What It Is

There are many different options on the market today for delivering clean water to your home, from the cheap activated charcoal faucet-mounted filters to the complex reverse osmosis systems that install under your kitchen sink. While you may be tempted to go with the least expensive water filter system, you should consider your needs first. For someone who buys lots of bottled water, a good reverse osmosis system may be better; for country water that comes from a well, an ultraviolet filter may be a better choice, with its excellent ability to kill biological contaminants.

For water that’s already pretty good right out of the tap, a standard activated charcoal water filteer system is fine. This filter mounts on your faucet and forces water through to filter out biological and some mineral contaminants, resulting in cleaner good-tasting water right at your kitchen sink. Ceramic water filter systems work in an identical fashion, but use diatomaceous earth like most municipal systems rather than carbon.

If you spend a lot of money on bottled water and you really don’t like the way your tap water tastes, you may want to consider a reverse osmosis water filter system. In these under-sink systems, a plumber installs your filter and reservoir. The water comes in through the filter, which allow almost perfectly pure water to drip through into the reservoir and leave all contaminants on the other side of the filter, where it is later flushed away. The result: drinking water that is often of better quality than your favorite bottled water.

Even though a reverse osmosis drinking water filter system is perhaps the best possible water filtration system you can get, it has a couple of problems. If you also live in a drought-prone area, you should know that for every gallon of purified water your reverse osmosis system makes, ten more gallons are wasted - not a problem if you water your garden and yard from a gray water tank, but a potential problem if you are very sensitive to wasted water. Also, once in a while a biological contaminant can get through the osmotic filters, and only one can contaminate your entire reservoir. For this reason, most reverse osmosis systems also include an ultraviolet water purifier at the end that shines UV rays through your reservoir, killing every biological contaminant there while leaving your water otherwise unchanged.

Besides having clean drinking water, there’s at least one other reason for getting a home water filter system: to have clean water to bathe in. Hard water can leave residue and make your soaps and shampoos work more poorly, and chlorine can vaporize into chloroform, a gas that can irritate your lungs and is particularly bad for asthmatics and others with lung problems. For these homes, a whole house water filter system may be a good idea. Though you’ll need a good plumber to install it right, you’ll have a healthier family and cleaner water, and your home will have purer air.