How to choose a home water filter

Drinking water is vital for humans, yet few people pay enough attention to its quality. Water filtration is often only considered when the tap water is visibly cloudy or the taps are clogged. But mechanical impurities are far from the only source of water pollution. How to easily improve the quality of drinking water and which water filtration method is suitable for the family home?

Water from the public tap, from the well and from the borehole: which is the best quality?

Whether you use water at home from the public water network or from your own well, it will never be completely clean. How does the quality of each source and type of water vary?

Drinking water from the municipal tap although subject to strict controls, contains various chemicals. The most common is chlorine, which is used to remove unwanted micro-organisms such as viruses and bacteria. In addition, there are traces of pollution in tap water that the sewage treatment plant cannot remove well enough. These include pharmaceutical residues from domestic sewage and nitrates from industry and agriculture.

The highest quality is generally water from a drilled well. The boreholes are deep enough to prevent surface contamination from the soil. However, even the best quality boreholes become clogged over time, and further contamination can occur during transport of water to the water supply. Moreover, this water is not disinfected and contains various soil micro-organisms.

On the contrary water from a dug well is of the lowest quality and may not even meet the criteria for drinking water, as rainwater flows into such shallow wells, bringing with it surface pollution from agricultural fertilisers, transport and industry, among other sources. Home treatment of well water for drinking is essential for your health.

How to determine the quality of water

Water pollution is therefore distinguished into:

• • chemical (chlorine, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, etc.),

• • mechanical (sand, rust, microplastics, etc.),

• • organic (viruses, bacteria, etc.).

You can check the quality of mains water check with your local water companywhich is legally obliged to provide information on the current composition of the water. However, the information relates to the water supplied, which has a long way to go before it comes out of your tap. There may therefore be significant discrepancies in the data.

The only way to find out the exact content of each pollutant by professional water analysis, which determines whether individual values meet the limits of the Government Decree on drinking water requirements. This option is particularly important for water from wells and boreholes, since in the case of this water no one is responsible for its quality.

How to choose a home water filter

So, filtering water is important for our health no matter what source we draw water from. When choosing home water filter focus on:

• • water source: whether you have well water or public tap water,

• • the volume of filtered water: whether you want to purify it in the whole building or only in one of the taps,

• • kind of dirt.

Home filters for drinking water from well or borehole

Well and borehole water can be contaminated mechanically, chemically and organically. Therefore, for owners of their own wells and boreholes, the best choice so-called inlet filters, which may be part of a domestic waterworks. These large-volume filters can clean all the water you bring into your house of mechanical, chemical and organic impurities.

In the case of recreational properties, simpler on-site filters, or battery filtersthat filter water only on a specific tap. In this way, you can treat the water in the kitchen sink or, for example, in the bathroom sink, while having unfiltered drinking water available from the other taps.

Home filters for drinking water from the public water supply

If you draw water from the municipal water supply, focus mainly on the chemical treatment, the presence of mechanical and organic impurities can be excluded. But how to remove chlorine from drinking water? For this purpose, you can also use battery filters, which will please you with their ease of installation and much lower cost than in the case of inlet filters.

If your water quality has been analysed and found to be of high quality, you may also be able to filter kettle, in which you simply treat only the water intended for consumption. Low sub-limit values of chemical additives for cooking or washing do not matter, but water for drinking should always be treated.

Principles of water filtration and treatment and their application to different types of pollution

Each water filter works on a different principle, each of which is suitable for a different type of pollution. For domestic use, the most common a combination of mechanical and carbon filtration, which solves most water quality problems. For water from a well or borehole, a capillary filter is also suitable. Depending on the results of the water analysis, additional water treatment options can be added for specific problems.

Mechanical filtration

It is particularly important when filtering water from a well or borehole. A mechanical filter uses a fine sieve to clean drinking water of mechanical impurities that reduce the quality of the water and clog water and hot water pipes and subsequently taps and appliances.

Carbon filter

Activated Carbon in addition to organic and chemical impurities, it removes odours, residues of pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and disinfectants from water, but at the same time it does not deplete the water of mineral substances. The carbon filter for drinking water is a very effective and popular method of water filtration.

Capillary filter

Capillary filter is added to the mechanical and carbon filter in the case of non-disinfected water from a well or borehole where there is a risk of microorganisms.

Other specific water problems

Although minerals in water are desirable, higher levels of minerals (called hard water) cause limescale, which clogs faucets and appliances. In this case it is advisable to install a hard water filter, so called. water softenerwhich captures excess minerals.

ATTENTION: So-called membrane filtration or reverse osmosis, which is sometimes recommended to soften water, removes absolutely all the minerals and produces distilled water that is not suitable for drinking. This method of filtration can only be used in the filtration of water for appliances or in industry.

In the case of ferrous water, which also has no adverse effect on health but causes undesirable corrosion, it is possible to acquire iron and manganese filter. In agricultural areas, increased nitrate and nitrite in water is typical. This problem will be solved by an anex-filled filter.