Whole House Vs Point of Use Water Filtration

Everyone wants water that tastes good in their home, but it can be tricky to determine what type of water filtration system to install to make it happen. After all, having great tasting water is not going to mean anything to you if the water in the rest of your house is cloudy and stains your clothing or other items that you are trying to keep clean.

Point of use home water filter systems will help you achieve fresh and crisp tasting water and these systems are installed underneath a sink or countertop. While point of use home water filter systems will deliver purified water for drinking and cooking, the amount of water that is purified each day might be less than you actually need.

Whole house water filtration systems will treat all the water that enters your home, which means that you will be using treated water for bathing, washing dishes, cleaning, and doing your laundry. These whole house water filtration systems can deliver thousands of gallons of water each day and the system would need to be placed where your water first enters your home. This could be in your garage or your basement, and since these systems are a little larger, you will need to make room for them. You would never need to worry about running out of clean water when you use a whole house water filtration system, but you should know that the quality of the water will not be as pure for drinking as it would be if you installed point of use home water filter systems in the rooms where you drink the water.

While either one of these options will give you better water, you may want to consider installing both inside your home. The whole house water filtration system will treat the water for your entire home, while additional treatment will be done to your water with the point of use home water filter system. This additional system will ensure that you have the best purified water for drinking and cooking purposes.

You may decide to install one or more of these systems due to personal preference of how water should taste, or you may choose to have them installed out of necessity. Red iron stains are one of the first clues that you need to seriously consider a whole house water filtration system, while an off taste might simply suggest a point of use home water filter system. If you are not sure if you need to install a water filtration system inside your home, you may want to have your water tested and talk to a professional of how these systems can make your water better.

At Reynolds Water Conditioning Company, we are here to help make sure our clients don’t buy water treatment systems that they don’t need. We are here to make sure you find a water softening system that gives you the results you are looking for, whether it is to remove iron or odor from you water; we have a solution that will help! For more information contact our experts at 800.572.9575 or at our website https://reynoldswater.com.

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Beware! Your Water Filter Might Still Be Letting Toxins Through

Think all water filter pitchers are created equal? Think again. Some could be letting harmful toxins into your drinking water.

Water filter jug and a glass on the wooden windowsill Africa Studio/ShutterstockThey say “slow and steady wins the race,” and when it comes to water filter pitchers? Turns out they’re right. A recent study out of The Ohio State University revealed water filters that work too quickly may be letting harmful toxins get through to your drinking water (and you won’t believe what toxins might be in your drinking water!).

For the study, published in the journal Water Science Technology: Water Supply the scientists compared three popular pitcher brands for their ability to clear “dangerous microcystins” from tap water. Microcystins are a common group of algae found in calm waters like reservoirs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and they can sicken or kill people and animals who drink water contaminated with them.

“Toxic cyanobacterial blooms are a global threat to human health due to contamination of drinking water,” according to the study. “To ensure public safety, water treatment plants must have the capability to remove [them] from water. Recently, however, there have been several instances when [they’ve] been detected in tap water.” With that in mind, the scientists extracted microcystins from Lake Erie, diluted them in tap water, and then subjected the tap water to three different water filter pitchers, each of which is readily available on the market.

It turned out that the pitcher that took the longest to filter the water—it uses a blend of activated carbon—effectively decreased microcystins to below detectable levels. The pitcher that filtered water fastest—using coconut-based activated carbon—removed 50 percent or less. Lead study author, Justin Chaffin, PhD, the research coordinator for Ohio State’s Stone Laboratory, believes that when water is passing through carbon, “contact time really seems to matter.” In the study, contact time ranged from two minutes per liter (in the worst-performing pitcher) to six minutes per liter (for the best). The middle-of-the-road pitcher took about four minutes per liter.

The researchers didn’t name brand names, according to EurekAlert, but when deciding which pitcher to buy, you can compare individual pitchers based on the speed of percolation and the kind of carbon used in the filter. In addition, Dr. Chaffin hinted that the cheaper the water filter pitcher, the worse it might be at filtering microcystins. Also, even though the study shows certain water pitchers are effective, the researchers caution against using any water source known to be contaminated. A far safer solution would be to switch to bottled water in that case.

Original source: https://www.rd.com/health/wellness/water-filter-might-still-be-letting-toxins-through/

Written By: Lauren Cahn

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The Best System For Your Home Drinking Water

There are different ways you can improve the quality of water in your home to make it safe for drinking and cooking as well as for other household applications such as cleaning, swimming, and more. Before you invest in a filtration system, conditioning system, water softener, or filtration system it’s important to have your water tested and checked for any harmful chemicals, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, fluoride, or bacteria and also to determine the pH balance of your water.

