This will give you a clear picture of what it is you’d like to filter out—not all home treatment systems filter out all contaminants. In fact, they vary widely in complexity, price, and efficiency.
Choosing the right water filter will depend on the contaminants you’re trying to filter out. That’s why before laying down your money, you should at the very least examine your annual drinking water quality report and, even better, get the water tested yourself. This will give you a clear picture of what it is you’d like to filter out—not all home treatment systems filter out all contaminants. In fact, they vary widely in complexity, price, and efficiency.
- Point-of-use devices are the water treatment systems that treat the water as it comes from the tap. They can be freestanding, plumbed in with a dedicated faucet, or connected to a refrigerator’s water and ice dispensing system.
- Filter pitchers are stand-alone models that most often use granular-activated carbon and resins to bond with and trap contaminants.
- Distillers boil the water (killing many microbes) and then collect the purer vapor as filtered water, leaving many contaminants behind in the filter. (Note: distilled water can taste flat because the natural minerals and dissolved oxygen are often removed.)
- Reverse osmosis units force water through a membrane under pressure, leaving contaminants behind. (This is what we have in my home.)
- Point-of-entry devices are water filtration systems that are centrally attached to treat all water as it comes into the house.
- Adsorptive media filter water through a solid material (such as a carbon filter) that screens liquids, solids, and dissolved or suspended matter, preventing them from entering the home’s water system.
- Aerators force water over air jets. Contaminants that easily turn into gases (such as gasoline components and radon) are removed.
- Water softeners exchange hard ions (calcium and magnesium) with softer ions (sodium or potassium). This reduces water hardness while also removing radium and barium.
If you choose a water treatment system with a physical filter, you will want to make sure that it uses a micron filtration system. In these systems, the smaller the filter holes, the more contaminants the filter can remove. Most highly recommended is an absolute one micron filter.
Water Filter Certification
So many choices. So many ways to get confused. But there is help out there to guide you to the right filtration system for your home. You can be sure that the claims on a filter’s packaging are true if the product is certified by one of these three organizations, which are all accredited by the American National Standards Institute. These organizations are also sources of more information on home water treatment systems in general.
NSF International
P.O. Box 131040
Ann Arbor, MI 48113
877-NSF-HELP (877-867-3435)
Web: http://www. ....read more
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