Water Filter Information
Published February 23, 2009 | 
Myron from CT writes:
We have municipal water. We use a lot of water (drinking, bathing etc.) I’m worried about chlorine, fluoride, metals, vocs and socs.
I’m looking for sink water filters for drinking and shower filters.
My head is spinning from all the products and information on the internet.
Hi Myron, thanks for writing in.
There is indeed a lot of information on the internet for water filtration and treatment systems. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, and there is a lot of crap. It is hard to know what to get at times.
Firstly, I’d like to belay your fears of all these nasties in your municipally treated water. Because there are so many people out to make a buck from selling you things you probably don’t need, there is a lot of money going into advertising creating negative propaganda against municipally treated water.
These days, water plants employ things like optimized coagulation, and sedimentation techniques, advanced oxidation, and activated carbon filter beds, and an aggressive distribution sampling protocol to ensure the safety of your water supply. Most of the things you mentioned above are either just not there or are there well below the governments maximum acceptable concentrations.
However, if you want to err on the side of caution and make sure, and you have the money to spend, there are several things you can do.
Firstly, chlorine, VOC’s, and SOC’s. These are things that can be removed with an activated carbon filter. Activated carbon will also remove lead, which is effective if you have older plumbing in your home. It’s important that you ensure the filter remains fresh and change it out at manufacturer recommended intervals, because activated carbon can propagate bacterial regrowth.
There are a few ways you can utilized this technology. I’ve provided links to appropriate products on Amazon.com to help you along. Any of the products I recommend here will do the job.
There is a countertop pitcher method, where you add your water to the device, it filters it and you serve the water from it. You can view a good examples here
You can also attach a carbon filter right to your kitchen tap, as you can see here
Fluoride is a highly debated chemical. Some experts claim it’s imperative, while others claim it’s harmful. I tend to think that at the minute levels found in most supplies, it’s not any particular concern. You probably get all the fluoride you need if you purchase a quality toothpaste.
If it is a concern to you, there’s only one way to remove it, and that’s to use reverse osmosis filtration. R.O. also removes everything else. It leaves you with nothing in the water but water. If you decide to go this route, there has been some debate on whether the absence of minerals can be harmful. I tend to think that as long as you have a good diet and take a multivitamin, it’s not a big deal.
To check out a reverse osmosis unit, (which includes sediment and carbon prefilters), you can click here
Shower filters are also available in carbon filtration to remove chlorine. There’s been some talk if the chlorine fumes are harmful. There is so little chlorine in tap water (it just smells like a lot!) that I doubt it very much. However, it can’t hurt to take it out and it can make showering a more pleasant experience.
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What you buy, what it removes and how much you spend is all up to you, but any of the above products should meet your needs.
I hope I’ve been of help. Please let me know if you need any clarifications.
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Easy Water Systems
Published February 19, 2009 | Emil writes:
We have hard water from out well. Its constantly plugging up the kitchen outlets, the showers, the dishwasher, etc..
We see advertisements about “Easy Water” systems…Easy Wate is their trade name apparently…what do you think of their systems, would it be a good choice to purchase their equipment, is there a better system?
Hi Emil, thanks for your question.
Easy water claims to be able to soften water without adding sodium or potassium like conventional hardness treatment. They claim they can soften water without removing any calcium at all.
Most people want water softeners because of the effect that hard water has on detergents and soaps, as well as scale build up issue. The harder your water, the harder it is to get a lather from your soap. This is because the components that make your water hard – dissolved calcium, magnesium, and other trace minerals – react with the soap to form a precipitate, or what you would call “scum”. They also flock out of your water due to friction, heat, and other factors and form scale in your pipes and on your taps, etc.
The key here is that regardless as to what form your dissolved calcium is in, as long as it is dissolved and in your water supply it will continue to react with your soaps and detergents, heat, friction, etc. and produce that undesirable effect.
I went to the Easy Water website. There are a few key elements I found there:
- The main focus of the website was on how harmful sodium is, and how traditional methods add sodium to water.
- They claim only to reduce and remove scale, there’s nothing about effects with soap or detergents
- The only third party proof they have is some questionable photos of what they claim is calcium in tree like branches before hand and little smooth droplets after wards
- They post no data that they’ve had third party accreditation of this technology proving it works in blind studies
- The only other resources they do have points to articles on how unhealthy too much sodium is for you
This electronic water softener claims to send “electronic pulses” that change the state of the calcium ion. Regardless, if it’s still there dissolved in the water, it will still cause problems.
The website does not address the science behind softening, it does not give any valid references to real studies and tests that has been done, it uses clever marketing and health scare tactics to try and drive sales.
To go into the actual and proven methods of softening, there are three ways:
- ion exchange
- sequestering
- reverse osmosis filtration
Sequestering involves the addition of chemicals to “bind” the calcium in the water, rendering it ineffective for scale formation or reaction with soap or detergents. This is generally done with boilers and large industrial heating systems, as sequestering chemicals do not make good drinking water. Reverse osmosis filtration removes everything, and is extremely expensive for whole house water flows.
Ion exchange, for a home owner, is currently the most viable and trusted way to soften your home water. It is a tried and true method, has been proven over and over again, and simply works, no questions asked. There is of course two issues that an Easy Water sales representative would bring up, health issues from excessive sodium, and environmental issues with the brine backwash.
Both issues are easy to deal with. When your plumber is installing your softener, have him run a line of un-softened water to your kitchen tap. Use this water for drinking and cooking. For the environmental concerns, please follow this link to an article prepared by the Canadian Water Quality Association. It seems that dilution of your septic water with briny softener backwash isn’t such a problem after all.
My opinion is stay away from any of these electric water softeners, go with tried, true and proven, and you can’t go wrong.
I hope I’ve helped. If you need any further clarification, or have another question, please let me know.
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