite sample test strip they give you. I can sleep better at night knowing I have healthy water for my family.

[gnarcissistic]

Roommates: Why You Shouldn’t Live With Your Best Friend http://ift.tt/2rJ4m51

Going into sophomore year of college, I thought it was the best idea to live with my best friend from freshman year. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Here’s what happened and what you should do to either A. avoid it or B. fix it!

Search: Find an Apartment for Rent in College Park, MD

  What Went Wrong:

Taking Out the Trash :

For most of the time we spent living together, my roommate and I shared a garbage can. We agreed that we would take turns taking it out when it was almost full to avoid getting odors in our living space. In the middle of the school year, my roommate stopped taking out the trash. It got to the point where I had taken out the garbage 3 or more times and she hadn’t lifted a finger. To be nice, I took the trash out after it had piled up (4 or so bags) and asked her if she could take it out next time since I covered for her the last few times. She replied, “It is all of your trash anyways.” Since the trashcan was shared, taking turns to take it out was more than fair. No matter if one person had contributed more trash than the other, she still broke our agreement. I ended up having my own trashcan and she had hers.

Kitchen trash and recycling bins by Elizabeth K. Joseph on Flickr Creative Commons

  Microwave Usage:

For our living space, my roommate and I had to provide a microwave and fridge. I already had a microwave from freshman year I had offered to bring, but she insisted that she bring both the microwave and fridge since they matched color-wise. Throughout the year, my roommate would continuously heat up leftovers in the microwave without a plate or even a napkin. As a result, there would always be remaining food particles in the microwave on the glass turntable. I told her that she needed to start putting her food on a dish of some sort when she was heating up her food because, quite frankly, it was gross and she wasn’t cleaning up after herself. She would always laugh it off and didn’t listen to my suggestions.

Related: I Had No Idea My Apartment Didn’t Come with Toilet Paper

Towards the end of the school year, she told me her parents were coming a few weeks early prior to the semester ending to pick up the microwave and fridge. After she informed me of this, I started to slowly eat the remaining food that in the fridge and freezer. One day, I had came back to the room from class and heated up a Steam-Fresh Vegetable meal. After I ate, I disposed of my paper plate and utensils and went to more classes. When I had came back to my room after my final class, there was a passive aggressive note sitting on my desk. The note said: “You need to clean up the water in my microwave, that’s nasty. I cleaned it up this time.” I was furious. She got furious over the Steam-Fresh meal leaving some condensation in the microwave. This was absolutely ridiculous to me since she never bothered to place her food on a plate in the microwave. After all, it was just some water…

  Cleaning:

I’m the type of person that likes to keep things clean and tidy most of the time with a little clutter here and there. Throughout the entire school year, I had cleaned various parts of the living space. I bought all of my own cleaning supplies in order to keep my living space clean. My roommate, on the other hand, did not buy any cleaning supplies. It was all or nothing. She either used my cleaning supplies to clean, or she didn’t clean at all.

Cleaning Supplies by Your Best Digs on Flickr Creative Commons

The whole school year, I cleaned after her messes in the microwave, wiped down the fridge when needed, dusted and vacuumed the entire living space. She cleaned the bathroom once or twice the entire year then would get mad at me if I didn’t clean the bathroom, even though I had cleaned it majority of the time. We also shared a Keruig Coffee Maker (my roommate owned it), she neglected to clean this as well. You are suppose to change a Keruig filter every two months and she hadn’t changed it in a year, so it ended up molding.

Common Courtesy:

I was raised to be respectful of other people. Some people… weren’t. My roommate exhibited some of the following bad manners: coming into our living space at 2 AM-being loud while doing so, turning on all of the lights, and taking a shower at unreasonable hours. I asked her multiple times to try and be quiet when she comes to our place early in the morning. She gave me the typical response “Okay,will do.”

She continued with her bad habits, ignoring my request. Towards the end of the school year, I was extremely fed up because I was lacking sleep and couldn’t take naps during the day because of my workload. I asked her one last time to be courteous. She then got mad at me because I wasn’t quiet during the afternoon when she was trying to take a nap. Like it was my fault that she decided to stay up until 2 AM!

