Is My Tap Water Safe?

Water is something all of us in the United States take for granted on a daily basis. We turn on the faucet or shower and there it is. The question becomes is that water safe to drink? The answer to that question lies in what your definition of safe is.

According to the government and the various water departments around the state, the answer is yes, the water they deliver to our homes and businesses is safe. They have run the water through filters, added chlorine and ammonia, sometimes fluoride and sent it off to you. So, let me ask you this, would you go out to your pool and scoop up a big glass of water to drink? I think I already know the answer to that. I also know from the hundreds of water tests that I have ran over the years that the chlorine levels in the pool are often lower than the levels coming right out of the tap. Yes! You read that last sentence correctly; your tap water likely has more chlorine in it than your pool does. Please don’t get me wrong, the chlorine and other disinfectants that are in the water supply are a necessary evil, if the water wasn’t chemically treated before it got to us we would all be sick or more likely dead.

So, as usual the question becomes what can we do in terms of cleaning up the water to get it back to its natural state? The answer is you have several choices when it comes to water filtration for the home. You can choose a point of use system or opt for whole home systems again depending on what your goals are. Let’s break it down.

Under Sink Point of Use

These come in various types and styles and the most common is a cartridge style that you change the filter every three to twelve months depending on its quality and the amount of water usage. The cartridge style systems typically remove chlorine and ammonia and are not very long lasting. You can also opt for a RO or reverse osmosis style system. This style of system is going to have either four or five filter cartridges and a holding tank. Reverse osmosis will give you absolute pure H2O with no contaminates. The drawback is that it takes four gallons of water to make one gallon or pure water, and the holding tank is one or two gallons only. Final note on a RO system is that all pipes and tubing must be plastic or PVC. Water in its purest form is aggressive when it comes to copper and over time RO water will cause pin holes and leaks in copper pipes. Boom, no more bottled water!

Whole Home Systems

In the world of trivia, your body absorbs as much chlorine in a ten-minute shower as it would if you drank eight eight-ounce glasses of unfiltered water and this is where whole home water filtration comes into play. You can literally have bottled water quality from every fixture in your home. Again, you have a choice of clean water, or clean and soft water. In the clean water scenario, we would be installing a carbon filter. Each tablespoon of carbon has the same absorption as an entire football field. The filters we use have 1.5 cubic feet of internal carbon so we can give you two to three years of clean water maintenance free.

Moving on to the clean and soft water undertaking, we are going to first install the above carbon filter. Then we are going to add a second tank to take out all the calcium and magnesium to give you soft water. The white spots that you get as the water dries on the shower doors and countertops are a result of the tiny calcium and magnesium rocks in the water. Other benefits of soft water are your fixtures are going to last longer and that includes your water heater. Your skin and hair are going to feel better and not as dry, plus you can cut the amount of detergents and cleaning products you use in half. All those products work much better with soft water.

As always, we are a click or call away to take care of all your water treatment needs. On a final note did you hear about the kidnapping at the day care center, turns out it was all ok, he woke up.

House Whisperer out!!