Understanding the Effectiveness of a Drinkink Water Filter System

Trying to decide which is the best drinking water filter system for your home? Then you’re not alone in your dilemma. Let’s go over what to look for in a sea of choices.

While you might be under the impression that any old water filter system will do, you’re wrong. There are many different factors that need to be addressed when choosing an appropriate unit. You want to get a model that will cover all of your needs, and there are many on the market that will not offer you full protection.

One of the most common slogan used in the promotion of drinking water filter systems is ‘"removes chlorine and odor. You get this in countless advertisements and commercials. I’m not trying to downplay the importance of removing chlorine and odor, but there are many more things that it is equally important to dispose of.

We have a large number of pesticides and herbicides in our reservoir system for example. These toxins can cause great damage to our health also. Some of the effects of these chemicals are cancer, nervous system damage, and kidney and liver damage. A good quality water filter system should include protection from these poisons also, but many don’t.

To drive home the point of the threat that these chemicals cause, two commonly used herbicides here in the U.S. have been banne by the European Union. Atrazine is known to cause birth defects and affect hormone levels, while regular exposure to Alachlor can cause cancer and damage the liver, kidneys spleen, eyes and nose. A drinking water filter system should be able to protect you from these hazards.

While chlorine in and of itself is dangerous enough, its use as a disinfectant brings about problems of its own. THMs is a dangerous byproduct formed by chlorine. The EPA has listed THM’s, along with VOCs, MTBE, TCE, and Benzine as known carcinogens. All of these can be found in your tap water.

Bottled is not a safe option either despite the claims of the manufacturers to the contrary. These companies for the most part get no more of their water from a natural spring than you do. What they are actually selling to you is plain old tap water that has been run through a large scale water filter system no more sophisticated than any other.

While the bottlers would love for you to believe that at the end of their cleansing process that the water that they’re selling you is absolutely the purest quality available, in a nutshell it’s not. H20 bottlers actually have some leeway as to the ‘acceptable’ levels of contaminants that their product is allowed to contain while still being able to call it "pure".

The champagne of waters themselves, Perrier, actually got cited for having levels of benzene far exceeding limits. Benzene is a highly toxic chemical, so this lead to a nationwide recall of the popular product.

What you truly need in a drinking water filter system is an activated carbon filter, a micron filter, and a multi stage filter in order to cover all of your bases.