For the remainder of the school year, she pretty much avoided me. We were like passing ships in the night and the contention was so high it was just best to avoid confrontation at that point.

  Decorations and Misc.:

The building we lived in had not been renovated since 1989. With this being said, the paint inside our living space had several layers of old paint. To an extent, we were allowed to hang stuff up on the walls. At first we tried hanging lights around the main living space with command hooks. Unfortunately, within a few days, the lights had fallen and the command hooks were ripped of the wall along with a few layers of paint! Next we tried regular duck tape. We hung up the lights just fine. My roommate had brought a small TV in which we need to connect to the WiFi router which was on the complete opposite side of the room. Her dad thought it was a bright idea to hang the cable on the wall with duck tape instead of taping it to the floor like I had recommended.

Throughout the year, the duck tape would fall often off the wall, sometimes ripping paint of the wall with it, sometimes nothing at all. By the end of the year, we had to take down the lights and the WiFi cable. After taking everything down, the duck tape had ripped a lot of paint in medium-sized spots all over the main living space. I found out sooner than later that if we didn’t try and cover up the spots, we would be charged money for the damage. Next thing you know, I bought spackle, sandpaper, and paint to try and cover up the spots. My roommate pitched in $20 for the supplies since she wasn’t going to help me paint. After spackling the entire room and painting one wall, I found out that we were going to be charged regardless of our own repairs.

The amount ended up being $240 in which would be split up between the both of us. After she found out that we were being charged anyways, she asked for her $20 back. I told her no because the money she chipped in went towards the supplies I used to spackle and paint the one wall that was damaged. She then claimed that I never did anything to the room and that the supplies were unused. Little did she know, I had photo evidence of the entire room that had been spackled and partially painted.

  Shared Items:

My roommate and I shared her microwave and fridge, and shared my Brita water pitcher and printer. I started to get annoyed when she would rarely ever refill the Brita after using it. If you do not refill a Brita, the filter can become dried out and not produce clean, purified water. I would often remind her: “Don’t forget to refill it!” and she would do it in front of me. When I wasn’t around, she would never refill it. I ended up just refilling it myself all the time.

Search: Find an Apartment for Rent Near Georgetown University

As far as the printer goes, ink cartridges aren’t cheap. She would print 50+ papers a week, often front and back. I told her she needed to start using WEPA, a printer service offered at our college and that she was using my printer too much. The amount of times I had to replace the ink quickly added up to $250+. She told me “Why should I have to pay to use WEPA when I have your printer for free?”. I told her she need to start chipping in for paper and ink. She disregarded what I asked of her and continued to use my printer like usual. Halfway through the year, I started hiding my printer paper. Surely, she stopped using my printer.

  The Takeaway:

Overall, my sophomore year living situation was awful. An update on my best friend/roommate and I’s friendship: non-existent.

Below are some tips to avoid having a roommate situation like I did:

Get your own trashcan so you can hold yourself accountable. This way you avoid conflict of whose turn it is to take out the trash.

Clean up after your messes, no matter how small. It is always good to clean up after yourself whether it be in the kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc.

Either provide your own cleaning supplies and do not share them with your roommate or split the cost of cleaning supplies 50/50 so that it’s even. Clean after your own messes, not your roommate(s).

Make sure before you move into an apartment that it has more than one bathroom. This will ensure that you have privacy.

Be Respectful!

If possible, do not hang up anything on the walls especially if your apartment is rented. No one wants to pay damage fees even if it was accidental.

Always take pictures of your living space before you move in and after you move out. This way, your roommate(s) can’t pin all of the damage on you if there is any. From the day you move out, the place should be how it looked when you moved in. The pictures provide proof just in case charges end up being put on you for damages you didn’t do.

Make sure your apartment has single (non-shared) bedrooms. Avoid living with another person in the same room at all costs!

Provide a your own appliances if you are able to and do not share them with your roommate(s). This includes: printer, dishes, coffee machine, etc.

If you are already living with your best friend, hope that you don’t end up having a terrible roommate like I did! Always communicate with them if you have a problem and do your best to fix it before it gets any worse.

  Looking for your next place in the DMV? Search Apartment Showcase today.

