Comparing Water Treatment Systems Before Buying
The scary facts that are coming out regarding the safety and content of tap water has made the water treatment systems increase in popularity and become a priority in many households. Nevertheless, not all the available systems on the market are of the same quality or efficiency. It is important to compare these systems not only by cost, but by how safe and pure they make your water as well. We will need to take a quick look at the most popular systems and give you some insight on the pros and cons of each.
The most popular system is the pitcher system. Filtered pitchers are available at most grocery, drug, and department stores. While initially inexpensive, when the filter cost is factored in, this is actually the most expensive method of obtaining filtered water available. In addition, these filters only remove large particles such as sediment and lead, and leave in numerous chemicals and bacteria. While far better than tap water, these systems are not the most effective or cost-efficient.
In order to compare water systems that work effectively, the two you need to consider and closely look at are reverse osmosis and multi-stage systems. Anyone of these systems provides far healthier water than either tap or filtered water. In the following paragraphs we will analyze the effectiveness and cost of each one of these types of systems.
Reverse osmosis is a water treatment system that works by passing water through a semi-permeable membrane that filters out anything larger than a water molecule. These filters must also be used in conjunction with a carbon block filter, because bacteria and chemicals are smaller than water molecules.
Reverse osmosis systems remove the majority of contaminants and impurities from water, but also remove the trace minerals that are needed by the body to function properly. These include trace minerals such as potassium and magnesium. One aspect of these systems that is worthy to consider is that they waste about two gallons of water for every gallon that is transformed into pure drinking water. The cost of these units varies from 200 dollars for a kitchen unit to about 1,500 dollars for a whole house system. The total cost per gallon of water is roughly twenty-five cents.
Multi-stage water treatment systems use a number of different patented filters to pass the water through in order to obtain drinkable or purified water. The multi-stage systems remove practically all impurities, but the valuable minerals that are necessary to the body are left in. Consequently, impurities like lead, rust, all sorts of chemicals and even the chlorine that is added to all tap water are removed in this process.
Multi-stage systems are not expensive if you consider that you can buy a counter unit for as low as 150 dollars or a whole house system for about 1,000 dollars; and that includes the total cost including filter replacement, which is only done every three years. If you consider that, you’ll realize that you pay only about ten cents per gallon of water. Something else to consider is the fact that they use less water and produce less waste than reverse osmosis systems.
In order to compare water treatment systems, we need to emphasize the distinctions between kitchen and whole house systems. Kitchen systems are very important because they clean and purify the water that you and your family drink, but whole house systems also purify the water in the most important room in your home, the bathroom where water toxins are taken in.
When you take a hot bath or shower, you not only absorb the toxins from your water into your blood through your pores, but you also inhale them in the water vapor you breathe. Almost all of the chemicals in your water are dispersed into the air in the form of water vapor. For this reason, it is highly recommended that you use a whole house water filtration system.
We can truthfully say that water treatment systems are highly valuable. Whether you use the recommended whole house system or simply a kitchen unit, what’s important is that you take a step and start protecting yours and your family’s health. Health and treating your water is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your family. Because tap water contains so many pollutants, carcinogens, and toxins, the best decision we can take is purify our water in order to help ourselves stay healthy.