Under the kitchen sink, not the whole housePermitted online in Clark County591 ppm dissolved solids at the tap
Reverse osmosis is a point of use answer, sized for drinking and cooking rather than for the whole house. Clark County issues reverse osmosis permits fully online with no plan review, one item per permit.
Figures above are published third party data, not company claims. Sources: LVVWD Water Quality Summary, LVVWD Water Quality Report.
Reverse osmosis pushes water through a membrane that strips most dissolved minerals, then stores it for a dedicated drinking faucet. Las Vegas tap water measures 591 ppm total dissolved solids against a Nevada secondary standard of 1,000. An RO unit treats one sink, not the whole house.
This page covers reverse osmosis drinking water across the Las Vegas Valley. If you are not sure this is the right service, start from every service we cover.
Almost nobody calls about reverse osmosis in an emergency. It is a decision people reach slowly, usually after months of hauling bottled water in from the car and stacking empties by the recycling bin.
The complaints are about taste, about what shows up in the kettle, and about the cost of buying drinking water for a household. None of that is urgent, which is why the decision often waits until something else brings a plumber to the house.
If the complaint is strictly about what you drink and cook with, this is the right page. Reverse osmosis is sized in gallons per day, not gallons per minute, because it is only meant to fill a small tank for one faucet.
It also fits households that already gave up and switched to bottled water. Working out how many cases you buy a month is usually the clearest way to see whether the system pays for itself.
Reverse osmosis will do nothing for your shower, your laundry or your water heater, because it treats a few gallons a day at one cabinet. If crusted showerheads and stiff towels are the problem, you want a water Softeners in the Las Vegas Valley.
If the chlorine smell follows you to every tap in the house, treat the main line instead with water filtration across Clark County. If the real complaint is a slow trickle at the kitchen faucet, start with faucet Repair and Installation in Las Vegas. Adding a system that draws off the same supply will not help.
An RO install is a small job with an unusual number of connection points. One cold supply, one drain, one faucet, one storage tank and sometimes one run across the kitchen to the refrigerator. Each of those is a place where a cabinet full of cleaning supplies has to give up some room.
| What is included | What that means |
|---|---|
| Cabinet measurement | Someone measures the usable depth and height under the sink, because a garbage disposal and a storage tank often want the same corner. |
| Cold supply tie in | The system feeds off the cold angle stop under the sink. A stiff or weeping stop gets flagged before anything is connected to it. |
| Drain connection | Concentrate from the membrane has to reach the drain line, and how that connection is made has to satisfy the inspector, not just the installer. |
| Dedicated faucet | RO water gets its own small faucet at the sink deck. That means either an existing spare hole or a new hole drilled through the counter. |
| Storage tank placement | The pressurized tank holds treated water so you are not waiting on the membrane. It needs a stable, level spot with its own shutoff. |
| Optional refrigerator run | A line can be teed off to the ice maker. The distance from the sink cabinet to the fridge decides whether that run is simple. |
| Permit and inspection | Clark County permits reverse osmosis online with no plan review, and the permit is pulled before the work rather than after it. |
Four things you can check yourself, from the permit record to the numbers in the price table.
Four stages, and the tape measure comes out before any equipment is discussed.
You describe the taste or the film in the kettle, and say how much bottled water the house currently goes through. The call also covers whether you own the home, because an under sink unit is plumbed into it.
On the phoneYou empty the cabinet under the sink so it can actually be seen and measured. The plumber checks the free depth, the disposal position, the angle stop condition and whether the sink deck has a spare hole.
First visit, before anything is orderedYou say whether a softener is already in the house or is being considered. The plumber explains how 16 grain hardness and free chlorine affect membrane life, then recommends the prefilter arrangement.
Before the price is setYou clear the cabinet again on the day and stay reachable for the counter drilling decision. The plumber sets the unit, makes the supply and drain connections, fills the tank, flushes it and has you taste the result.
On install dayThe price is fixed once the faucet location and any counter drilling are agreed. Drilling is the one part of this job that cannot be undone.
Nothing in the table below is a price this company set. Each row is a published market range with its source named, so you can check any quote against it.