Apartment Stories, apartment friends, apartment hunting, chores, Kitchen, problems, roomie, roommate problems, roommates, tips, trash

[apartmentshowcase]

Roommates: Why You Shouldn't Live With Your Best Friend

https://www.apartmentshowcase.com/blog/apartment-stories/2017/06/roommates-why-you-shouldnt-live-with-your-best-friend/

Going into sophomore year of college, I thought it was the best idea to live with my best friend from freshman year. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Here’s what happened and what you should do to either A. avoid it or B. fix it!

Search: Find an Apartment for Rent in College Park, MD

  What Went Wrong:

Taking Out the Trash :

For most of the time we spent living together, my roommate and I shared a garbage can. We agreed that we would take turns taking it out when it was almost full to avoid getting odors in our living space. In the middle of the school year, my roommate stopped taking out the trash. It got to the point where I had taken out the garbage 3 or more times and she hadn’t lifted a finger. To be nice, I took the trash out after it had piled up (4 or so bags) and asked her if she could take it out next time since I covered for her the last few times. She replied, “It is all of your trash anyways.” Since the trashcan was shared, taking turns to take it out was more than fair. No matter if one person had contributed more trash than the other, she still broke our agreement. I ended up having my own trashcan and she had hers.

Kitchen trash and recycling bins by Elizabeth K. Joseph on Flickr Creative Commons

  Microwave Usage:

For our living space, my roommate and I had to provide a microwave and fridge. I already had a microwave from freshman year I had offered to bring, but she insisted that she bring both the microwave and fridge since they matched color-wise. Throughout the year, my roommate would continuously heat up leftovers in the microwave without a plate or even a napkin. As a result, there would always be remaining food particles in the microwave on the glass turntable. I told her that she needed to start putting her food on a dish of some sort when she was heating up her food because, quite frankly, it was gross and she wasn’t cleaning up after herself. She would always laugh it off and didn’t listen to my suggestions.

Related: I Had No Idea My Apartment Didn’t Come with Toilet Paper

Towards the end of the school year, she told me her parents were coming a few weeks early prior to the semester ending to pick up the microwave and fridge. After she informed me of this, I started to slowly eat the remaining food that in the fridge and freezer. One day, I had came back to the room from class and heated up a Steam-Fresh Vegetable meal. After I ate, I disposed of my paper plate and utensils and went to more classes. When I had came back to my room after my final class, there was a passive aggressive note sitting on my desk. The note said: “You need to clean up the water in my microwave, that’s nasty. I cleaned it up this time.” I was furious. She got furious over the Steam-Fresh meal leaving some condensation in the microwave. This was absolutely ridiculous to me since she never bothered to place her food on a plate in the microwave. After all, it was just some water…

  Cleaning:

I’m the type of person that likes to keep things clean and tidy most of the time with a little clutter here and there. Throughout the entire school year, I had cleaned various parts of the living space. I bought all of my own cleaning supplies in order to keep my living space clean. My roommate, on the other hand, did not buy any cleaning supplies. It was all or nothing. She either used my cleaning supplies to clean, or she didn’t clean at all.

Cleaning Supplies by Your Best Digs on Flickr Creative Commons

The whole school year, I cleaned after her messes in the microwave, wiped down the fridge when needed, dusted and vacuumed the entire living space. She cleaned the bathroom once or twice the entire year then would get mad at me if I didn’t clean the bathroom, even though I had cleaned it majority of the time. We also shared a Keruig Coffee Maker (my roommate owned it), she neglected to clean this as well. You are suppose to change a Keruig filter every two months and she hadn’t changed it in a year, so it ended up molding.

Common Courtesy:

I was raised to be respectful of other people. Some people… weren’t. My roommate exhibited some of the following bad manners: coming into our living space at 2 AM-being loud while doing so, turning on all of the lights, and taking a shower at unreasonable hours. I asked her multiple times to try and be quiet when she comes to our place early in the morning. She gave me the typical response “Okay,will do.”

She continued with her bad habits, ignoring my request. Towards the end of the school year, I was extremely fed up because I was lacking sleep and couldn’t take naps during the day because of my workload. I asked her one last time to be courteous. She then got mad at me because I wasn’t quiet during the afternoon when she was trying to take a nap. Like it was my fault that she decided to stay up until 2 AM!