Water that doesn’t fall within the safe pH range of 6.5 to 8.5 can be a sign of chemical or heavy metal pollution. You may want to test your water and install one of the following filtration systems, especially if your faucets and pipes have taken on a rusty red, white, or blue color. A professional water analysis is deemed to be the most important step in making sure that the correct water system is installed to bring your family quality water throughout your home.

Water Softener

Water softeners remove excess minerals or metals, such as calcium, magnesium, and iron found in hard water. By installing a water softener, you will not only notice a marked improvement in the way of minimal scale build-up in your sinks and bathtubs, but softening your water will also extend the life of your washing machine, dishwasher, water heater and various household appliances.

You also benefit from a cleaner plumbing system, and as a result, reduced energy consumption and utility bills. Whole-house water softeners are available in both reverse osmosis and ion-exchange options, however, there are also smaller systems that you can install only for your cooking and drinking purposes.

Ion Filter

There are several different kinds of ion filters, however, the best would definitely be one that has a double filtration system that can effectively adjust the ionization to the mineral content of the water. When you install an ion filter, your hard water goes through a process known as electrolysis, which separates it’s alkaline and acid content to make water safe for use. Although installed ion filters can be costly, they can be used with any water source, and most of them come with a lifespan of up to 30-years.

Reverse Osmosis

A reverse osmosis unit allows only the passage of water molecules, but not those of contaminants found in water. While it may not remove all contaminants, a reverse osmosis system provides several stages of removing impurities to make water safe for use. RO systems are also easy to maintain, and different varieties of these units can be tailored to fit your everyday usage.

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Water Softening Systems that Don’t Dry the Skin

Water softening systems attach to the water supply in a home and rectify hard water by removing excessive minerals from it. There any many styles of water softening systems on the market, from whole house water softening systems to smaller sized water softening systems.

Types of Water Softening Systems

Although there are many different styles and manufacturers of water softening systems, there are only two major types: those that use salt as a filter medium and saltless water softeners. Traditional salt water softeners actually neutralize the hard minerals in the water using salt crystals. This results in slick feeling water.

Saltless water softeners use resins, instead of salt, and soften water by changing the composition of the hard minerals which prevent the minerals from sticking to anything, like skin or sink drains.

What are Saltless Water Softeners?

Saltless water softeners are large water tanks very similar to a hot water heater. They are attached to the main water supply for the home, usually in the basement or garage. The water line enters the top of the saltless water softener and flows into the tank, where it passes over a layer of resin beads in the bottom of the water tank.

These resin beads are coated with a light salt solution, called brine, which causes an ion exchange with the water and removes hard minerals. The softened water flows up out of the center tube and into the home’s faucets.

Original Source: http://www.srjnews.com/water-softening-systems-that-dont-dry-the-skin/7405/
Original Date: June 1 2018

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Maintaining Your Salt-Free Water Softener

A salt-free water softener uses potassium chloride instead of salt, so you will not experience salty water, or the salt build up that can occur inside the tank of your water softener. There are many other positive benefits of using a potassium chloride water softener, but you will only see them if you maintain it properly.

One of the things that you will need to keep track of is how much potassium chloride you have inside your brine tank. The potassium chloride should be at least three inches above the water line at all times, although you may find that you can keep less in there if you find a residue on the sides. It is a good idea to check your levels every couple of weeks at first, until you know how much potassium chloride you are using.

Your valves are a necessary component of your potassium chloride water softener, and you will want to turn them from one position to the other and back again once a month. This will ensure that they will turn easily when you need to cut off the water supply to your softener. This is also the time to clean the valve between the brine tank and the resin tank. To clean that valve, you will need to disassemble it first, but make sure that you relieve the water pressure before taking anything apart. If you notice that any of these valves are leaking, this would be the best time to replace the washers or seals.

The resin in your potassium chloride water softener is what helps soften your water, and you will want to keep it functioning properly. A water softener cleaner can be added every few months prior to a regeneration to keep the resin in optimal form.

New potassium chloride softeners do not need to be cleaned often, but they can benefit from an annual cleaning and so can your homes water. To clean your potassium chloride water softener, you will need to close off the water intake and take all the water out of the tank. Then you will remove all the potassium chloride and scrub the inside of the brine tank with hot soapy water. After the tank has been thoroughly rinsed out, you should sanitize the tank with a mixture of water and bleach.

Keeping this maintenance schedule will allow your potassium chloride water softener to continue working for many years, as it provides you with softer water.

At Reynolds Water Conditioning Company, we are here to help make sure our clients don’t buy water treatment systems that they don’t need. We are here to make sure you find a water softening system that gives you the results you are looking for, whether it is to remove iron or odor from you water; we have a solution that will help! For more information contact our experts at 800.572.9575 or at our website https://reynoldswater.com.

