Have you ever used a water treatment system in your home?
My wife is pushing for one of these very expensive home water treatment/filtration systems, but it all feels like a scam to me. No one I know has one, so turning to random strangers on the internet for opinions.
Edit: We're on city water in a decent area. No well water. It's more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything.
50 replies
If your water is good, don't bother. You're getting way more microplastics from driving with your windows down than a municipal source. I lived in Orlando for a little where they used wayyyy too much chlorine, but a cheep faucet filter made it serviceable.
We have a salt water system, came with the house, system was about 2k in today’s dollars. buy like $15 of salt every quarter, works great and saves the plumbing
The water in my house tastes like crap. We used to buy gallon jugs of water not for health reasons but because of the taste. I bought a reverse osmosis system and I love it.
It wastes water to cycle (less than most) but still not great and it takes cartridges, but to me it's still with it. I mean is it better to waste water or put plastic jugs in the landfill? The cartridges last a long time. So to me, the scam is worth it. One of the best things I've ever bought.
Get a water test done first to see what it is you need to target. Not all filters are the same.
You might be fine with a simple 2-stage filter for the home, and an RO filter at your kitchen sink/fridge for your drinking water and ice cubes.
a proper water test from a reputable lab that tests for dangerous contaminants like lead, not just a TDS test.
Total Dissolved Solids tests are what the filter companies to scare you into buying their filter systems. They'll take your tap water, put their TDS meter in it, go "Oh my god, look at how high it is! you need filtration immediately!" and try to sell you an overpriced system immediately.
You know whats dissolved in water? All the minerals and other crap that makes water good for you. Thats why a TDS meter spikes even in bottled water. But its an excellent scare trap for the uninformed by the predatory.
Not a water treatment system as those being described in the thread but I have installed and used a water filter in my house to prevent sand and metal deposits to enter my home pipes, as the main is a very old galvanized tube.
It cost around 60€ and the instalation is pretty straigh forward if you are at ease with tools. The kit was composed of a stainless steel cartridge and a clear filter housing. A cartridge lasts about 2 years, more if routinely cleaned, and I had the option of cheaper fabric-like filters, discardable.
The results, for me personally, besides removing the solids, were negligeable but my partner is a water taster and was constantly stating the water tasted better after I installed the filter.
I went to a few stores, asking questions and comparing answers and solutions. I was not in need of a complex system but regardless I was presented with very exaggerated solutions and more basic and down to earth approaches. A serious hurdle I had to face was insisting that the system had to be easily instalable and maintainable by myself; most people tried to convince me to have everything installed by a plumber, no matter how simple the solution was.
Get an under-sink RO system. 6 stage is the sweet spot imo.
Water went from 750 TDS to 40, and that's with minerals readded with a mineral adding filter. Tastes as good or better than bottled water to me.
If you have hard water, it's true that water softeners can help with other issues in the house (scaling of faucets, dishwasher cleaning I effectively), and possibly if your family has skin issues from showering in it. I thought about it but for simplicity, we're foregoing for now.
Yeah I had an RO for years at my last house. However, I bought new filters one time and my entire system smelled and tasted like mold after installing them. I always sanitized the entire system per their directions. 13 years no problem then, a problem. They also straight up refused to talk to me about it so maybe avoid US Water Systems...
I'll second that opinion. RO filtered water basically is the same as overpriced bottled water, but you can have all you want at home anytime in your own glass
RO is definitely the way to go, though interesting you couldn't get it below what the meter could detect. Both of my RO setups get to 0 detectable from ~500ppm, and one's only a three stage.
Yeah I think my RO membrane probably isn't a top quality one, as it has a rated TDS rejection rate of 97%, so absent of the mineral-adder, that probably tracks. I think the adder does throw about 20-30ppm back in and evens out the pH.
Yeah, a mineral re-adder will definitely bump the numbers back up. A lot of what those PPM measurers detect are those similar ions and such that trigger peoples' tastebuds.
