Archive for September, 2010
Are Reverse Osmosis Water Purifiers a Good Investment?
Reverse osmosis water purifiers seem to be top-selling type of water purification system. Many people have heard that they are the best way to help eliminate contamination in their water supply. However, it is important to understand that many of these products don’t deliver what they lead you to believe they are offering.
Consumers are often led to believe that reverse osmosis water purifiers are high tech and do an amazing job, yet their advertisers fail to tell you what they can do versus what they cannot do. Those facts leave people with the wrong idea about how much this type of product can change the quality of their drinking water.
There are many more types of contamination entering our sources of drinking water today than in the past. As a result, you may need something more advanced to take care of the problem. Reverse osmosis water purifiers often are not as effective as the newer technology in the water filtration niche. That technology offers ways of combating the risks of contaminants in your water with the most power available.
It is important to first identify the source of your household water. From there you can find out from the reports and water samples taken by local authorities what kind of water contamination problems you are up against. The types of contamination and the levels of them are very important. Not all reverse osmosis water purifiers are going to be able to help you. Many of them won’t be able to successfully take on the removal of all the types of contamination that you have.
The other issue with reserve osmosis water purifiers is that they don’t do anything about the levels of chlorine in your water. You definitely want to tackle that issue, especially if you have children in your household. Chlorine is used by most municipal water processing facilities to combat bacteria in your drinking water. Chlorine is a very powerful and harmful chemical for adults, too. In fact, chlorine was originally developed to be used as a method of chemical warfare, so don’t underestimate the risk of chlorine in your drinking water.
The main item that reverse osmosis water purifiers remove from your drinking water is sediment. Sediment is large particles of water contamination. Most people have the false belief that reverse osmosis will remove a wide variety of contamination from their drinking water. Sadly, it doesn’t, and that means thousands of contaminants that can make you sick may still be getting into what you drink. The majority of bacterial or chemical water contamination is too small to be caught by a sediment water filter. Many of those contaminants that are not caught by reverse osmosis water filters have been linked to some serious health issues,including cancer.
Don’t assume you can get quality water with reverse osmosis water purifiers. You have to do your homework to make sure what you put in place is going to work. Aquasana offers you a chance to put an affordable and highly effective water-filtering system in place for your home.
With a quality home water purification system, you will be taking the appropriate steps for everyone in your home to benefit from healthy water. You don’t want to take a risk with something so serious. The contamination levels out there continue to be a problem, and a great deal passes through the water treatment facility. Instead, turn to a water filtration company like Aquasana that can show you the technologies of water purification that can handle all of your water purity needs. You will be glad you did.
Do I Need a High Quality Water Filter or is a Water Softener Enough?
Many people are under the misconception that their water is perfectly safe and clean simply because they are using a water softener to clean their water. This is an unfortunate misunderstanding. Although a water softener may help to make your drinking water taste better, it does not make it a cleaner or safer drink. Using a water softener instead of a high quality water filter will not give you the cleaner water that you want to for drinking, cooking or taking showers.
Water softeners work somewhat like a chemical magnet. Water is forced through a bed filled with beads that are covered with sodium ions. The calcium and other chemicals that make water “hard” then exchange their ions with the positively charged sodium ions. When this happens, the calcium is no longer in the water, preventing those horrible rings in your bathtub and the nasty taste of hard water. However, all the water softener has done is remove calcium from your water and replace it with salt. This water is no safer than hard tap water.
A high quality water filter does more than remove the calcium from your drinking water. When your drinking water is run through a high quality water filter such as those made by Aquasana, you are getting water that is free from chemical contaminants. Chlorine and other chemicals that are left in the water by a water softener are swept away when you use a high quality water filter.
Additionally, the water softener removes nearly all the calcium from your water. Although too much calcium makes the water hard, a bit of calcium in your water benefits your body. By using a high quality water filter such as those made by Aquasana, you are removing the chemicals which will harm your body without disturbing the minerals which help your body. A water softener is clearly the wrong choice for providing your house with clean, healthy drinking water. A high quality water filter such as those made by Aquasana will give healthier, cleaner water.
Will a Home Water Filter Investment Help You Sell Your Home?
Selling your home can be a difficult process in this economy. Consumers are looking for a lot of value for their home buying investment. That includes knowing they will be able to get quality drinking water if they buy your home. That is why it is smart to have a home water filter investment in place when you begin to show the home for sale. This could be the selling point that turns a looker into one that places an offer on your home.
You can’t depend on only the water treatment facility in your area to offer you quality water. That is where the job starts, but the rest is up to you. There are just too many forms of chemicals and contaminants out there for the public water processing facility to take care of all of them.