Reverse osmosis has an unusually wide published range because the phrase covers two different things. A small unit under one sink and a whole home system are both called reverse osmosis, and they are separated by thousands of dollars.
A plumber looks under the sink, measures the cabinet, checks the angle stop and looks at the sink deck and counter material. Those four things are what separate a straightforward install from one with a counter drilling problem in it.
You then get a written price covering the unit, the connections, the faucet and any refrigerator run. Nothing gets drilled and no counter gets touched until you have approved that price and the exact faucet position, in writing.
| Job | Typical Las Vegas range | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Reverse osmosis, installed | $1,000 to $4,800 | Average around $2,200 for a full system. An under sink point of use unit runs $200 to $800 installed. |
| Kitchen faucet replacement | $162 to $364 | Average about $262, with a full range of $91 to $600. |
| Water softener, installed | $200 to $6,000 | National average about $1,500. A whole home system sized for Las Vegas hardness sits in the middle of that range, not the bottom. |
| Service call or diagnostic fee | $75 to $150 | The broader trade range runs about $50 to $200. Emergency and after hours dispatch is higher, commonly $150 to $350 or more. |
Every figure in this table is a published Las Vegas or national market range from the source named beside it. It is not a quote and it is not this company's price list. Your number comes from the on site estimate. Sources: <a href="https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/plumbing/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">HomeAdvisor cost guides, 2026</a>, <a href="https://www.housecallpro.com/resources/marketing/how-to/how-to-price-plumbing-jobs/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Housecall Pro 2026 Plumbing Price Guide</a>.
Replacing cartridges and a membrane on schedule costs a fraction of a new system. A working unit is almost always worth servicing rather than swapping out.
An RO estimate needs someone to open the cabinet and look, which is why a service call fee sits in the table above. The published range for that call is roughly $75 to $150, and the wider trade range about $50 to $200.
Those are market figures rather than anything this company has published. What the visit costs here, and whether it is credited against the install, gets settled on the call before anyone is sent out.
Ranges last reviewed September 2026.
Reverse osmosis rarely fails because of the membrane. It fails because of the cabinet it was crammed into, or because of the water that was sent to it untreated.
The illustrations below show both. One is the space problem under a typical Las Vegas kitchen sink, and the other is the reason a softener sometimes comes first.
A disposal, a trap, a shutoff pair and a pressurized storage tank all want the same square foot of cabinet. In many kitchens the tank ends up laid on its side or moved to the next cabinet over. Measuring first is what stops a system being bought that physically will not fit.
Untreated Las Vegas water arrives at 16 grains per gallon, and that hardness scales a membrane from the feed side. Homes that already run a softener are sending the membrane a much easier job. The brine tank in this illustration is doing work that the RO unit does not have to repeat.
Every photograph here is a generated illustration rather than a job this company did, with real job photographs added once approved.
It does send some water to the drain, and that is how the membrane keeps itself clean. The ratio depends on the unit, incoming pressure and how hard the feed water is.
Worth putting next to a different number: the average household already loses more than 9,300 gallons a year to leaks, according to EPA WaterSense. Fixing a running toilet usually saves more than an RO unit sends down the drain.
The membrane does strip most dissolved minerals, which is exactly what it is built to do. Calcium here averages 75 ppm and magnesium 24 ppm.
If that bothers you, a remineralization stage puts a measured amount back and also rounds out the flat taste some people notice. It adds a cartridge to the yearly service list.
Then say so at the first visit, before anything is ordered. Many sinks have a capped spare hole from a sprayer or a soap dispenser that the RO faucet can take over.
If there is no spare hole and you will not allow drilling, that is a real constraint. Better to know it before a system is sitting in your hallway.
Do the arithmetic with your own numbers rather than ours. Count the cases you buy in a month, multiply by twelve, and compare that against the install plus the yearly cartridge cost.
For a two person household the math is often marginal. For a family that drinks a case a week, it usually stops being a close call.
Sometimes, and the plumbing itself is not difficult. The two things that go wrong are the drain connection and the permit.
