A Kind Water Co reverse osmosis system in West Des Moines is $800 for the tank model and $900 for the tankless, all-in — equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty. Paired with a softener it is $2,850.
Whether it is worth buying is a more interesting question here than almost anywhere else in Iowa, because West Des Moines is not on one water supply. It is on two. Most of the city drinks water treated at the A.C. Ward plant from local wells; households in the north-west and south-east corners receive purchased Des Moines Water Works river water instead. Those are different waters with different published numbers, and the honest answer to “do I need reverse osmosis?” depends on which side of the map your house sits on.
This page is about that one decision. The full picture of the city's water — the hardness figures, the plant, the well field — lives on our West Des Moines water treatment page.
West Des Moines Water Works maps it in its own water quality report: customers “in the NW and SE portion of the city” receive purchased Des Moines Water Works water, roughly 4,500 of them, while the rest receive A.C. Ward plant water. That is about one home in sixteen on a completely different supply from their neighbours.
There is no public address lookup, so there are two practical ways to find out which one you are on. Call West Des Moines Water Works and ask which supply serves your address — they map it, so they can tell you. Or measure it: total dissolved solids at your kitchen sink is a cheap proxy, because river water treated by lime softening and deep-and-shallow well water treated at A.C. Ward do not land in the same place. That reading is part of our free in-home test and takes about a minute.
The difference between the two supplies is not cosmetic, and the clearest illustration is nitrate. In the same report, nitrate at A.C. Ward measured 0.92 ppm. At the Des Moines Water Works plants it measured 8.1 and 8.14 ppm, against a 10 mg/L maximum contaminant level. Both sit under the limit. But one of those numbers is a rounding error and the other is most of the way to it.
The reason is geology, not competence. A.C. Ward draws nineteen shallow alluvial wells 40 to 50 feet into the Raccoon River alluvial aquifer plus four Jordan aquifer wells at roughly 2,500 feet. Des Moines Water Works draws the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers directly, which is why it has run a nitrate removal facility since 1992 and why Central Iowa Water Works banned lawn watering in June 2025 and again in June 2026. Groundwater does not carry the spring nitrate load that river water does.
So if you are in the north-west or south-east corner of the city, the nitrate cycle that makes headlines in Des Moines every spring applies to your kitchen tap. If you are on A.C. Ward water, it largely does not, and anyone selling you a drinking-water system on the strength of a Des Moines nitrate headline is selling you someone else's problem.
A reverse osmosis system pushes water through a semi-permeable membrane at the point of use — under your kitchen sink, feeding a dedicated faucet. It is the most thorough treatment available to a homeowner, and it is also the one most often oversold, so here is the plain version.
Both of our systems are seven-stage builds certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids, with an alkaline remineralisation stage included. They are not certified for nitrate, PFAS or radium reduction, so we do not claim those results for them. The U.S. EPA does list reverse osmosis among its best available technologies for nitrate at the treatment-system level, but a certification is a specific tested claim about a specific product, and ours does not carry one for nitrate. If nitrate is the reason you are shopping, that distinction matters and you deserve to hear it before you buy, not after.
What reverse osmosis reliably changes for a West Des Moines household is the taste, clarity and dissolved-mineral load of everything you drink and cook with, on either supply. Our comparison of reverse osmosis against ordinary filters covers why a pitcher is not the same appliance.
The tank model at $800 stores treated water in a small pressurised tank under the sink, so a glass fills instantly. It is the right choice for most homes, and it is the only one we fit on a private well, because high dissolved solids cost a tankless unit its pressure.
The tankless model at $900 produces on demand, takes up less cupboard space and does not have a tank to service. It suits a household that draws a lot at once — filling pots, a coffee setup, several people in the kitchen at the same time.
On the A.C. Ward side of the city, where the water arrives softened to 150 mg/L, either works. On the purchased-water side, either also works; the supply does not decide this, your kitchen does.
