Do ever worry that your drinking water tastes funny? Do you get tired of changing your shower head because the little holes get clogged because your water is hard? There are many reasons to treat or to at least filter your water. If you are building a new home or remodeling your existing house consider a water filtrations system.
Should you treat your water?
There are many water treatment/purification systems on the market today and you can spend a little or a lot on these products. One of the first things to consider is the source of the water that comes into your home. If you live within the city limits or in a suburb the chances are good that you have city water piped in. If you live in a small subdivision away from the city or perhaps have a home in the country, you will probably have a well.
There are pros and cons to both city and municipality supplied water and a well system. Either way there can be a need to treat or purify the water that is coming into our home. While most people are concerned with the quality of water they drink, many do not think twice about drinking tap water from their home.
Water supplied by your municipality is tested and you can request copies of the testing to see what is added to your tap water and what sort of quality of water you are receiving. If you are on a well system, even a shared well system, you will have to do your own testing of the water that is supplied.
People are concerned about the amount of unhealthy pollutants that bypass traditional treatment and get into their water supply. Concerns regarding nitrates in wells, pesticide runoff, and other contaminants are a real threat to the quality of tap water. Having a water filtration or treatment system installed is a good insurance policy to ensure good quality of your water.
Although most municipality supplied water is treated with chlorine and filtered to rid the water of disease-causing impurities, minute traces of more than 2000 toxins can be found in the average drinking water.
Dealing with Hard Water
A second good reason to treat or filter your home’s water is hard water. Hard water is water that has non-health threatening minerals in it that cause havoc. Scale and lime deposits take their toll on water-heating appliances like dishwashers and coffee makers, increasing the need for repairs. Worse, scale cakes onto interior surfaces of water heaters, making them less efficient and more likely to fail.
In the kitchen and bathroom you see spots on dishes and in the bathroom; it appears as bathtub ring and tile scum. In the laundry room you will have gray, stiff clothing if you don’t use extra wash chemicals to combat the hard water.
To combat your concerns about water quality you can use a variety of different systems including:
Types of Filtration and Treatment
Reverse-osmosis (RO) filters. Most RO systems mount beneath the sink. Distillers can fit on your countertop and must be filled manually, use a lot of electricity and may take several hours to produce one gallon of water, but are relatively inexpensive.
Activated carbon (AC) filters are remove carbon, chlorine; pesticides, herbicides, radon, and some inorganic chemicals, but not all carbon filters effectively reduce lead content. Faucet-end models are only marginally effective but inexpensive. Under-the-counter systems cost are more expensive but also more effective. Whole-house point-of entry (POE) systems provide the best filtration but are the most expensive systems.
There are several types of water softeners that can be installed to treat your hard water or you can lease a water softener from a company who will provide a level of service and materials for your softener.
Water Treatment and Purification Continued...
|
Find a
Contractor
