Water Filtration Systems

The single or double filter units on the market today offer limited filtration at a particular faucet or shower head in your home, meaning that while you may be getting some filtration you lose the benefit of a complete water purification and filtration system. It really doesn’t make sense to have water filtration at a single faucet for clean drinking water in one room while you shower in another that isn’t properly filtered.

In addition, these filters may not use NSF approved filters. Which means that despite having a water filter, extensive levels of chlorine and other chemicals may not be filtered out.

Reverse Osmosis

Reverse Osmosis takes water that is put under pressure and forces it through a semi- permeable membrane. This membrane traps smaller molecules of sediment and hazardous chemicals. However, the limitation of R.O. is that many synthetic chemicals are smaller then the pores in the membrane, which allows passage of pesticides and other chemicals that are smaller in size. These systems, while they work well, require a great deal of maintenance and still lack the ability to kill all the bacteria. Other issues with R.O. are that the systems can only produce about 1 gallon of water per hour, which requires further additional storage and over time chlorine can damage the osmotic membrane.

Water Distillation

Water distillation is another popular solution for purifying water. In this process water is guided over heated coils, which vaporize the water into steam. The rising steam separates the hazardous chemicals and inorganic compounds from the water do to their different boiling points. As the water vapor cools, it is collected in a chamber and condenses back into liquid form. Because many organic and inorganic compounds vaporize at different temperatures this system doesn’t always remove all the chemicals. This is a very slow process and it requires usually 2 to 3 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of drinking water. The cost for this method averages around 18 to 24 cents per gallon with basic unit starting at $300 to $400 dollars. So while distillation may be good for drinking water it doesn’t make for a practical whole house system.