Installation is carried out by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind. It is a single visit, normally under two hours: the system mounts inside the sink cabinet, a dedicated faucet goes in an existing hole or a new one drilled in the countertop, and the drain line is fitted to the sink trap. If you want the fridge and ice maker on treated water, say so when you book — running that line is easiest done at the same time.
Travel is the only thing that moves the price: the first 50 miles are free, then $1 a mile, quoted before you agree. West Des Moines is inside the free band. There is 0% financing, and $100 off for military and first responders.
Annual maintenance is $199 a year for a tank system and $249 for a tankless, covering the yearly service visit and the filter changes. Sediment and carbon pre-filters are the parts that do the routine work; the membrane itself lasts years, and lasts longer when the pre-filters are changed on schedule rather than when the taste falls off.
If something goes wrong outside the plan, a full diagnostic service call is $199 and a trip for an already-identified fault is $99 plus the part. We service reverse osmosis systems we did not sell.
Three cases, stated honestly.
Most West Des Moines households that buy from us take the pair, and the reason is the split above: the softener handles the 150 mg/L of hardness that every address in the city receives, and the reverse osmosis handles what you drink. That package is $2,850 all-in. A softener on its own is $2,500, and the XL build for larger homes is $2,800, or $3,150 with reverse osmosis.
What the free test settles is the sizing and whether you need the softener at all — not every house does, and we would rather establish that before the install than after.
In a city running two supplies, a published average for one of them may have nothing to do with your house. We come to your kitchen sink, measure hardness, iron and total dissolved solids, write the readings down and leave them with you with a written quote, whether you buy anything or not. Nitrate and bacteria need a certified laboratory, and we will point you to one.
Book the free in-home water test, build an instant quote online, or read your West Des Moines water report first.
Reverse osmosis in Des Moines · Clive · Waukee · Urbandale · Norwalk · Grimes · Polk County
$800 for the tank model and $900 for the tankless, all-in — equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty. Paired with a water softener the package is $2,850. Annual maintenance is $199 a year for a tank system and $249 for a tankless one. Financing is 0%, with $100 off for military and first responders.
It depends which of the city's two supplies feeds your address. West Des Moines Water Works maps customers in the north-west and south-east portions of the city, roughly 4,500 of them, as receiving purchased Des Moines Water Works river water; the rest receive A.C. Ward plant water. Nitrate measured 0.92 ppm at A.C. Ward against 8.1 and 8.14 ppm at the DMWW plants. Both are under the 10 mg/L limit, but they are not the same water.
Call West Des Moines Water Works and ask which supply serves your address — the utility maps it. Alternatively, a total dissolved solids reading at your kitchen sink is a useful proxy, because A.C. Ward well water and purchased river water do not test the same. That reading is part of our free in-home test.
No. Both of our systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids, and they are not certified for nitrate, PFAS or radium reduction, so we do not claim those results. The U.S. EPA lists reverse osmosis among its best available technologies for nitrate at the treatment-system level, but that is not the same as a certified product claim. If you have a lab nitrate result, tell us and we will talk about it properly.
The tank model at $800 stores treated water so a glass fills instantly, and it is the only one we fit on a private well because high dissolved solids cost a tankless unit its pressure. The tankless model at $900 produces on demand, saves cupboard space and suits a household that draws a lot at once. On city water in West Des Moines either works.
Usually, yes, because they do different jobs. Reverse osmosis treats one tap; it does nothing for scale on the shower glass or inside the water heater. West Des Moines Water Works publishes raw water at 370 mg/L softening to 150 mg/L, which the utility itself calls still “in the mid-range for hard.” The pair is $2,850 all-in, and the free test decides whether your house actually needs the softener.
Every number on this page comes from a public record. Here is where to open each one yourself.
Whole-home water softening, filtration, and reverse-osmosis drinking water — professionally installed and built to last a lifetime.
Serving Marion, Cedar Rapids & surrounding Linn County communities
Kind Water Co is a d/b/a of Zero Cap Investments LLC · 2258 Bison St, Apt B, Marion, IA 52302
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