Buying A Water Filter - Buyer Beware

Hi

When you're getting ready to buy a home water filtration system, you could be faced with less-than-honest marketers who try to sell you a product that is incapable of doing what they claim. Or they might charge you an arm and a leg for a drinking water filter that could be picked up for significantly less in the stores. Read more about the water filter scam and take heed.

As a consumer you want to feel confident that you are buying a quality product. One of the best advice I can give you in this regard is to look for filters that are NSF certified or have been certified to NSF standards by a reputable independent laboratory.

NSF International, The Public Health and Safety Company™, is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization, that certifies certain products, drinking water systems being one of them. NSF certification tells you what contaminants a water filtration system is designed to remove. They also have a database of filters that have been NSF certified.

If a water filter isn't NSF certified it doesn't necessarily mean its quality is poor. Some filters have state certifications and/or have been tested by an independent lab.

This water filter company products have been tested and certified by the California Department of Health, which is one of the most stringent of all American Health Departments.

Their water filters have also been tested by a reputable independent lab and voted "Consumer Best Buy" for 5 years in a row. All this information is readily available on their website.

This brings me to the next point. You are well within your rights to ask for proof of certification of a particular water filter. This data should be readily available on the seller's website or in the product literature.

Here is to your health

David

Choosing A Home Water Filter

Hi

Many consumers have difficulty choosing whether they actually need a water filter or deciding which filter system to buy. The decision to get a water filter of course, is a personal one. Water filters eliminate many of the contaminants that enter your water supply, despite your water supply being treated. Filtered water is safer and healthier for your family.

When choosing a drinking water filter, you should consider two things. First - cost and second - which contaminants you want to remove from your tap water.

If your budget is very tight and you are looking to spend say $30-$40, a pitcher water filter may be your best bet. A pitcher filter is portable and looks like a jug. But the old saying that you get what you pay for is true here. Pitcher filters clog quickly and filtering capacity is low - around 30 gallons. Nonetheless, getting a cheap filter is better than having no filter.

If you have a budget of $80-$1000, you have better quality, wider range of water treatment devices to choose from. The popular ones in this category are carbon filters, reverse osmosis filters, water distillers and whole house filtration systems.

Before you buy one, you could ascertain which contaminants are causing you concern. There are four categories of contaminants:

* Biological entities
* Heavy Metals
* Organic Chemicals
* Inorganic chemicals


Some people use a water testing kit that can identify bacteria, lead, nitrates etc in your tap water. Once you have identified which contaminant is prevalent you could buy the water treatment filter designed to remove it. Read more about water contaminants.

The certification of a water filter device tells you the kind of contaminants it can remove. I'll write about certification in a few days, but for now, here is a general breakdown of which water purifiers removes what:

Carbon filters - Good at removing organic chemicals. Not effective at the others.

Distillers - Removes all types of contaminants but not very effective at removing organics. To solve this problem, get a distiller fitted with a carbon filter.

Reverse Osmosis - Good at removing organics, partial ability to remove inorganic and heavy metals. Not effective at removing biological contaminants.

Whole House - Removes contaminants that have an aesthetic effect on your tap water. Will remove bad odor and smells, chlorine, color, sediments and some chemicals contaminants. Not good at removing biological contaminants. Re-contamination of water can occur. Read more about re-contamination below.

Rather than testing your tap water, you could simply choose a drinking water filter based on its overall effectiveness. The top two choices are whole house water filters and distillation.

A whole house filter provides filtered water to every tap in your home. However re-contamination of your water can occur. This happens because the filtration takes place before the water passes though your plumbing. So when the water passes through your plumbing, it picks up contaminants such as lead.

To solve this problem, some households install counter top or under counter water filters which cleans the water just before it comes out of the tap.

Distillers remove the widest range of contaminants but distilled water has all the minerals removed. Minerals are vital to your body.

Also, most distillers are portable and are designed to provide clean water for drinking. They are not designed to provide filtered water to your entire home.

To get a deeper understanding of how water purifiers differ, read water filter comparison.

Stay tuned for more on choosing water filters.

Here's to your health

David

Why You Need A Water Filter?

Hi

The personal computer, mobile phone and television are all seen as necessities in a household. But one appliance that unfortunately does not seem to enjoy the same level of importance is the water filter.

This is not surprising, given that the water supply in North America is one of the safest in the world. The U.S Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974, which requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) and regulate water suppliers.

The EPA does a good job of regulating water supply. You seldom hear of an outbreak of illnesses caused by polluted water and many people still feel comfortable drinking water straight from the tap. That aside, no water supply is 100% contaminant proof. As a matter of fact, research done by the Ralph Nader Research Institute states that there are about 2100 cancer-causing chemicals in U.S drinking water supply.

It is exactly for this reason that you need a water filter in your home. A water filter won't remove all the contaminants in your water supply, but it will provide extra insurance by removing many of the cancer-causing contaminants that remains in your tap water.

I know you want to drink the safest, healthiest water possible. To that end, stay tuned to this blog for a honest, down-to-earth look at drinking water filters.

On a weekly basis, I'll be providing information on why you should drink filtered water; what type of water filter you should get; what dangers to look out for when buying a home water filtration system and where to get excellent deals on filters.

And if you do not want to wait to get the safest drinking water for your family, check out the Best Water Filter Guide that will guide you to the home water filter system that best suits your needs.

To your health

David