You need to be careful with your home water filter investment, though. The market is full of water filter systems for you to choose from but unfortunately some of them aren’t really going to help you. You have to do some shopping to find the right water filter system for you to gain quality water. Unfortunately, there are water filter makers who are simply trying to make money. They realize there is a market for such products and they want their share of the profits without providing you a water filtration investment you can depend on.
Ironically, many of the overpriced water filters out there don’t work better than those you will pay less for. Yet the companies know consumers will often buy them and pay more, thinking they are getting a quality product in return simply because of the high price tag. Keep in mind that the type of home water filter you need may be very different from the needs of someone else.
You don’t need to spend lots of money to have a great value added to the property. A home water filter investment shows that you care about your home and that you took care of it. That is encouraging to the potential buyer who may wish to buy your home. They want to know that they can have a dream life in that home, and that includes living a healthy life there because the water that comes out of the faucet is healthy and clean.
Always go for a combination of quality, installation ease, and value when it comes to your home water filter investment. Pay attention to how you need to put them in place so you can decide if it is something you can do on your own or not. It shouldn’t be complex and you shouldn’t need to hire a professional for the installation.
You want to feel like you have really gained value with your home water filter investment. You will never feel like you didn’t get that value when you buy one that Aquasana offers. They continue to set the bar very high for other brands to follow as they are dedicated to helping households everywhere have the best possible drinking water. A reliable Aquasana water investment for your home is good for your family and it makes your home more attractive when it is time to sell it as well.
Aquasana Customer Testimonial
We received this email from another delighted Aquasana customer:
Aquasana Company
Your customer service is wonderful! Thank you so much for calling to inquire about our experience with the shower filter. My husband said you were going to send an adapter to extend the hand held device further from the shower stall. I was happy with that response and pleasantly surprised to see that you shipped it the same day. We rarely experience this quality of customer service.
We love the filter. We have a white shower curtain that always developed a stain from harsh water at the bottom. It was ugly requiring us to purchase new shower curtains very frequently. We put the filter on and the stain from the hard water went away on its own within a few days!! We can only imagine how much cleaner our shower water is when it enters our pores and our lungs. We certainly feel softer skin and hair, but the absolute indisputable immediate improvement in the quality of our water was evident through our shower curtain. Amazing product.Thanks again, Melody B.
You are welcome, Melody. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to having you as a customer for years to come.
Aquasana Drinking Water Filter Demonstration
Check out this demonstration of how effective Aquasana water filters are at removing contaminants from your drinking water. Putting his own health on the line, our VP of Marketing shows you how confident we are that our water filter systems remove chlorine and sediment from municipal water supplies. No humans were harmed in the making of this video.
How Often Should I Put In a New Replacement Water Filter?
You’ve taken the final step in getting better drinking water by purchasing a water filter. You’ve done all the research and with that knowledge, the rest is pretty easy. You put the filter in and you let it catch contaminants in the water before they cause your family harm. That’s all in a day’s work.
However, there is a critical step after purchasing your water filter that you need to make sure that you do. It is probably the most important step other than purchasing the best water filter for you and your family’s needs. It is putting in a new replacement water filter as needed.
You are in luck with a carbon water filtration device in your home, because it is extremely simple and inexpensive to use against water contaminants in your drinking water. This device is similar to the way that nature removes bacterial contaminants from the soil. The only difference is that you personally have to remove replace the filter or the cartridge in the filter.
Nature does a neat thing when it comes to water contaminants. It has its own process of removing any contaminants that may be found in water as it passes through soil. Its nature’s own filtration device. It will either kill bacteria or move it out of the soil. Soil has its own natural carbon. Physical particles will get trapped in this natural carbon, removing it from the water passing through the soil.
In a way, carbon filtration devices are similar to what soil does in nature. The only difference is the need for the filters or cartridges to be replaced. The filters don’t have a way to remove the contaminants from themselves. It’s your job to remove the filters in a timely manner and put in replacement water filters.
Determining when to remove the water filter depends on the type of filter that you own. There are a wide variety of filters out there. Although not all filter replacement schedules are the same, Aquasana usually recommends cartridges be replaced every six months.
Now you might wonder why cartridges need to be replaced. It’s simple, really. If you don’t replace the cartridge in your filter, all the contaminants you didn’t want in your drinking water in the first place will flow through your device unfiltered. What happens is all of the contamination that is being trapped in the device will clog the filter, leaving no room to capture any other chemicals or particles, which will then flow out along with the water.