Wow. I go from 350 to 8 ppm on an 5-stage APEC and thought that was amazing.
It's not a scam if your town/well water is shitty or causes issues.
I don't have one, but many restaurants in my city have them because the city water is hard, and will destroy pipes and equipment. Like, if you ran an espresso machine in my city w/o a filter the machine would clog every other week from mineral build up. So in terms of lowing your plumber and equipment bills it's a very good investment. Often in my city water heater tanks, for example, will last 5-10 years instead of like 20. Also, a lot of people find the hard water in my city unpalatable.
The info about your water should be available through your town or city. The water in my city isn't treated because it's perfectly safe and clean, it just has high mineral content. I have lived in places where the water was treated with softeners because it was too hard, and that has other drawbacks.
If I was building a new home in my same town, I would totally install one because it would pay for itself in the long run. I use a Brita filter and that's good enough for me to clean up the taste, and I do call a plumber to flush my pipes and all that every couple of years to prevent the build up that eats away at them, so that is an ongoing cost I have to eat. And retrofitting a filter system would be stupidly expensive for my building.
city water here.
I installed a modest three stage filter last year.
first stage is particulate, second stage is active carbon, third stage is UV.
we have aging pipes in the area so main breaks happen at least twice a year, not to mention the possibility of lead pipes.
no filter will get you to absolute zero, but the levels of harmful chemicals and biological matter that get through after a good filter will be negligible.
just because you trust your water today, doesn't mean you can trust it tomorrow.
The first thing to do is to pull the water report for your area. For the US, most can be found here. Tap water database.
Prepare yourself because most drinking water has some serious contaminants.
When I learned this, I was stunned. It had never crossed my mind that we would allow one of our most precious resources to be contaminated.
You will see a bunch of people chiming in about how the water is safe, but a few things to note.
There are contaminants in a lot of drinking water that they simply dont regulate. So there can be excessive levels of toxic things in your water but its still identified as safe.
Also what is considered safe levels of contaminants can vary wildly.
The EPA guidelines are factoring in the cost and feasibily of removing contaminants, not just the science.
As far as (carbon based) whole house systems, they can remove chlorine and handle lower levels of PFAS, but beyond that you need to focus on point of use filters. These are typically located under sinks and or refrigerators where you use water for drinking and cooking.
Lastly you have to be very careful when selecting filters. Many vendors will not list NSF certifications. Its also highly advised to request a performance data sheet from the vendors you are considering.
Best of luck.
the EWG is bullshit scaremongering site that says anything functionally above 0 is CONTAMINATION. And what do you know, theres easy links to buy filters that solve every imaginary problem they try to scare you with right on the very same pages.
A simple search about EWG shows that everyone has some very legitimate and serious criticism about their utter bullshit.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/environmental-working-group-ewg/
Even the biasfactcheck rates it as pseudoscience.
Yes I've used them. They are worth it. What the EPA says is safe still has stuff you should probably remove.
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/
Not to mention that treatment plants are not infallible.
This is the correct database to use. In the US, we haven't invested any official effort into updating our drinking water standards in many decades. So take whatever your municipality or water supplier says about your water quality, with a grain of salt. Maybe a very large bag of salt.
Put it together yourself and it's cheap af. The whole system package is the scam.
You have to be specific to answer properly. Where do you live (how is your water) and what treatment/filtration are you considering.
Lots of folks on well water have hard water, bad tasting, etc... Other may have lead, or other pollutants.
The truth of the matter is you should get your water tested at an independant lab. Based on the results, you can tailor a system to your needs, if any.
We're on city water in a decent area. No well water. It's more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything.
Without a test you wouldn't know. Cities have lead, pfas, god knows what. Older areas of cities may still be using lead pipes.
Could you just answer where you roughly live? US, Europe, Antarctica, the moon?
If you're in Europe your probably fine because of EU laws...