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The Importance of Retaining the Essential Minerals in Drinking Water

Bottled Water Filtered Water Pros Cons-min

We use water filters to purify water that is contaminated with deadly microorganisms, harmful impurities, dissolved metal salts, etc. Many water purifier brands in the market offer various advanced models in an extensive price range. Most innovative technologies are used in their products and guarantee to provide pure and clean drinking water.

The major problem that happens when we buy a water purifier is that most of them also remove the essential minerals from the water along with removing the contaminants. There are many important minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, etc. that are naturally present in water. These minerals are actually essential for health. They contribute to strong bones, teeth, healthy and soft skin, and shiny hair. So, when you buy a water purifier, it is important to ensure that you invest in one that retains the essential minerals as they play an important role in the growth and development of the mind and body.

Problems Caused by the Removal of Essential Minerals

The following two problems are commonly caused when the essential minerals like calcium and magnesium get eliminated during the filtration process.

Demineralization in Water

We are aware of the fact that high TDS (Total Dissolved Solvents) is not good for health and needs to be filtered out. But, only a few are aware of the WHO study reports, which indicate that low TDS can also impact your health adversely. The minerals that we receive from water cannot be substituted by food or supplements leading to various deficiency diseases in the long run.

The decrease in pH Level of Water

The human body consists of 70% of water, and this percentage has to be maintained for its optimal functioning. Further, the blood in our body should be a little alkaline. The essential minerals present in water helps in maintaining the proper pH level of the body. In the absence of these minerals, the body’s pH turns acidic causing acidosis, which is considered as the basic cause of degenerative diseases.

Thus, it is essential that the filtered water should retain the required amounts of essential minerals. Besides helping in preventing these health problems, it will also help in giving water a sweet taste, which otherwise becomes very flat when all the essential minerals are removed.

How Can We Maintain the Mineral Constituency?

The most important thing to consider is that we need to purify water as it is contaminated with toxic substances and micro-organisms, but at the same time we also need to retain the essential minerals in it. So, what do we do? We need to make a proper and informed choice when choosing a water purifier. Most of the RO purifiers available in the market filter out everything, including the essential minerals. But, there are many models from reputed brands that can control the TDS of filtered water. They are designed to retain the essential minerals while filtering out contaminants at the same time.

Now that you know the importance of retaining the essential minerals in drinking water. Buy a water purifier that preserves the mineral content while ensuring it is free of contaminants.

Published on June 6, 2018 in Lifestyle by Amy Hamper

Original Source: https://www.praguepost.com/lifestyle/retaining-essential-minerals-in-drinking-water

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What Water Treatment Option Is Best For The Water In My Home

Regardless of whether your homes water is supplied through public or private water treatment facilities, the purpose of improving the quality of drinking water is to make it safe to drink and use, palatable, and sufficient enough to serve your entire home’s needs. Point-of-use (POU) technologies such as water softeners and reverse osmosis devices are commonly used to treat contaminants before the water is deemed safe to drink. A POU device can either be attached to the main faucet, installed under the sink and can also be set on the counter for the purposes of reducing contaminants in drinking water or to enhance the aesthetic quality of water supplied by a local public drinking water system.

A Point of Entry (POE) device, on the other hand, is a unit such as the ion filter that is installed to treat the water entering a house also to reduce contaminants in the water distributed throughout home intended for showering, washing dishes, clothes, flushing toilets, etc. You ‘may’ not need a water treatment unit in your home if you live in an area where you receive your water from public water suppliers, that is if your PWS meets all the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. You still want to get your water tested first to determine if there are any contaminants present.

Individuals who have a private well also need to have their water tested for contaminants and use a home water treatment unit like an ion filter or water softener to lower any health-related contaminants and ensure that any water entering the house is safe for use. The reverse osmosis (RO) is a popular POU filtration unit with many homeowners because it removes impurities such as fluoride, lead, chlorine, pesticides nitrates, and sulfates. The ion filter system unit, on the other hand, provides both water softening and deionization water treatment option that removes every calcium or magnesium ion in hard water to produce soft contaminant-free water.

Reverse osmosis is, arguably, one of the most effective and efficient methods of treating and softening drinking and cooking water. It has an osmotic membrane chamber filled with tiny pores that only allows water molecules to pass through while contaminants such as calcium and magnesium are left behind as softened water is produced. To determine if any of the above water treatment options are suitable for your home ask for a professional water analysis.

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Benefits of Saltless Water Softeners

The biggest benefit of saltless water softeners is that they do not use salt to soften the water. Many people find that salt from traditional water softening systems is extremely drying to the skin, even when present in small amounts. For these people, water softeners that use salt actually create more problems than they solve. Saltless water softeners are the perfect solution because they use resins that only have minute traces of salt on them.

The resin inside saltless water softeners also lasts much longer than the salt in traditional water softeners. Thus, owners do not need to refill the filter medium in saltless water softeners as often as they would in a traditional salt water softening systems.

