Too often, we place a lot of trust in public treatment plants to ensure our drinking water is safe and clean, but the reality can be more complex. These facilities are designed with rigorous processes to remove contaminants, but they face challenges such as aging infrastructure, occasional system failures, and the presence of emerging pollutants that may not be fully addressed by current treatment methods. Despite their significant efforts to provide clean water, the safety of our water supply may not be as reliable as we hoped. There is zero protection after the water leaves the treatment system and it is more susceptible to pick up anything as it travels several miles through aging pipes. By the time it reaches your home, it would have picked up dirt, rust, and even bacteria. It raises the question for everyone– is it truly safe for drinking, cooking, or bathing? How it affects you personally may shock you.
Contaminants in water affect your health, household appliances, and even your plumbing. A full home water filtration system may be a crucial investment for maintaining water quality, especially if you’re drinking it. Let’s explore the signs that indicate a problem, why you might need a full home water filtration system, and how to choose and maintain the right system for your needs.
Signs You Need a Full Home Water Filtration System
Indicators of Poor Water Quality
Several signs may indicate that your home’s water quality is compromised and will be difficult to drink or use without some consequences:
- Unusual Taste or Odor: If your water tastes or smells odd, it could be due to chemical contaminants or microbial presence. Most common smells include chlorine or hydrogen sulfide, a gas known to smell like rotten eggs.
- Discoloration: It’s safe to say that our drinking water is meant to be clear. If your tap water appears milky or has any discoloration this may indicate the presence of sediments, rust, or other impurities.
- Visible Sediment: Visible sediment in your water is a big sign of poor filtration or pipe corrosion. Corrosion is caused by several factors like hard water, chloride, oxidation, water quality, and even what the pipe is made out of. Water with significant hardness levels is likely damaging your pipes.
- Skin irritation and dryness: This another indication of hard water and contaminants. Skin will be itchy and dry after contact with water with high levels of magnesium and calcium. No matter how good the skin care routine, hard water is likely the barrier to get the desired results.
How to Test Your Home’s Water Quality
Testing Methods
Testing your water quality is crucial for determining whether you actually need a full home filtration system. You can use:
- DIY Testing Kits: Available at many hardware stores or online, these kits can provide a basic assessment of water quality. It analyzes the salts, metals, and minerals, giving you an overall water purity level.
- Professional Services: For a more comprehensive analysis, consider hiring a professional to test your water for a wide range of contaminants. They’ll give you a detailed report about what exact contaminants are present. The price is, well, pricier, but an extensive report will give you a thorough understanding of what you want out of your full home water filtration systems.
If you’ve tested your water and found contaminants beyond acceptable levels, it’s a clear sign that a full home water filtration system might be necessary. Testing can identify specific issues like high levels of bacteria, heavy metals, or chemical pollutants.
Regular testing is recommended to monitor water quality over time. This helps ensure that your filtration system is effectively removing contaminants and providing safe water.
Benefits of a Full Home Water Filtration System
Improved Water Quality
Installing a full home water filtration system can significantly improve your water quality. These systems effectively remove contaminants, ensuring that the water you use for drinking, cooking, and bathing is clean and safe.
Cost vs. Benefits
While the initial investment in a full home filtration system can be significant, the long-term benefits often outweigh the cost. A good system can extend the life of your appliances, reduce plumbing issues, and contribute to better health by providing cleaner water.
Common Water Contaminants
Types of Contaminants
Understanding the types of contaminants in your water can help you determine the best filtration system for your home. Common contaminants include:
- Chemical Contaminants: Just to name a few substances, chlorine, pesticides, arsenic, and so many more chemicals are often found in our tap water. As the water moves from ground water, municipal water, or surface water to your home, it picks up traces of these contaminants.
- Heavy Metals: In recent memory, Flint, Michigan is the perfect example of what happens when heavy toxic metals like iron, lead, and mercury make their way into your water. While small amounts are important to our health, too many toxic metals may lead to serious health issues like digestive health problems or kidney and liver damage.
- Bacteria and Microbes: Harmful microorganisms like E.coli, Giardia, and Noroviruses that can cause waterborne illnesses. These illnesses pose a serious threat to those with a weak immune system or children, who are particularly exposed to drinking water contaminants.
Health Risks and Safety Standards
The presence of these contaminants can lead to a range of health concerns, from gastrointestinal problems to long-term chronic conditions. To ensure your water meets safety standards, it’s important to regularly test for these contaminants and adhere to local water quality regulations.
What is a Full Home Water Filtration System?
A full home water filtration system is designed to filter all the water that enters your home. This includes water used for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and washing. Unlike point-of-use filters, which are installed at specific taps or appliances, a whole house water filtration system treats water at the source, ensuring comprehensive protection throughout your house. The goal is to capture particles, minerals, and contaminants of all sizes at the point-of-entry. Each system below is designed for a specific task and to filter different types of contaminants efficiently so you can enjoy your fresh clean water at any point in time. Many of these are combined together to create the ultimate whole house system.
Types of Water Filtration Systems
Water Softener
There are two types of water softener systems you can choose from.
- First is the standard whole house water softeners where the water passes through an ion exchange process and replaces the filtered ions with a salt brine. Granted, it does give the water a very slight salty taste, but other systems like reverse osmosis water systems can help remove that. We’ll go into more detail about those systems further down.
- The second is a salt-free softener where minerals go through a media that prevents them from adhering to surfaces like our countertops or sinks.
Both types require very little if any maintenance and transform your hard water into soft water while still keeping the essential minerals that make our water healthy. When you see toilet ring stains or massive build up around your sinks and shower heads, or your sprinklers are leaving water marks on your car, it is very likely that you need a water softener to prevent stains from overtaking your home. In most cases, the water softener is a homeowner’s first step in their filtration journey because the biggest annoyances are water streaks, stains in appliances and dishes, and the water dries out your skin and hair.