As you rush to figure out when you bought your device and when you should be replacing the cartridge, it is important to know what type of device you have. The device determines how many times you will be replacing the water filter cartridge.
A kitchen faucet filtration device will be the appliance that will need to be replaced the most. The reason for that is the size of the device. Aquasana’s under-counter filtration system comes with twin cartridges making the replacement schedule about every six months. You only have to replace this model’s cartridge twice a year. By simply thinking ahead, buying four cartridges when you purchase the device will set you for a year.
Aquasana’s shower filter replacement cartridges also last approximately six months. Aquasana encourages you to complete the final step of receiving purer drinking water by knowing your cartridge replacement filter schedule so that you can enjoy that great water year in and year out for many years to come.
How Can Shower Water Contamination Cause Allergies?
Showering seems like a harmless activity. After all, how can something which is designed to make you squeaky clean end up hurting your body? The people who have allergic reactions to chemicals found in unfiltered shower water can assure you that showers are not always fun and games. Chlorine, a chemical commonly found in shower water, can trigger allergic reactions for certain people. Exposure to high levels of chlorine has been linked to many serious conditions, but for some the allergies themselves are serious. That is why everyone should be concerned about shower water contamination particularly if you suffer with allergies or if someone in your home has that problem.
Aside from swimmers who regularly spend a large amount of time in heavily chlorinated swimming pools, the primary source of chlorine exposure for most people is due to shower water contamination. Chlorine is put into the shower water for the same reason it is poured into pools. It is in the water because your local water processing facility uses it to remove the harmful bacteria from the water. However, shower water tends to be hot enough to create steam. Chlorine has a lower evaporation point than water. When your shower water is steaming, you are creating chlorine gas. That chlorine gas represents a troublesome form of shower water contamination.
Shower water contamination in the form of chlorine gas has been proven to be harmful to humans. Studies have shown that it can cause allergies, asthma, or even cancer. When you develop allergies to chlorine, your shower suddenly transforms from a place to relax after a hard day to somewhere which could become hazardous. As with every allergy, the exact reactions to chlorine exposure vary widely based on the individual. Some people merely start coughing excessively while others have reactions so bad they must be sent immediately to the emergency room.
Filtering your shower water will drastically lower your exposure to chlorine shower water contamination. It is estimated that nearly two thirds of the typical person’s chlorine exposure is from chlorinated shower water. By purchasing a high-quality shower filter such as those made by Aquasana, you will be able to use your shower without worrying about its chlorine levels. These filters are the best way to drastically reduce your chlorine exposure for a low cost.
What Should be on My Checklist When Shopping for a Home Water Purifier System?
Not sure where to start when purchasing a home water purifier? You have come to the right place. Here are some steps that you can use as a checklist to determine what home water purifier system is best for you and your family.
You will first want to figure out what type of home water purifier system you are looking for. That decision depends mostly on what your needs are. Are you looking for a simple water filter such as a refrigerator pitcher system or a water filter that attaches to your kitchen faucet ? Most of these types of systems don’t remove all impurities. They do remove the awful taste and smell that some houses have in their drinking water from contaminants in the water.
Instead of a simple water filter, are you looking for a comprehensive water purification system that will handle any kind of water contamination that might be in your family’s drinking water? There are water filters designed to treat and remove more harmful contaminants like VOCs, MTBE, and cysts. A whole-house water purification sytem is more capable of handling all of your family’s water purity needs. They are usually able to remove 99.9 percent of contaminants. They are significantly more expensive than the simple filters.
If you start by exploring your options of home water filters, that will help you narrow down what you really need. If you are thinking about purchasing a water filter, look into all the brands and at the variety of manufacturers of home water purifier systems. By picking a reliable supplier of home water filters like Aquasana, you will have a partner in the process that you can depend on.
You’ll need to know what kind of water contamination you want to be removed. The best way to do this is to request a report about the level of water contamination that is in your local water supplier. Your local water supplier is required by law to produce these reports and to provide them to you at no cost. When you receive the report, look for any contaminants that are above the regulations established by the Environmental Protection Agency. Your supplier is required to make a note of those issues on the report.
There are a wide variety of water filter types available for purchase. There are pitchers, dispensers, faucet, and under-the-sink filtration devices. There are shower water filters, refrigerator water filters, or systems that treat all of the water that comes into your home. All of these products differ in price and may remove different contaminants.
The third step is exploring your options of water purification systems. Here are some of your purification system options to get you started – distillation, ion exchange, carbon absorption, micro-porous filtration systems, ultra filtration systems, and reverse osmosis filtration systems.
