Water Filtration

A flood of new water filters is making it easier than ever to remove impurities from your tap water. Here’s how to choose the right model for your home.

Analyze your water. Your first step is to review the Consumer Confidence Report, which your water system must provide to you each year. The CCR is usually mailed to you, printed in newspapers, or posted on the Web site of your local government.

But remember, this report tells you about the water in your municipality, not necessarily what’s coming out of your taps. The only way to know the quality of the water supply in your home is to test it. To find the names of state-certified testing labs or the state authority responsible for certifying these labs water, go to www.epa.gov/safewater/labs or call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline (800-426-4791). You might be able to get a test kit for free or at minimal cost.

You might also consider using the “Watersafe All-In-One Drinking Water Test Kit”, about $18, to check your water. In several independent studies it provided quick, accurate results for chlorine, lead, nitrate, nitrite, two pesticides, pH, and total hardness. Results for bacteria were less reliable and took 48 hours.

Ultimately, you might find you don’t need a water filter.

Choose the right model. Read up on the different water filter types to find one that matches your lifestyle and water problems. For example, if your family consumes several gallons of water a day, a single carafe just won’t do.

Read the fine print. Even within a specific type, the claims of which contaminants a filter can remove vary. So match the filter to the contaminants in your water.

Add in the long-term costs. Most water treatment units have filters that you must replace periodically. The yearly filter-replacement cost for these units ranges from $20 to $330 annually.

1. In order to capitalize on the health benefits of water, it is essential to draw from a clean source of water.
2. Drinking impure, contaminated water is the leading cause of epidemic disease in developing countries.
3. There are more than 2100 known drinking water contaminants that may be present in tap water, including several known poisons.
4. Bottled water does not offer a viable alternative to tap water.
5. Municipal water treatment facilities cannot always control for the outbreak of dangerous bacterial contaminants in tap water.
6. The only way to ensure pure, contaminant-free drinking water is through the use of a point-of-use filtration system.
7. Several types of cancer can be attributed to the presence of toxic materials in drinking water.
8. Clean, healthy drinking water is essential to a child’s proper mental and physical development.
9. According to the EPA, lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children each year in the United States alone.
10. It is especially important for pregnant women to drink pure water as lead in drinking water can cause severe birth defects.

If you’re still not convinced that a water filtration system will benefit you, check out the EPA’s website at: www.epa.gov

Excerpted from allaboutwater.org

Needless to say, there is a wide variety of water filters on the market today. In fact, almost one for every known contaminant. So, how does the average person decide which is the best filter for their situation? The first step has to be to get a basic understanding of the terms used in every water filtration ad. Here are the most common terms you will find when researching water filters and a brief description of each:

Carbon Block: reduces rust, sediment, taste, odor, chlorine, chloramines, THMs ( chemical sovents ), lead particles and VOCs (volatile organic compounds)

GAC: “granulated activated carbon” reduces chlorine, rust and sediment, taste, odor,  VOCs, radon and MTBE (a gasoline additive found in some ground water)

Ceramic: removes bacteria, cryptosporidium (cysts) and sediment

KDF (trade name for a copper/zinc filter)/GAC: this combination reduces chlorine, heavy metals, pesticides, arsenic, lead, iron, mercury, THMs, VOCs, hydrogen sulfide, barium, cadmium, chromium, MTBE, taste and odor

Activated Alumina: reduces fluoride and arsenic

Reverse Osmosis with carbon: reduces all of the above plus removes calcium, magnesium and potassium

Sediment: pleated or wound cartridge for reducing sediment with different micron ratings

There are of course a plethora of additional terms one runs into, but these are the most common and hopefully will give anyone looking at water filtration systems a better understanding of what is being touted.