Why You Should Compare Water Treatment Systems Before You Buy
August 7, 2008
With all of the frightening facts coming to light about the contents of tap water, water treatment systems are quickly increasing in popularity. Not all systems are created equal, however, and it is important that you compare these systems not only by cost, but by how safe and clean they make your water as well. Today, we will briefly consider the most popular systems and shine some light on the pros and cons of each.
The pitcher system is the most popular. You can find filtered pitchers at most grocery, drug, and department stores. Indeed, they seem to be the cheapest ones, but when the filter cost is factored in, in reality this is the most expensive method of obtaining filtered water. Besides that, these kind of filters only remove large particles such as sediment and lead, and leave in large quantities of chemicals and bacteria. They are far better than tap water, but these systems are not the most effective or cost-efficient.
If you want to compare water systems that work effectively, the two you need to look most closely at are reverse osmosis and multi-stage systems. Both of these systems provide far healthier water than either tap or filtered water. In the next few paragraphs we will examine the cost and effectiveness of each of these types of units.
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.
The cost of a multi-stage system ranges from approximately 150 dollars for a counter unit to 1,000 dollars for a whole house system. That’s the total cost for the system including filter replacement, which is only every three years. With these systems you end up paying about 10 cents per gallon of water. They also consume far less water than reverse osmosis systems, and discard less.
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.
Concluding, we can tell you that water treatment systems are extremely beneficial. No matter what water system you choose, whether the recommended whole house system or simply a kitchen unit, cleaning and purifying your water is one of the noblest decisions you can take for your family’s sake. The presence of so many pollutants, carcinogens, and toxins in our tap water, makes it imperative for us to use a purification system to maintain health.
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