I have been searching for a superior, no, really for a “better than good” water purifier, for a period of over 10 years now. And until now, I have not really found one, that I am completely satisfied with.
A good filter system should remove contaminants such as hard minerals, copper, iron, zinc and heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, and lead. Also it should remove or greatly reduce, the possibility of bacteria existing within the water. Most water filtering systems, with carbon as an integral part of them, will improve the taste of the water, by effectively removing most of the chlorine, which is used to sanitize, and extinguish off hazardous bacteria in most modern municipal water supplies of the World’s major and industrialized cities.
I started off with some of the “jug,” or gravity fed types of filtration systems. Clear, they seemed to filter out some of the chlorine taste, but when I read up on them, I discovered at what cost. These systems, together with the ceramic pot type of systems, mostly all, are only granulated carbon based systems, and they all are usually impregnated with silver nitrate, to supposedly deter bacterial growth on the actual filter itself, and its housing.
Well guess what, it turns out silver nitrate itself is a poison, which accumulates slowly in your system over long periods of time, and so as much as 20 or 30 years later, the effects will start to be noticed. Initially only causing skin discoloration, they can be toxic in the end, causing a whole range of other problems, from convulsions to joint wound, heart palpitations and difficulty breathing, to even death in the most extreme of cases.
It is a cumulative execute, and just keeps building up inside of you. Carbon has an inability to maintain this silver coating, and so it leaches into your purified water, slowly poisoning you, bit by bit, year after year. I have read that using pure silver, rather than silver nitrate might overcome this leaching, but who to believe? Silver is toxic in the extreme, or is it only the silver nitrates that are toxic? I have also read that colloidal silver might have less side effects, but why take risks with silver? The long term effects have never been properly researched or documented. Colloidal Silver is after all only a solution in which microscopic, electrically charged particles of silver are in suspension.
After this, I started using a filtration system that attached straight to the tap itself. It was a bit cumbersome and ugly, with a thin plastic hose curled around my sink area, and unfortunately it tended to split, and so squirt water from dinky pinholes along its length. Annoying, and also I found that these filters also have silver nitrate coating to inhibit bacterial growth on the filter, as well.
I then researched most thoroughly the use of water distillers. They at first sounded the way to go. All impurities were supposed to be removed through the boiling, and re-condensing stages. Until I discovered, that some contaminating gases, can actually recondense along with the water, and so mix in with the “pure” water, once more again. And there is a raging argument as to whether distilled water is actually good for you, or not. Some call it the purest of waters, while others disdain it as a “leacher” of minerals from your body, and blame it for causing health problems for you, from drinking this water long term. Simply boiling your water for several minutes will assist to kill bacteria, and have the added abet of boiling off most of the chlorine in the water as well.
The best water filter I have then near across, is reverse osmosis, which utilizes a special type of filter to filter your water, called a semi-permeable membrane. And the better systems come with a carbon block filter attached to them as well. It removes bacteria, dissolved solids, and all other contaminants in the water, and the carbon block will remove the chlorine, and other gases largely arising from chlorine, as by products from the chlorine. But these systems are noisy in your kitchen, and the water is also a “hungry” form of water, and will try to leach other chemicals to try to “balance” itself out, similarly to the problem with distilled water.
In addition, this system wastes a lot of water in the process of creating, or making the “clean” water, and it takes a long time to do so, in a word, the process is rather slow. Also if you are not an expert, your membrane might be damaged, and if you don’t know this, its effectiveness will be greatly reduced, and so a lot of contaminants might be coming through the small split, or fault in your membrane.
The main problem is that most of this mismatching information comes from the sellers of the actual filters. I have had enormous problems trying to find accuracy, and truth in the information that I am after.
There are actually thousands of different filtering systems out there, many are sediment filters, or carbon based. Sediment filters are ceramic or fibre. The rule of thumb, is that the finer the filter, the more contaminants that will be strained out by it. Carbon filters, are either solid carbon blocks of activated carbon, or granulated activated carbon. The dissolved contaminants are attracted to, and adsorbed by the carbon particles. This is why over time, these types of filters will tend to clog up, and so be less efficient, eventually needing the replacement of them to be made.