Nevada's small job exemption under $1,000 does not apply when a permit is required, and Clark County does require one here. You can check any contractor's C-1 license on the Nevada State Contractors Board public search.
An under sink unit is a modest, self contained addition, and the permit record is the part a future buyer actually benefits from.
Unpermitted work is what creates problems at sale time. A permitted install with an inspection behind it is one less thing to explain to a buyer's inspector.
We cover reverse osmosis drinking water in every part of the valley listed below. Each area page names the office that issues the plumbing permit there and who owns the sewer line at the curb, because both genuinely differ from one city to the next.
Say it is about this when you call and you skip the sorting.
We are a service area business. We come to you, so there is no counter to visit and no street address on this page. The number above is the fastest way in.
About a minute of detail changes what we can tell you on the call.
Some of the feed water leaves as concentrate down the drain, which is how the membrane flushes minerals off itself. The exact ratio depends on the unit, on incoming pressure and on how hard the water reaching it is. A booster pump improves that ratio in low pressure homes.
For context, EPA WaterSense reports the average household already wastes more than 9,300 gallons a year to leaks. More than 20 percent of toilets leak, and chasing that first usually saves more water than an RO system ever uses.
It is not required, but it changes how long the membrane lasts. Las Vegas water arrives at 280 parts per million hardness, which the district describes as 16 grains per gallon. That hardness scales the feed side of a membrane, and scale is what eventually kills one.
Free chlorine matters too, because this valley uses free chlorine rather than chloramine at an average residual of 0.99 ppm. Chlorine damages common membrane materials, which is why a carbon prefilter sits ahead of the membrane in nearly every system.
Yes, and it is one of the easy ones. Clark County issues reverse osmosis permits fully online with no plan review, alongside water heater, water softener, gas re-tag and residential re-pipe permits. The rule is one item per permit, so a softener installed alongside it needs a separate one.
For unincorporated Clark County the department is at 4701 West Russell Road, (702) 455-3000. Henderson addresses go to Building and Fire Safety at 240 S. Water Street, (702) 267-3620, and North Las Vegas to the Building Safety Division at 2250 Las Vegas Boulevard North.
Prefilters and postfilters are replaced far more often than the membrane itself, and the manufacturer sets both intervals. Hard feed water and higher household use both shorten them. A noticeable drop in how fast the dedicated faucet refills is the usual first warning sign.
Write the date on the housing when the cartridges go in. Skipping a carbon prefilter change is what lets chlorine reach the membrane, and that turns a cheap cartridge job into a membrane replacement.
Yes, and it is a common add on. A line gets teed off the treated side and run to the refrigerator connection, usually along the back of the base cabinets. The distance from the sink cabinet to the fridge is what decides how much work that run takes.
One thing to expect: ice made from RO water looks clearer. The fridge may also fill more slowly, because it draws from a small storage tank. Neither is a fault.
Because the taste most people associate with water comes from the dissolved minerals in it. Las Vegas tap water runs 591 parts per million total dissolved solids at a pH of 7.8. Taking most of that out changes the taste noticeably.
Some people prefer it immediately and others take a week to adjust. A remineralization stage adds a measured amount of mineral back after the membrane, which brings the taste closer to what you are used to.
Sink decks are drilled for a set number of fixtures, and a kitchen often ends up with one of those positions unused. If a soap dispenser or sprayer hole is spare or capped, the RO faucet usually takes that position with no drilling at all. That gets checked at the first visit, before anyone prices a counter hole.
If every hole is in use, the choice is drilling the counter or the sink deck. Stainless drills easily, granite and quartz need the right bit and a steady hand, and cast iron sinks are the ones to be careful about.
A straightforward under sink install in a cabinet that has already been emptied is a short job, not a day long one. The work is a supply connection, a drain connection, the faucet, the tank and then flushing the system before you taste it. Counter drilling adds time.
What stretches a job is what gets found underneath. That might be a seized angle stop, a cabinet too shallow for the tank, or a long run to the fridge. Those get raised before the price is agreed, not partway through.
Describe what is happening and we will tell you what it usually takes to fix.