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Everyone needs to drink plenty of clean, safe water every day and we need more water for household chores and uses. Is normal home faucet water safe? Home water is supplied by a private well or a municipal water system with varying degrees of safety. Municipal water goes through many treatments to keep it safe but can still become contaminated along the pipeline system to each home. Private well water should be tested often for contamination and it is advised to get a water filtration system to ensure safe water.
How safe is Your Water?
The only way to know if a home’s faucet water is safe is to have it tested. Water can get contaminated with chemicals such as pesticides, physical contaminants such as sediment or particles, biological contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, or parasites, or radiological contaminants such as uranium or plutonium. Other contaminants might include inorganic chemicals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, iron, calcium, potassium, and others.
Some contamination will always occur and many are harmless. But, other contaminants are harmful when consumed in concentrated amounts. Contaminants may not be harmful in small amounts but when they are in the water and being ingested over a long period of time, they can have bad health effects. Other contaminants can cause harmful effects in a short time. These include bacteria and viruses and other biological contaminants. Read More
Be Safe, Install a Water Filtration System
Many experts suggest installing some type of water filtration system to make sure home drinking water is safe. Many homeowners install whole house water filtration systems to get better quality water for kitchen use, showering, and washing clothes or dishes as well as better drinking water. When the homeowner is browsing water filtration systems to find one that seems right for their home, check all the different kinds that are available.
Local water filtration system suppliers will be able to supply the types that are best considering the water issues in any area such as Minnesota and Wisconsin. They will probably not have all the types of filtration systems available, but they will have the ones that work best in their service area.
10 kinds of Water Filtration Systems
Homeowners who are not sure how safe the water is may consider drinking only bottled water. That is a poor choice because the plastic bottle cause more environmental pollution. Relying on bottle water is a costly proposition. And, bottled water has been proven in many cases to not be much more pure than faucet water. Many bottled water companies make false claims about their water.
The homeowner’s best option for safe water and cost effectiveness is to have a water filtration system installed. The 10 most common types of water filtration systems have good and bad points to consider.
1. Sediment filtration can be used alone or as a pre-filter along with other water filtration systems. It is made from pleated polyester or melt blown polypropylene with different sized pores (micron rating) to filter out sediments such as sand, rust, dust, silt or heavy metals. This is a common filtration system around the world. snow blowers – snow removal equipment –
2. Activated carbon block filtration is a tube shape containing fine carbon powder which remains static and held together by some sort of binding agent. It is good at removing chlorine odor and taste, chemicals, and contaminants from water. This affordable water filter has good contaminant filtration ability and allows a nice water flow rate. It inhibits bacterial growth, doesn’t need a power supply, and has no chemical additives.
3. Granular activated carbon filtration systems have loose carbon granules of a larger size than carbon block powder systems. They are weaker at contaminant absorption but have a higher water filtration rate. Its higher water flow speed makes it good for high flow systems, as a pre-filtration part of whole house systems, for industrial filtration systems, or as one step of a multi-stage filtration system.
4. Reverse osmosis filtration systems make use of a semipermeable membrane in separating inorganic contaminants out of water. They produce the cleanest drinking water. This system of intensive filtration has a higher price and a slower filtration rate. It removes most contaminants but is susceptible to chlorine, so this system will have one or more carbon pre- filters to remove chlorine. A large amount of brine or waste water is produced and this system requires a water tank to store filtered water.
5. Distillation is a filtration system that vaporizes and condenses water, leaving behind the contaminants and essential minerals. This system takes a lot of time to produce a limited amount of clean, distilled water. This system is mostly used for industrial processes. It requires more maintenance, is costly, and uses electrical power.
6. Ion-exchange comes in two forms, the action exchange process for ions that are positively charged and the anion exchange process with negatively charged ions. Water passes through an IX container containing a unique resin causing a chemical reaction removing contaminants and replacing them with an electrical charge in the ion-exchange resin. This water treatment system uses the two ion-exchange reactions to soften water, absorb acids, remove metals, and other deionization tasks.
7. Ultraviolet or UV disinfection systems can be used to kill microorganisms such as viruses, cysts, Coliforms, infectious, Typhoid fever, hepatitis, bacteria and more dangerous contaminants in water that comes from private wells, lakes, rainwater, and rivers. The UV ray in the ultraviolet lamp damages or destroys over 99% of illness causing microbiological contaminants in the water. This system is not a water filter and should be used with a water filtration system as added protection.
8. Ultra filtration uses hydro static pressure to force water to flow through a special semipermeable UF membrane, filtering out most contaminants in the water while retaining essential minerals. In drinking water treatment systems, it is combined with additional filtration technologies to achieve a higher level of treatment. This ultra-filtration equipment is also used in industrial applications and in waste water recycling.
9. Activated alumina filtration involves a water filter of very absorptive porous aluminum oxide that can remove fluoride, selenium, arsenic, and thallium in water being treated. Some initialization processes must first happen. When tap water is pushed through this filter media fluorides are adsorbed on the surface. It must be used along with other water filters to provide drinking water that is safe.
10. Ionization uses a water ionizer to change the water molecular structure to produce two things, antioxidant-rich alkaline ionized water for drinking and oxidizing acidic ionized water for cleaning or disinfecting. This system requires electrical power and can’t remove total dissolved solids, organic contaminants, or pharmaceuticals in the water. This is an expensive system.
Home purification and filtration systems can be at point of entry like whole house systems, or point of use such as for a bathroom, faucet, washing machine, or kitchen use. The best home water filter system is one that is designed to remove the problem water contaminants in the home water system, has removable water filters, and works for the homeowner’s preferences and water situation. Water must be tested before a water system can be chosen.
