Okay, I did a fair bit of research. It was slow-going at the beginning, but once I found the actual names of the items used in this demonstration, I was able to find more than enough evidence to show I was being very mislead. I will leave a rough explination of the facts I found about this demonstration.
1. TDS Meter: TDS stands for "Total Dissolved Solids". There were a few explinations on the Internet that actually says TDS stands for "Total Dissolved Salts", but the majority say "Solids". Either way, this device tests the electrical charge of water. The higher the content of dissolved materials in your water, the stronger the charge between the two electrodes in this meter. The device converts the charge to a parts per million (ppm) figure, which is proportioned to the amount of dissolved solids in the glass.
- Basically, the woman was showing us that their water couldn't carry an electrical charge because no dissolved (or at least very little) solids we present. H20, in itself, is a very poor conductor of electricity. This is important to remember when explaining the next part of her scam.
2. Precipitator: The device used to "remove the chlorine from our water, to turn it back into it's original state" was nothing more than another type of TDS meter. It's iron rod is used to facilitate the production of iron oxide when a charge is present. The stronger the electrical charge, the more iron oxide (rust) is produced in the water. The amount of rust produced is also proportionate to the amount of dissolved solids in the water.
- Basically, the woman was telling us our water began very dirty before any chlorine was added, when, in fact, her machine was creating rust in our glasses of water, proportional to the TDS. Because her fiiltered water had not electrical charge, no rust was created. However, if I were to add simple table salt to her perfectly filtered water, large amounts of rust would be created as well, since salt helps conduct electricity when dissolved in water. I could have made her water look the most disgusting of all the water she had been using to demonstrate with. It's NOT because her water originated from a swamp, contained chlorine, or anything like that.
3. Reverse Osmosis: You can search reverse osmosis yourself, but this is the type of filter she was trying to sell. There are many articles online stating the benifit/harm of reverse osmosis. In my opinion, she should not have been trying to sell a reverse osmosis system to a home supplied by water already filtered by the municipality. Reverse osmosis was created to remove salt from sea water, allowing undrinkable water to be consumed. It also seem that is has horticultural benifits when feeding plants, to strip the water of as much as you can before dissolving any chemicals or feed in to the water for more calculated results. As for human consumption as a whole, it seems very unnecessary for any modern city home water source. If anything, I have read of negative effect from reverse osmosis alone, including harmful elements and compounds to still be able to pass through it's membrane, a chance of turning the water slightly acidic, and being very inefficient as it uses about 3 gallons of water for every 1 gallon of water it filters for use.
- Basically, the woman was just trying to make money, no matter how much lying or harm she may have had to cause to her "customers".
Anyway, I just wanted to wrap that up after finding the information myself. If anyone has any comments, feel free to post, but, I will probably not be coming back to these forums, as I was only using them to educate myself. I, now, feel pretty confident in my decision to not buy her filtering solution, and more knowledgable about the devices and methods she was using.
Feel free to keep this thread alive for anyone curious about this situation. After all, I feel I'm a pretty bright fellow, and even I was almost duped by such a presentation. I mean, I could tell something was fishy, but had I been just a little more convinced, I could see even myself buying her product. ...and I know a lot more people out there that are a lot more oblivious to scams, or even unwilling to search for truths themselves.
Thanks for your time!
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