Water Treatment Systems
Water treatment systems like our Fortitude V Series or Fortitude Pro Series are often the center of whole home water filtration. Through the great power of Granulated Activated Carbon/KDF carbon-based media, it is designed to effectively reduce chemicals like hydrogen sulfide or chlorine from your city or well water from the point of entry. This makes it different from water softeners because water treatment systems reduce chemical and organic properties rather than minerals like calcium or magnesium. It’s a refined way of filtering your water, ensuring that every faucet throughout your home is safe to use.
Ultraviolet Light Systems
Ultraviolet light filtration systems are for the health conscious or immunocompromised water drinker as UV systems will remove bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. A great complement to your whole house filtration, it will ensure your health as it zaps away harmful diseases like E.coli, Giardia, or COVID.
Point of Use Water Filters
Ideal for targeting one specific area like a sink in the garage or in the kitchen. It will only filter the water where you’ve placed it, rather than the whole area like a full home filtration system.
Most reverse osmosis systems, for example, are typically point-of- use as they are primarily installed under a sink. RO systems use an advanced semi-permeable membrane filter to remove impurities at a very refined scale. It is one of the most powerful filtration systems, and it’s highly recommended to pair it with other filtration systems to not overwhelm the membrane. It is one the best filtration options for drinking and cooking.
Other point-of-use systems like shower filters and countertop filtration systems are great for rentals or for those who have a specific desire to decontaminate one area. A full home water filtration system is significantly more encompassing, but a point-of-use water filter is user-friendly, a more direct, and often affordable way to tailor your water.
As you can see, each system has its own set of features and benefits, tailored to different water quality issues and household needs. They work great separately, but even better when all placed together.
How to Choose the Right System for Your Home
Congratulations! You now know the signs of needing a filtration system and the cool, fun facts about them. With this knowledge, you can build your setup that works specifically for your home. Keep reading to learn what to consider when choosing your systems.
Factors to Consider
Choosing the right water filtration system involves evaluating several factors:
Contaminants
Contaminants may include bacteria and viruses, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and fertilizers, waste water, pipe corrosion, and so much more. When you identify the specific contaminants in your water, you have a greater understanding of what you need from your system.
Well water will have different contaminant types than municipal water for example. Since well water comes from a private water source on the property, it is more likely to be inundated with high mineral content and uncontrolled pollution.
City water, while it is tested regularly and goes through a filtration process, often involving chemicals like fluoride and chlorine or chloramine, it may still pick up heavy metals, minerals, and other contaminants on its way from the treatment center to your home. Regardless of where you get your water, you are sure to experience varying levels of contamination.
Home Size and Water Usage
Always take into account the number of people in your household and how large your house is. Bigger homes or families may require more robust systems to compensate for water usage.
Budget
There are several different options in water filtration and ultimately what you choose depends on your needs, including expenses. Keep in mind that your water quality is not only about your water, but also healthier skin, less likelihood of waterborne illnesses, longer lasting appliances, and reduced expenses in plumbing repairs in the long run.
Full Home Water Filtration System Installation and Maintenance
Installation Process
While installing a system yourself is doable, a plumber is recommended to ensure optimal performance. Professionals can handle the complexities of installation and ensure that the system is set up correctly. Please note that Aquasure does not install any of our systems for you.
Maintenance Requirements
Regular maintenance is essential to ensure your water filtration system functions effectively. The maintenance frequency depends on your usage and how much your system filters daily. Testing every 6-12 months along with replacing your filters will increase the longevity of your system.
Maintenance includes:
- Filter Replacements: Make sure to replace filters, water softener resin, reverse osmosis cartridges, or UV bulbs according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. For our products, we recommend replacing pleated and carbon filters every 6 months, the water softener resin every 10-15 years, RO cartridges every 12-24 months, and UV bulbs annually. These replacement periods are recommended for optimal performance for your full home water filtration system.
- System Check-ups: We recommend using a test kit to make sure your plumbing and filtration systems are fully functioning. If you see your system acting abnormally or you have questions about any of our filtration systems, please refer to our support page for more information.
Cost Considerations
To create the best filtration system that works for you, cost is a big factor to consider. There are hundreds of brands and systems out there and each one has a varying idea of the perfect system. Before installing your system, think of what it would take to purchase it initially and also maintenance costs in the long term.
Cost of Installation
The cost of a plumber installing a full home water filtration system varies widely. On average, plumbers might quote you between $150 to $1,000 on a system installation. The cost can depend on the system type, the complexity of installation, and additional features. Aquasure’s systems are simple to install and make budgeting for a water filtration system installation easy.
Harmony Series | 48,000 GRAINS Water Softener & Triple Purpose Pre-Filter
$649.00
Signature Pro | Whole House Water Filter Bundle with 32,000 Grains Softener, 75 GPD Reverse Osmosis System & Triple Purpose Pre-Filter
$779.99
Bundles Under $1000
Long-term Expenses
In addition to the installation cost, consider ongoing expenses for filter replacements and system maintenance. These costs can add up over time, so it’s important to factor them into your budget. Our Subscribe and Save program is a great way to save 10% off your replacement filters.
A Peace of Mind with Aquasure Water Filtration
Ensuring your home’s water is safe and clean is essential for health and well-being. A full home water filtration system can address various water quality issues, providing peace of mind and improving the quality of your water. By understanding the signs of water contamination, choosing the right system, and maintaining it properly, you can enjoy clean, safe water throughout your home.Ready to improve your home’s water quality? Shop now for a full home water filtration system from Aquasure and ensure your family accesses clean, safe water.
