What the Pur Alkaline Filter Does
It is the last stage in the line, and it works in the opposite direction to everything ahead of it. The filters before it take material out of your water. This one puts two things back: calcium and magnesium, the minerals a reverse osmosis membrane removes because it cannot distinguish them from the dissolved solids you were trying to get rid of.
Put them back and the pH comes up and the water tastes fuller. That is the mechanism, and it is not complicated.
"Every so often somebody calls a few weeks after an RO install and says the water tastes like nothing. They are not wrong, and nothing is broken. That is what water tastes like with the minerals gone. The alkaline stage is a twenty minute visit and it fixes exactly that complaint."
Gregg Stewart, Owner, Authorized Puronics Dealer in Orange County, CA C-55 #904801, (714) 545-3022
Why Reverse Osmosis Takes the Good Minerals Too
A membrane is not selective in the way people assume. It separates by molecule size and charge, not by whether something is good for you. That indiscriminate behavior is precisely why reverse osmosis is effective against lead, arsenic, nitrates, and the rest of the dissolved solids load. Calcium and magnesium are dissolved solids as well, so out they go with the rest.
Your city tap water arrives carrying chlorine or chloramine used to keep it safe on the way to your house, plus whatever mineral load the supply has. The reverse osmosis drinking water systems we install take almost all of it out. This stage is how you get the useful part back without getting the chlorine back with it.
What We Will and Will Not Claim About Alkaline Water
Worth being direct, because this product category attracts a lot of loose talk. The manufacturer's material discusses hydration and athletic performance benefits from ionized alkaline water. We are not going to repeat those claims on this page, because a licensed water treatment contractor is not the right authority on human physiology, and we would rather under promise.
What is straightforwardly true: the filter restores calcium and magnesium that were removed, it raises the pH of the finished water, and most households can taste the difference. If those are worth having to you, that is a sound reason to add it. If somebody is selling you alkaline water on medical grounds, ask them for the evidence.
Adding It to a Micromax System
The alkaline filter is designed for the Micromax series and mounts downstream of the final carbon stage, so it works with the MICROMAX 7000, the MICROMAX 6500, and the MICROMAX 6000 alike. It runs to the dedicated drinking water faucet already at your sink, so nothing new gets drilled into the counter.
If you are buying a system now, decide on the alkaline stage at the same time and it goes in on install day. If you already have a Micromax, this is a scheduled service visit. Either way it starts with a conversation about what your water is doing, which is what the free water test at your home is for.
Which Households Add the Alkaline Stage
People who drink a lot of water and notice taste, households that came to reverse osmosis from bottled mineral water and miss the mouthfeel, and coffee drinkers, who tend to have strong opinions about mineral content whether or not they would put it that way. Households that will not notice: anyone who mostly uses the tap for cooking and ice.
None of this affects the rest of the house. Hardness at the shower and the water heater is a different machine on a different pipe, covered under Puronics water softeners, and taste at every tap rather than just the kitchen is a whole house water filtration question. Ask Authorized Puronics Dealer in Orange County for the test and get all three answers at once.