Why is removing the chlorine important to your wife? Why does she think a filter won't introduce more microplastics than it removes? Is the entire filter system plastic free? (The answer to that is "no. ")
You are only partially correct. The systems have plastic in them, but that's nowhere in any way a guarantee they're adding more plastic than they're removing. At all.
Ok, but where the evidence it's actually removing more than it adds? You won't get a study like that from the company selling them.
Also where's the study on OPs city water showing the level of Microplastics?
I'm not claiming anything, I'm asking the questions of OP they should be asking with their wife.
Where is the study reinforcing your claims?
You can say, "I'm not making a claim of my own" all you want, but you are!
You should get your water tested. While your water district report is a fine baseline, it won't tell you about things like lead scale in your home's feed line that are localized to your plumbing.
I had this done and learned my home originally had a lead feeder line from the mains that was replaced 30 years ago, but coated the pipes in lead scale. Now we use a 6 stage RO system.
We have one :3 well 2 kinds of water filters, technically, but one is the big kind of water treatment thing im imagining you're referring to.
But that's because we get water from our own well, so if we didn't have water filtration systems our water would actually just be brown and taste of iron ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Get your water tested. That will tell you what’s in YOUR water - including the city treatment, city supply pipes, and even the pipes running into your home. Do your research based off the values you see in those results.
If you do thinks it’s worth getting a filter, install one in the kitchen. That’s where you get your drinking and cooking water from. Not much sense in buying a huge system to treat the water that goes into your shower or toilet or waters your garden.
After college, I had a Brita pitcher. The filtered water tasted noticeably better than it did straight from the faucet. When I lived in another state, I connected a filter to my sink. That was even more of an improvement.
I don’t blame you for being cautious. There’s so much bullshit out there, and it seems like everyone is trying to sell you crap for as much money as possible. In my experience, though, water filters work well and are not a scam.
You want to know the funny thing about those types of filters? Unless you religiously replace them as soon as they are saturated, they leech the crap they sucked up back into your water. So people who let the filter go too long are drinking water that is worse than they started with.
Huh. That’s good to know. I always changed the filters when I was supposed to, so I never experienced that. Thanks!
No, you just experienced Brita filters doing almost nothing to the water. They only absorb a few tasting chemicals and do fuck all for actually filtering the water.
Project Farm on YouTube has two videos about filters, and Brita et. al. that are about making "tasty" water fail miserably every time.
Thank you for mentioning Project Farm. Now OP and I know where to look for additional information!
so like reverse osmossis?
If her primary concern is drinking water, you can get an under sink RO filter for a couple hundred. They're very easy to install yourself. I've even helped a friend install one connected to their fridge so that the fridge dispenser would taste better. We are on city water that tests well except for microplastics and it sometimes tastes a little bit like soil or musty. The RO systems come with a particulate filter, carbon stage, Reverse Osmosis membrane, and a remineralization stage. RO is the only way to effectively remove microplastics.
Personally, I would consider having a particulate filter and maybe water softener for the whole house. Neither of those should be crazy expensive. The water softener is only if your city water tests hard or if you have mineral buildup on your shower heads or in your dishwasher. If you've done any plumbing work, a particulate filter is pretty easy and affordable to install yourself.
Reverse osmosis for the whole house is simply unnecessary. Install one yourself at the location your family gets their drinking/cooking water.
https://www.mcmaster.com/product/4361K71
This unit from mcmaster carr is what I use. Please be aware that chlorine does damage the RO membrane, so it is important to replace the first two filter stages approximately every 6 months. The fourth stage is recommended to be replaced yearly and the RO stage is supposed to be good for 2 yrs.
https://www.mcmaster.com/4361K81/ https://www.mcmaster.com/4361K82/ https://www.mcmaster.com/4361K83/ https://www.mcmaster.com/4361K84/
Express Water also has some decent under sink and counter top options.
Removing chlorine for the whole home requires a large activated carbon filter. They're pretty expensive and the media gets saturated and has to be replaced every so often to keep absorbing chlorine. I would only do this if your wife has extremely sensitive skin that is getting irritated from your tap water.
