Compare Water Treatment Systems to Find the Best For Home Use
There are a lot of different water treatment systems out there, and knowing how to compare water treatment systems will help a lot in deciding which ones are the best for your needs.
Home water treatment appliances cost anywhere from $20 to over $3,000.
Key to understanding which ones to buy is knowing what sort of impurity you're trying to get out of your water.
Let's talk about this in some detail.
Basically, there are two types of contaminants you need to filter from your water, organic and inorganic.
Organic means "living".
Examples of organic impurities would be microorganisms, bacteria, and viruses.
Although our municipal water treatment plants do a lot to kill some of these types of impurities, there are others that are capable of making their way into the "clean" side of the water system.
Distillation, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light, and carbon and ceramic filters all work well against this type of contamination.
To further compare water treatment systems, we need to focus more on inorganic impurities.
These include pesticides, prescription drugs, lead, and other toxic pollutants.
Even the chlorine itself that we use to kill the organic impurities can be considered a pollutant! Distillers work well against these types of impurities, too, unless the water contains chlorine, which virtually all city water does.
The problem with distillers and chlorine is their heating coil can vaporize the chlorine and cause it to get into the "pure" water.
Chlorine is a poison.
Also, it can combine with other organic impurities to form highly carcinogenic compounds called trihalomethanes.
So, unless you're filtering non-chlorinated water, distillation is out.
No one could compare water treatment systems without a thorough discussion of reverse osmosis vs.
carbon and ceramic filters.
Both work well, but the problem with reverse osmosis is it works too well! There are actually certain "impurities" that we want in our water.
Trace minerals such as magnesium, potassium, and calcium are central to our health.
Reverse osmosis removes these.
Carbon and ceramic filters can be configured not to remove these.
Ultraviolet radiation is a type of water filtration technology that you don't always read about when people compare water treatment systems.
Ultraviolet light, however, is very effective against organic pollutants.
Unfortunately, it does nothing against inorganic pollutants, like lead, pesticides, or prescription drugs.
Home water treatment appliances cost anywhere from $20 to over $3,000.
Key to understanding which ones to buy is knowing what sort of impurity you're trying to get out of your water.
Let's talk about this in some detail.
Basically, there are two types of contaminants you need to filter from your water, organic and inorganic.
Organic means "living".
Examples of organic impurities would be microorganisms, bacteria, and viruses.
Although our municipal water treatment plants do a lot to kill some of these types of impurities, there are others that are capable of making their way into the "clean" side of the water system.
Distillation, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light, and carbon and ceramic filters all work well against this type of contamination.
To further compare water treatment systems, we need to focus more on inorganic impurities.
These include pesticides, prescription drugs, lead, and other toxic pollutants.
Even the chlorine itself that we use to kill the organic impurities can be considered a pollutant! Distillers work well against these types of impurities, too, unless the water contains chlorine, which virtually all city water does.
The problem with distillers and chlorine is their heating coil can vaporize the chlorine and cause it to get into the "pure" water.
Chlorine is a poison.
Also, it can combine with other organic impurities to form highly carcinogenic compounds called trihalomethanes.
So, unless you're filtering non-chlorinated water, distillation is out.
No one could compare water treatment systems without a thorough discussion of reverse osmosis vs.
carbon and ceramic filters.
Both work well, but the problem with reverse osmosis is it works too well! There are actually certain "impurities" that we want in our water.
Trace minerals such as magnesium, potassium, and calcium are central to our health.
Reverse osmosis removes these.
Carbon and ceramic filters can be configured not to remove these.
Ultraviolet radiation is a type of water filtration technology that you don't always read about when people compare water treatment systems.
Ultraviolet light, however, is very effective against organic pollutants.
Unfortunately, it does nothing against inorganic pollutants, like lead, pesticides, or prescription drugs.