Carbon blocks are much more effective than granulated carbon, plus have the added succor of not requiring impregnation with silver nitrate to stop bacterial growth. Bacteria doesn’t have any room to grow, because of the added density of the solid carbon block. Carbon itself, is an extremely porous type of material that attracts, and can hold a wide variety of improper contaminants to itself. Activated carbon is only carbon which has a slight electro-positive charge added to it. This has the benefit of making the carbon even more attractive to chemicals, and to many other forms of impurities.
Activated carbon bonds to thousands of different chemicals, and compounds. In fact, carbon will bond to almost every type of known chemical. Heavy metals including lead, do not actually bond to the carbon, but are physically “strained” out by the actual smallness of the pore size of the carbon block. They are too large to pass through the actual pores of the carbon block filter.
In this small article, I cannot go into all of the different types of filters, and purifying systems actually out there. I am just here posting a warning, that it is really buyer beware, and so not to go out, and buy the first system, or even the second system, that you come across, or that someone recommends to you. No, sit support, and read, and research it all a bit more. After all, it’s your body, your life, and your money, that you will be spending.
Water filters can be researched on the web, and all filters are trying to ensure that water that has already been certified by government authorities as safe, is safe, and so you are just wanting to make them “safer,” for yourself. In this day and age is this really necessary, or not? Well, in most cases not, as the water is, and should be safe enough to drink in any new, and advanced civilized country, such as that which we live in. But if you want to spend some money, enhancing the flavour, and the taste of your water, by all means filter your water, and at the very least remove the taste of chlorine, and the chlorine itself, and which has been almost proven to be linked to causing cancer in large enough doses.
But remember also, that what you filter out of your drinking water is probably quiet being absorbed by you, straight from the water, whilst you are showering. Chlorine can be breathed in, and absorbed by the skin. Clean water is a source, and foundation for, and of, a clean life, and contributes to an overall super bill of health.
So my conclusion here, is to implore you all, to research all of this further for yourself, and so for you all to make a considered decision, only after finding sufficient knowledge, and truth for yourself. And so that then you will be able to filter out the real truth, from all the false claims, and exaggerated notions of truth, still floating around out there somewhere, on all that water, that you are about to drink.
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Filed under Whole House Reverse Osmosis Water Filters by on Jan 28th, 2011. 
As a child, I grew up drinking well water. As I got older, the little country community I lived in modernized and provided clean, safe, great tasting water. At least that was the claim. Right off the bat I knew I didn’t like the taste and I started drinking less and less water in favor of flavored drinks and soft drinks. Now that I’m older, I seek the potential damage such a decision can cause and I decided to drink more water.
I decided not to dig another well because of the expense and at the time, a water filtration system seemed too much money just for water. So I settled on buying water. After a couple of years of purchasing water from the local mega-store, I started adding up how much it was costing me per year. It shrinking me to find out I was paying more than if I had a filtration system.
The idea of water filtration didn’t seem so expensive any more. I started off with a basic carbon and mesh filter. Immediately I realized the same unpleasant taste was quiet there. Next I tried a water distillation device. Without a doubt, that took the abominable taste away but it also took all the taste away. The water was flat and just didn’t taste legal. Tea and coffee didn’t even taste the same. The last option I looked at was reverse osmosis. This was something totally different to me and I spent several weeks studying it.
My gargantuan concern was what the water was going to taste like. I didn’t know any one with one so all I could do was go by what I read. Some said it was a good smooth taste and others said it’s sort of flat like distilled water. I took a leap of faith, compared cost to features and purchased the best one suited for me. Now the fun begins… so to speak.
I’m a do-it-yourself type of guy so I ordered an under-the-sink kit. The instructions supplied was not written for someone who had never installed one before but I was able to secure it assembled. All that was left to do is let it run a few hours and let the tank fill up. The hours passed with very little water in the tank. More hours passed. Same result. Twenty four hours passed and nothing had changed. It was the beginning of the weekend so I was unable to call customer service and find out what was wrong. I let the system run all weekend but the tank objective wouldn’t fill up.
That following Monday I checked the system before calling customer service. Much to my surprise, I hear water trickling in the drain. There’s a waste water port, connected to the drain, the system uses to flush the membrane cartridge. It had been running water ever since I turned the system on. Who knows how many gallons was wasted. I was a bit steamed. I called customer service, described the problem and asked them if a certain automatic switching valve was the problem. They said no and asked me what’s the water pressure coming in the house. After checking, I told them about 40 pounds. I was told that was the problem and I had to get the pressure between 60 and 80 pounds. Just great. Another expense!
