If you are like most people in the market for whole house water treatment, you need to know not all water treatment equipment is created equal. In this article I'm going to give you some hot tips in selecting the right water treatment. Did you know the first whole house water treatment was simply a pot, and some fire? Back in the day, people realized that by boiling their water they could kill the germs that were making them sick, pretty simple stuff.
To get started let's consider something: Do you really need whole house water treatment? If you simply want to improve the quality of your drinking water all you may need is a simple counter top water filter, or an under sink water filter.
Both are very easy to install without having to hire a plumber. This will give you fresh pure water to drink and cook with, and save you the cost of a whole house water treatment system. You can plan on spending $99 to $125 for a quality complete counter top filtration system, and somewhere in the range of $175 to $219 for a complete deluxe under counter system.
If you see the importance of drinking, bathing, and cooking with fresh pure water then you may want to consider whole house water treatment. Here are some hot tips you need to know before you purchase any water treatment equipment.
Stay away from Reverse Osmosis or R.O. equipment:
R.O. very expensive and does not do what many people think it does. If you are not familiar with it reverse osmosis exposes water under pressure to a semi permeable membrane with a very fine pore structure. Many inorganic contaminants have a larger molecular size than water. The membrane rejects certain contaminants, minerals and a large part of the water. There are a lot of harmful things that still get through the membrane such as herbicides and pesticides and require use of a carbon filter adding to the cost. Without making this article to long, bottom line is reverse osmosis is just not effective and is very expensive, (around $2500-$3500 or more plus the cost of a plumber). It also wastes a tremendous amount of water because of the way it works. It also filters out beneficial minerals and actually makes water acidic, which is not healthy!
Point-of-Use Distillation:
This process has your water go over a hot coil, making the water vaporize and become gaseous. This process is not very good at removing organic chemicals, since they typically vaporize at a lower temperature than water does and are transferred in the steam. Bottom line, it's not very effective water treatment equipment.
The most effective whole house water treatment solution:
If you want the most effective, best priced water treatment equipment, use a system that employs multi-media block filters such as Carbon Block and Granular Carbon Filters and a system that employs a 3 stage filter system. If you buy direct from the manufacturer, expect to pay $799-$999. You will need a plumber to install the system for you unless you are very handy. Installation by a plumber will cost about $175. You could pay quite a bit more for less for similar systems if you don't purchase manufacturer direct. You will need a replacement filter about every 3 years which cost around $650 which you can easily install yourself. When all is said and done, the cost for a complete system mentioned can be as low as 50 cents per day over time.
In conclusion, when considering whole house water treatment and the many water treatment equipment systems available, the 3 part, multi stage system, using carbon block and granular carbon filters are the best and most cost effective system you can buy.
