Handy Guide for Choosing Your Home Water Treatment System

Which Home Water Treatment System do you Need?

Home water treatment options are a huge consideration and need careful thought taking into account the type of imbalances that are present in your water. Although filtration systems are the most popular types of water treatment systems available, there are actually many other different types of filters on the market. Getting your water tested by a professional will be useful to know exactly what contaminants exist in your water, making it easier to know which filter to purchase. Depending on how many contaminants your water contains, different filtrations systems may be recommended.

Types of Filter Systems:
There are two main categories of water filter systems that exist; Whole house/Point-of-entry (POE) Systems and Point-of-use (POU) Systems. POE systems are responsible for treating all the water entering a house, and are physically located after the water meter or storage tank. POU systems are smaller filters installed at the point of use, as the name suggests – for example in the kitchen or bathroom. These are suited at specific end points, so that each system can directly address conditions in each area. Examples of POU’s are water bottle filters, pitcher or pour through filters, and shower filters.

• POE systems are used for a more general water treatment program. Two types of systems exist under the POE category that you might want to choose for your home; Water softeners and filtration systems. Once again it depends on the water source and where you live. Having hard water usually occurs in dry, hot climates with little rainfall, and in this case, a water softener is usually recommended. Water softeners remove Magnesium and Calcium from the water by means of salt, making sure that appliances using water (such as coffee makers) do not collect layers of what is called lime scale. Salt can strip the water of all its minerals, instead of only the Magnesium and Calcium. This is something important to consider when choosing your water treatment system. You can check the hardness of your water before purchasing a water softener by either sending a sample to the laboratory or you can use a water hardness testing kit.
• The other option is to use water filtration. This is particularly useful if your water is sourced from an underground well or spring. Because there is a high possibility that pesticides and chemicals seep into the soil and can easily contaminate your water it is crucial to install a filter of some sort. A good example of a water filtration system is one which uses reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis systems work by moving water from a more concentrated solution to a less concentrated solution. They are POU systems that can be installed under your kitchen sink. Reverse osmosis treats water for consumption i.e. for drinking and cooking. This water has to be extra clean, leaving no room for any possible bacteria.
• Whole house water treatment systems work faster but more generally, cleaning the water of chemicals like chlorine that are added to tap water. However, there are quite a few things Whole house systems cannot get rid of namely nitrate, arsenic, and chromium. Using this type of system is helpful if you don’t have any specific contamination issues.

Of course there is also the option of using any of these systems in combination, so that it suits your water contamination situation perfectly. For all the information you need your best bet will be to call a professional at Art Plumbing, AC and Electric.