Increasing the water pressure coming in the house wasn’t an option for me so I bought a small pressure pump made especially for reverse osmosis filters. Curved it up and… TA DA!!! It was doing the same as before. I was not a delighted camper. I got support on the phone with customer service, described the problem again and this time was told they would call me back because they needed to mumble to their senior technician about this. About an hour later they called succor and guess what they told me? You guessed it. The problem was the automatic valve I mentioned earlier. Two days later, they rushed a new one to me. That finally fixed it but out of curiosity I removed the pressure pump to contemplate what would happen. After draining the tank, I found my existing water pressure just wasn’t enough for the system and the tank would not fill up.
In conclusion, the aggravation during installation was worth it. It educated me on the internal workings of the system and now I have all the drinking water I want. And by the method, the water taste great. The best tip I can give anyone reading this is if your existing water pressure isn’t at least 60 pounds, buy a small pressure pump for it. You can salvage them under $100 US.
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Filed under Whole House Reverse Osmosis Water Filters by on Jan 3rd, 2011.
As a child, I grew up drinking well water. As I got older, the little country community I lived in modernized and provided clean, well-behaved, great tasting water. At least that was the claim. Right off the bat I knew I didn’t like the taste and I started drinking less and less water in favor of flavored drinks and soft drinks. Now that I’m older, I see the potential damage such a decision can cause and I decided to drink more water.
I decided not to dig another well because of the expense and at the time, a water filtration system seemed too much money just for water. So I settled on buying water. After a couple of years of purchasing water from the local mega-store, I started adding up how much it was costing me per year. It unnerved me to find out I was paying more than if I had a filtration system.
The belief of water filtration didn’t seem so expensive any more. I started off with a basic carbon and mesh filter. Immediately I realized the same awful taste was still there. Next I tried a water distillation device. Without a doubt, that took the awful taste away but it also took all the taste away. The water was flat and just didn’t taste right. Tea and coffee didn’t even taste the same. The last option I looked at was reverse osmosis. This was something totally different to me and I spent several weeks studying it.
My big concern was what the water was going to taste like. I didn’t know any one with one so all I could do was go by what I read. Some said it was a good smooth taste and others said it’s sort of flat like distilled water. I took a leap of faith, compared cost to features and purchased the best one suited for me. Now the fun begins… so to order.
I’m a do-it-yourself type of guy so I ordered an under-the-sink kit. The instructions supplied was not written for someone who had never installed one before but I was able to get it assembled. All that was left to do is let it run a few hours and let the tank fill up. The hours passed with very runt water in the tank. More hours passed. Same result. Twenty four hours passed and nothing had changed. It was the beginning of the weekend so I was unable to call customer service and win out what was wrong. I let the system bustle all weekend but the tank unbiased wouldn’t fill up.
That following Monday I checked the system before calling customer service. Much to my surprise, I hear water trickling in the drain. There’s a waste water port, connected to the drain, the system uses to flush the membrane cartridge. It had been running water ever since I turned the system on. Who knows how many gallons was wasted. I was a bit steamed. I called customer service, described the problem and asked them if a certain automatic switching valve was the problem. They said no and asked me what’s the water pressure coming in the house. After checking, I told them about 40 pounds. I was told that was the problem and I had to win the pressure between 60 and 80 pounds. Just gargantuan. Another expense!
Increasing the water pressure coming in the house wasn’t an option for me so I bought a small pressure pump made especially for reverse osmosis filters. Hooked it up and… TA DA!!! It was doing the same as before. I was not a happy camper. I got back on the phone with customer service, described the problem again and this time was told they would call me back because they needed to speak to their senior technician about this. About an hour later they called back and guess what they told me? You guessed it. The problem was the automatic valve I mentioned earlier. Two days later, they rushed a new one to me. That finally fixed it but out of curiosity I removed the pressure pump to see what would happen. After draining the tank, I found my existing water pressure just wasn’t enough for the system and the tank would not fill up.
In conclusion, the aggravation during installation was worth it. It educated me on the internal workings of the system and now I have all the drinking water I want. And by the way, the water taste spacious. The best tip I can give anyone reading this is if your existing water pressure isn’t at least 60 pounds, buy a small pressure pump for it. You can find them under $100 US.
Related Posts
Filed under Whole House Reverse Osmosis Water Filters by on Nov 15th, 2010.