For the remainder of the school year, she pretty much avoided me. We were like passing ships in the night and the contention was so high it was just best to avoid confrontation at that point.

  Decorations and Misc.:

The building we lived in had not been renovated since 1989. With this being said, the paint inside our living space had several layers of old paint. To an extent, we were allowed to hang stuff up on the walls. At first we tried hanging lights around the main living space with command hooks. Unfortunately, within a few days, the lights had fallen and the command hooks were ripped of the wall along with a few layers of paint! Next we tried regular duck tape. We hung up the lights just fine. My roommate had brought a small TV in which we need to connect to the WiFi router which was on the complete opposite side of the room. Her dad thought it was a bright idea to hang the cable on the wall with duck tape instead of taping it to the floor like I had recommended.

Throughout the year, the duck tape would fall often off the wall, sometimes ripping paint of the wall with it, sometimes nothing at all. By the end of the year, we had to take down the lights and the WiFi cable. After taking everything down, the duck tape had ripped a lot of paint in medium-sized spots all over the main living space. I found out sooner than later that if we didn’t try and cover up the spots, we would be charged money for the damage. Next thing you know, I bought spackle, sandpaper, and paint to try and cover up the spots. My roommate pitched in $20 for the supplies since she wasn’t going to help me paint. After spackling the entire room and painting one wall, I found out that we were going to be charged regardless of our own repairs.

The amount ended up being $240 in which would be split up between the both of us. After she found out that we were being charged anyways, she asked for her $20 back. I told her no because the money she chipped in went towards the supplies I used to spackle and paint the one wall that was damaged. She then claimed that I never did anything to the room and that the supplies were unused. Little did she know, I had photo evidence of the entire room that had been spackled and partially painted.

  Shared Items:

My roommate and I shared her microwave and fridge, and shared my Brita water pitcher and printer. I started to get annoyed when she would rarely ever refill the Brita after using it. If you do not refill a Brita, the filter can become dried out and not produce clean, purified water. I would often remind her: “Don’t forget to refill it!” and she would do it in front of me. When I wasn’t around, she would never refill it. I ended up just refilling it myself all the time.

Search: Find an Apartment for Rent Near Georgetown University

As far as the printer goes, ink cartridges aren’t cheap. She would print 50+ papers a week, often front and back. I told her she needed to start using WEPA, a printer service offered at our college and that she was using my printer too much. The amount of times I had to replace the ink quickly added up to $250+. She told me “Why should I have to pay to use WEPA when I have your printer for free?”. I told her she need to start chipping in for paper and ink. She disregarded what I asked of her and continued to use my printer like usual. Halfway through the year, I started hiding my printer paper. Surely, she stopped using my printer.

  The Takeaway:

Overall, my sophomore year living situation was awful. An update on my best friend/roommate and I’s friendship: non-existent.

Below are some tips to avoid having a roommate situation like I did:

Get your own trashcan so you can hold yourself accountable. This way you avoid conflict of whose turn it is to take out the trash.

Clean up after your messes, no matter how small. It is always good to clean up after yourself whether it be in the kitchen, bathroom, living room, etc.

Either provide your own cleaning supplies and do not share them with your roommate or split the cost of cleaning supplies 50/50 so that it’s even. Clean after your own messes, not your roommate(s).

Make sure before you move into an apartment that it has more than one bathroom. This will ensure that you have privacy.

Be Respectful!

If possible, do not hang up anything on the walls especially if your apartment is rented. No one wants to pay damage fees even if it was accidental.

Always take pictures of your living space before you move in and after you move out. This way, your roommate(s) can’t pin all of the damage on you if there is any. From the day you move out, the place should be how it looked when you moved in. The pictures provide proof just in case charges end up being put on you for damages you didn’t do.

Make sure your apartment has single (non-shared) bedrooms. Avoid living with another person in the same room at all costs!

Provide a your own appliances if you are able to and do not share them with your roommate(s). This includes: printer, dishes, coffee machine, etc.

If you are already living with your best friend, hope that you don’t end up having a terrible roommate like I did! Always communicate with them if you have a problem and do your best to fix it before it gets any worse.

  Looking for your next place in the DMV? Search Apartment Showcase today.