Cost of Saltless Water Softeners

The total cost of a saltless water softener can vary widely. However, the cost of a basic saltless water softener, including installation, will run from $500 to $1500.

Home owners will still need to buy salt for a saltless water softener that is used for the brine solution. The brine solution is only used during recharging of the resin beads. Thus, saltless water softeners use much less salt than traditional water softening systems.

Both saltless water softeners and traditional salt water softening systems will solve the problems associated with hard water in a home. It’s best to compare water softening systems before deciding on one to purchase.

Orignal Source: http://www.srjnews.com/benefits-of-saltless-water-softeners/7408/

Original Date: May 31 2018

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Increase Water Quality With A Water Filtration System

Health care experts advise people to drink at least 8 full 8 oz. glasses of plain water every day to stay hydrated. This is important because the human body is two-thirds water and without an adequate supply of fresh, clean drinking water your body will be at risk. Most homes in the United States are either hooked up to a municipal water source or localized well water.

Unfortunately, just because the water source is supposed to be safe and healthy to drink, there have been issues in the past whereas one or more of the water sources like a water well was contaminated. If this is a fear you have then there is something that you can do to prevent your family from drinking contaminated water without any knowledge that it is happening.

One solution would be to have a full house water filtration system or one that attaches to the faucet and filters the water before it comes out. Most water filtration systems work by having the water flow through some type of media material that is designed to trap even the tiniest of contaminants present in the water. There are several different types of water filtration systems and each one works in a unique way to clean the water and prevent you from being contaminated.

5 Different Types of Water Filtration Systems

Activated Carbon Filter Systems

Activated carbon filters or carbon filters for short work trapping suspended particles in the water and also helps to absorb chlorine and other chemicals that after often responsible for causing the smelly odor in your water that comes out of the faucet. Most of the systems that use these type of filters make it possible for them to be replaced periodically.

Reverse Osmosis Filter System

This filter system works by forcing the water under pressure through a membrane that will only allow water to pass through it and nothing else. This is also why RO is used to convert seawater (saltwater) into drinkable freshwater. The RO filter is usually part of a total water filtration system.

Alkaline/Water Ionizer

One of the more popular health kicks these days is alkaline water. One of the reasons is because is being reported that many of the most common illnesses thrive in acidic conditions. By drinking only alkaline water, you reduce the acidity level within your body you could help to possibly prevent one or more of them.

UV Filters

Ultraviolet filters are used specifically for killing dangerous bacteria when present in a water supply. By exposing the water to ultraviolet radiation any bacteria will be killed without having to use dangerous chemicals or heating up the water. This type of filter is also typically found as part of a multiple stage filtration system.

Infrared Filters

This type of filtration system combined heat and electricity to filter and soften the water by negatively charging the water to change its molecular structure. These type of filters work a lot like Alkaline and Water Ionizers.

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Don’t Find Out The Hard Way What Contaminates Your Water

Have you ever worried about what is in your tap water? Following the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and test results showing lead in in the water in other communities across the country, it’s a warranted concern.

From the properties of the water itself to whether the pipes carrying the water are OK, there’s a lot to think about when it comes to the water we use for drinking, cooking and bathing. To explore these concerns, public health and safety organization NSF International conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans with the goal of understanding perceptions and behaviors when it comes to drinking water safety.

Among many other findings, the survey revealed that most Americans drink tap water and are concerned about contaminants in their water. While the majority has a general understanding of how water purification systems work, most aren’t taking steps to better understand what’s in their drinking water, nor are they purifying it accordingly.

Of the 71 percent of Americans that drink tap water at least sometimes, more than half (55 percent) are concerned about what they’re drinking. Not surprisingly, parents are more likely to be concerned than people who do not have children, and more parents say they know what’s in their water than those surveyed who do not have children.

Even with more than half of Americans saying they’re either concerned or simply do not know what is in their water, 42 percent aren’t taking steps to understand or purify the water in their home.

While 71 percent say they do understand that all filters are not created equal and that different filters reduce different contaminants, few Americans are taking action to improve their water. Of those that say they purify, the most common reason is simply that the filter came with their home or is built into their refrigerator.

So, how can you be sure the water in your home is safe? While you might not be able to eliminate all contaminates, there are some steps you can take to make it safer.

First, get a certified water filtration system. Make sure the system you’ve chosen has been approved by a third-party certificate body, like NSF International, which tests water filters and other safety products.

You can also send in your water for testing at a certified laboratory. Just be sure to use a sample from the early morning, before anyone in your household showers or before you do things like laundry or the dishes.

If you’d like to learn more about water safety, NSF International offers numerous resources to help you learn how to better purify the water in your home.

Original Source: https://www.simplemost.com/majority-of-americans-concerned-about-tap-water-contaminants/

Written by: Kaitlin Gates

Original Date: May 25 2018

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