Cleaning up our water in order to make it safe to drink is something that ever household should work on. Even if a home gets their water from a municipality, there is no guarantee that it is as clean as it can be. That’s why more and more homes are turning to residential water filtration.
When shopping for one of these units you can see that there are numerous options available. Your options go from a simple, inexpensive design to whole house units. So it all comes down to what you are willing to spend initially and on a reoccurring basis.
The simplest of designs is the faucet model. These attach directly to one faucet and only that fixture produces filtered water. They are economical and use a cartridge that is easy to replace when necessary. They can mount on the sink or counter or they can attach directly to the faucet itself. Other options would be a reverse osmosis or a carbon filter model. The reverse osmosis is more expensive of the two, but it does an amazing job of eliminating metals such as cadmium, lead and fluorine. It uses a permeable membrane that allows water to seep through while trapping all foreign material. Their downside is that in the process they tend to waste a lot of water. This can become quite expensive over time.
A carbon filter model is also a good choice for effectiveness. There are different models of carbon filters with the best ones being those with ceramic filters coated in silver. These are designed mostly for capturing contaminants.
UV filters are also a good choice. This uses a protective transparent shield with a UV light inside. As the water passes through it is exposed to the light. The light transforms the nucleic acid of microbes, scrambles and changes their DNA so that they become sterile and then they cannot reproduce. This makes them no longer a threat. The negative aspect of these is that they only attack microorganisms and are not effective against metals, VOCs or even chlorine. That’s why it is advised that they be used in conjunction with another type of system.
The last choice would be an inline filter or a whole house unit. These are great in that they cover all of the water coming into the home. That means that a family can shower or bathe in clean water and the dishwasher and washing machine will wash with it. This type of residential water filtration offers you the best protection you can hope for.