Whole House Water Filter Systems Guide

Wholehouse Water Filter Systems Guide : 

Wholehouse Water Filter Systems Guide Why Are Brita Water Filters So Popular: An Evenhanded Review No points for guessing the name of the most famous water purifier - yes Brita water filters are indeed most popular. Without questioning their credibility or effectiveness, let me ask you an un-biased question. Do you know why it is so popular? Is it because it is really the best or is it because they are available at a cheap price or is it simply because the company has decided to spend a lot of dollars in advertisements and publicity? I am sure by the time you finish reading this article, you will have this answered. Let’s begin with the basic requirement of what we think Brita water filters or any other water purifier should provide.

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It should be able to remove all types of contaminants from water. These contaminants include chlorine, fluoride, bacteria, virus, drugs, cysts etc. Now though Brita water filters are based on advanced technologies, they are still not effective for tough contaminants like TTHMs (Total Trihalomethanes) and VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds). TTHMs are the chlorine derivatives which are extremely hazardous for our health. They are known to be related with bladder and rectal cancer. VOCs are the compounds found in paints and gasoline and are freely available in drinking water. They are known for causing various gastrointestinal disorders.

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With so many varied types of contaminants present in water, the need of the hour is to combine more than one filtration techniques. This is exactly what a multi stage water purifier does. It uses the combination of cutting edge techniques like carbon filtration, sub micron filtration and ion exchange. This is the reason why it is able to effectively remove virtually all contaminants from water. (ii)  It should be able to retain essential minerals in water. Natural water contains some essential minerals like sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium etc which are very much required for the basic functioning of our body. A good purifier should never remove these minerals from water. This is definitely an acceptable criteria for Brita water filters as well as for multi block water purifiers which unlike the ones based on Reverse Osmosis, do not deprive the water of these important minerals.

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It should be reasonable priced, easy to maintain and consumer friendly. Quality water as well as easy maintainability - both are indeed very important in the long run. Brita water filters are indeed reasonably priced, in fact way less than that. But what is more important than the one-time cost is - the recurring cost which is not at all competitive as compared to multi stage water purifiers which works out at something as low as 9 cent per gallon. One more limitation with Brita water filters is their size. If you are living in a big family or you need to configure it to purify all the taps in your home, these filters may not be able to provide much help. Instead the multi stage water purifiers are available in a wide range of sizes and choice of installing it over or under the counter. They are also available in the form of whole house water filters which eliminate the need of having separate units for the kitchen and each one of your bathrooms. The conclusion - no water filter is bad. They are anyway better than consuming unfiltered water. Do some research - compare the various options available and choose the one which you feel is right.

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Reverse Osmosis Water Filters The water that comes out of your faucet is perfect. If you don't use a filter your body is the filter. Which of these two sentences are more true? Both are partially true. In many places, tap water does not taste good. In other places, tap water has tiny amounts of substances you would not want to drink - and over a lifetime might have an affect on you. There are many kinds of potential problems in tap water. Even if your city provides good water, it has to travel a long way through old pipes on the way to your house.

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I use a whole-house ten micron sediment filter to filter all water going into my house. I change all the filters every five months, and they are dirty and red-colored, because of the rust and dirt in the water. When you use a whole-house filter, shower heads and faucet screens don't clog. Whole-house filters are separate from drinking water filters. All reverse osmosis water systems require both sediment and carbon pre-filters. All filters need to be changed. Plan on changing sediment and carbon filters every six months or sooner, and reverse osmosis membranes every 2-3 years. It's best to buy a dissolved solids meter, and test your water every month to make sure the system is working right. Pure water will measure zero parts per million of dissolved solids. Tap water usually measures at least 210 parts per million.

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Don't get a liquid chemical test set, get a $25-$50 portable battery-operated tester with a LCD readout. These cheap meters only show the total dissolved solids in water - they can't tell you what is in your water. Water filter systems and replacement filters are available on Ebay and Amazon, and many other places - even retail stores. The hardest parts of installing water filters are connecting to the supply side of the water into your house, connecting to a drain line for the waste water, and installing a clean water faucet onto your sink. The rest of a water filter installation is easy. You may need a plumber, or to buy a system where they will install it for you. The best systems have clear plastic casings, so you can see how dirty the filters get. The best systems also use standard-sized replacement filters, so you don't have to buy tiny, expensive, and proprietary filters.

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Reverse osmosis water filters require both a sediment and a carbon filter in front of them, to screen out the dirt and most of the junk, before the water enters the reverse osmosis filter. A sediment filter blocks particles larger than (e.g.) five or ten microns. That's an improvement over tap water, but it does not help the taste, or filter out tiny or dissolved nasty stuff in the water. The next step is a carbon block filter. Almost all carbon block filters are activated. Activation is a process where high pressure steam is passed through coal to purify it so that it becomes almost pure carbon. Carbon is the fourth most common element in the universe, and is needed for life. Carbon makes an excellent filter, especially when extruded into a solid block. Activated carbon block filters strain water to trap much more particles than a sediment filter can. The carbon in activated carbon filters have a positive charge that attracts chemicals and impurities. As the water passes through the positively-charged carbon, the negatively-charged contaminants are attracted and bound to the carbon.

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Activated carbon block filters strain out sediment, dirt, bacteria, algae, chlorine, some pesticides, asbestos, and much more. They filter sub-micron size particles, making quality water that tastes good. The water passing through activated carbon blocks still has some particles, chlorine, nitrates, fluoride, and other dissolved junk. The next step for the best quality water is a reverse osmosis filter. Reverse osmosis filters force water through 0.0001 micron-wide holes, through semi-permeable membranes. Long sheets of membranes are sandwiched together and rolled up around a hollow central tube in a spiral. The reverse osmosis filter removes 99% of the remaining junk in the water. It takes almost everything out, even the calcium and magnesium in the water. Most often a small carbon filter is used after the reverse osmosis filter, to improve the taste and catch a bit more of that 1% of junk the reverse osmosis filter lets go though.

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Even after sediment, carbon block, and reverse osmosis filters, water is still not perfect. Chloramines and metal ions, while reduced, may still be in the water. For this reason, some systems include a final deionizing (DI) filter. DI filters are usually cartridges filled with plastic-like resin crystals that grab the remaining ions in the water. After the DI filter, the water is very pure. Reverse osmosis water filters generate waste water, and they produce only a few drops of clean water per minute. For this reason, most reverse osmosis systems have a storage tank to accumulate water. All reverse osmosis systems have a drain line for waste water, that is "wasted". The waste water can be used for plants, dumped down the drain, etc. Ultra-pure water can grow algae very easily. When you take chlorine and other nasty stuff out of water, tiny microbes and sunlight can combine to make a perfect environment to grow harmless algae. The quality of water filtered this way is cleaner than even distilled water. Some people think pure water tastes flat. Some people add a tiny amount of sea salt to pure water. For me, no salt is needed, pure water tastes like water should.