Should You Be Using a Water Filter?

Although your water may look crystal clear, in reality, it is likely filled with microorganisms, minerals, and chemicals. If your house is provided with municipal water, you probably don’t give a second thought as to whether or not your tap water is safe or not to drink. We all like to imagine the water in our pipes goes through treatment plants and arrives to us sparkling clean, but this is not necessarily the truth. There are always going to be contaminants that these treatment plants will miss, however, you may be able to combat them with an at home water filter.

Types of Filters

There are an overwhelming supply of water filters on the market today, and most of them only remove certain types of contaminants. Due to this, it is ideal to utilize two or more types of filters that will cover removal of different contaminants.

Filters that will remove biological contaminants from your water are:

• Ceramic
• Mechanical
• Ozone
• Ultraviolet

To remove chemicals from your water, these types of filters are best:

• Activated Carbon
• Deionization
• Distillation
• Ion Exchange

Reverse Osmosis

Another popular type of water filtration is reverse osmosis. This system has several different types of filters within it that remove both chemical and biological contaminants in your water. Your water has to go through several filtration stages which is what makes reverse osmosis so effective at providing you with clean water.

There are, unfortunately, drawbacks to reverse osmosis. It is important to do your research and find a good quality reverse osmosis filter as they aren’t all made the same. Additionally, you need a lot of water provided at a high pressure in order to use these type of filters.

Because of the above mentioned reasons, reverse osmosis filtration is not the right choice for everyone. If you are interested in pursuing cleaner water through other methods, we recommend utilizing both a chemical and biological filtration system, such as installing an ultraviolet disinfection system under your sink and utilizing an activated carbon water pitcher in your fridge.