Oh and Reverse Osmosis systems waste more water than they clean without expensive recirculating pumps and controllers. That's acceptable for a couple gallons of drinking water a day, but would be very wasteful and expensive in a whole-house system.
If you are just worried about microplastics and chemicals you probably don't need an expensive whole house system. You can buy a much cheaper system that you install to one faucet and use that faucet as your drinking/cooking water and not worry about treating the water that will be used to wash your clothes.
I have heard of some using calcium removal devices for their pipes, called Ion-Exchange Water Softeners
They use beads with an electrical charge, in an attempt to reduce calcium in the water. Meaning less buildup(cleaning) in the shower etc
But you gotta replace these beads every few months or whatever. Its also quite expensive.
Reducing the calcium if you drink it, can affect the taste a bit. Not sure how much or if its good/bad
As for regular “filters” im unsure they do anything.
And dont get anything that talks about water ph levels.. that is bullshit
Water softeners use a salt brine to flush out the ions off the resin beads. The resin beads do eventually wear out but should be good for 5+ years in most residential applications. The softener salt does have to be topped up frequently though. Softeners are not particularly exoensive to keep operating.
Check whether your water has been treated with chlorine or chloramines, which are more common these days.
What you need is very location specific! What I need in my current house is different from what I needed in my first house. You MUST start with a water test. You can buy a kit at any hardware store. However there is no need - in every city I've lived in there is a local company that sells treatment systems that does free water testing as part of their sales pitch. They usually know more about water than I do, and they are familiar with what works in your local area. So give a couple a call and get them to tell you what is in your water and what they recommend, then choose the best bid (not low big, best - that means you trust them to install correctly, and their test results show the system will help). I'm sure there are scams in water treatment, but in general I've found them honest people trying to make a living.
Your city water is 100% safe to drink in most cases. Chlorine and microplastics are things used to scare you into buying scams that probably don't even remove what they claim. Your local water treatment company won't talk about them.
Water treatment can improve taste. Just because the water is safe to drink doesn't mean it is pleasant. I drink RO water. (but I've almost always lived on a well. One house I had test results to show my water wasn't safe to drink without treatment, the rest of the places water was safe but not tasty!)
Every house I've lived in have benefited from a water softer. The water is safe, but soap works much better without the hardness. My current house is about 7 grains of hardness, which means things work okay without. My first house had 31 grains, the soap didn't work unless you used a lot and then didn't rinse off, but it was still safe. I have relatives who live where the water is naturally soft.
I had an iron filter in one house because there was so much iron. However there is no iron in the water in my current house so there is no need for that.
Again, start with a real water test. If you don't know what is in your water you don't know how to treat it.
The real issue for many people is lead. Lots of houses built between WWII and the 1970's will have lead pipes as steel was reserved for military purposes in many places.
Like I said: GET A WATER TEST! if you don't know what you are working with you can't treat it.
I personally am replacing the copper pipes (lead solder) in my house with PEX. There is some copper left, but not much. If you can do the work yourself this is likely cheaper than the treatment system. (but I drink RO water anyway because of taste)
Get tests from your water company. Mine sends me yearly tests they do of the water (yes, how truthful are they, whos to know, but I think its a legal requirement to tell you how much aresenic content there is). Ours tests great and our water tatstes great right out of the tap. I would like a softener though for some stuff.
(UK) I know lots of people with either whole house water softeners, or a filtered tap for drinking water in the kitchen.
That's mostly for limescale and water taste due to hard water though.
A good reverse osmosis filter system is cheap (maybe $400-500 with installation and extra filters for a fancy system), and can improve even the best municipal water sources.
Recommend against getting one that is too expensive, avoid softener systems.
They will eventually break, when the softener specifically breaks it can be a very expensive water bill. I eventually got to throw it out and just install a filter system under the kitchen sink enabling a singular faucet for drinking water.
No, unless you live somewhere where tap water isn't drinkable there is no need for those.