The most popular filters, like whole-house water filtration devices, use a carbon absorption system to remove the awful taste and smell, lead, and chloroforms that water can have. You can purchase a granular activated-carbon system or a solid block-carbon system.
When researching micro-porous filtration systems, you’ll need to know that there are three different types of these systems. They are depth, screen, and surface. The depth filter use matted fibers. The screen filters work like a strainer, and the surface filters have materials that create several layers. These micro-porous filtration systems require little maintenance and can remove a large variety of contaminants.
An ultra filtration system uses a molecular strainer. It separates molecules, removing particles and microorganisms.
Your Aquasana dealer can help you sort out the right type of home water purifier system to suit your needs and your budget. Aquasana has an entire stock of filters that work to remove contaminants that can harm you and your family. Visit Aquasana.com to figure out which filtration device is the best for you.
What Do “Micron Levels” Have to do with Whole House Water Filters?
This is what you know. Water goes through your filter and comes out cleaner. You know that when your drinking water has gone through a reliable inline water filter system, you don’t have to worry about unseen chemicals, bacteria, or pesticides getting into your body through inhalation from the shower or consumption through drinking water.
One aspect about your filter that you might not know is whether it is a whole house water filter. This type of filter is built to remove any imperfections that are found in your water. This process is usually done before the water even gets to your kitchen faucet. It is typical for a whole house water filter to incorporate carbon filtration. Another thing to know about whole house water filters is that it will protect the plumbing of your house from wear and tear. Because the water is purified before it gets into your house, that also lengthens the water heater’s life.
Another aspect of a whole house water filter that you probably don’t know about is the micron level. A micron level is the number of micron sizes that the filter can eliminate of a contamination. The micron level is between .5 and 5 microns. A “micron” is a unit of measurement of the size of a particular unit of water contamination. A small pebble has a much higher micron size number than the microscopic bacteria that might be in your drinking water.
A charcoal filter is commonly used in a whole house design for water filtration and, in some cases, in point-of-use water filters such as faucet or shower water filters. This type of filter works the same way as a carbon filter, except the contaminants pass through charcoal instead of carbon. Micron levels are also present in a charcoal filter.
If a charcoal filter can stop anything 1 micron level or lower, the filter is most likely to be able to filter out cryptosporidium and giardia. Both cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis are caused by these parasites that affect the small intestine and can result in symptoms like diarrhea, dehydration, stomach cramps, and vomiting, to name just a few. Remember a lower micron level is better when it comes to cleaner and healthier drinking water.
Micron levels determine how well a carbon filtration water filter will function. Most likely, if a filter only removes so much chlorine or so much lead, it is probably because of the micron level. The price of a good water filter with a low micron level will be a little bit more expensive than a filter with a higher micron level. A low micron-level filter will also eliminate excessive fluoride from your water.
As you look into the best filters with the smallest micron levels, remember Aquasana for your pure and fresh drinking water needs. Aquasana can help you identify the best home water filtration solution for you and your family’s needs.
How Can I Avoid Water Filter System Scams?
The best way to avoid water filter system scams is to be educated about water filters. You can prevent losing money by learning about some of these typical scams and how not to buy the wrong water filter for your needs.
Water filtration devices are not typically sold door-to-door. In Australia, the Commerce Commission stopped several companies who have been using this kind of marketing approach. The companies were going into neighborhoods and selling water filters called Love Springs. It took an interim injunction to stop them from doing so.
The injunction also stopped these water filter system scammers from making misleading statements about the quality of tap water. Many statements were made, such as tap water was dangerous, that it contained sewage, and bottled water was poisonous. They were also making statements about the possible health risks of the tap water families were drinking. They claimed that the water was causing cancer, miscarriages, deformities in babies, and asthma, and that the water had giardia. While there are real water contamination issues to be concerned about in both tap and bottled water, these claims were excessive and clearly designed to scare customers into buying into a water filter system.
Another scam that is extremely common is selling water testing for your drinking water. Many scams play on the fear that many people have about the dangerous types of contaminants in the water supply. Although this is an appropriate fear, these scammers don’t tell you that you can buy a reliable water treatment system from a reputable dealer like Aquasana that fits your budget.
The people’s fears are warranted because EPA has documented thousands of water contaminants that have been found in public water systems over the years. These forms of water contamination can be toxic to our health and to the environment. Common toxic water contaminants include pesticides, fertilizers, industrial wastes, and fecal matter from livestock. Therefore, a common scam is to convince you that you must invest in expensive water quality testing done by the scammer to detect that contamination.
You should realize that you don’t need to purchase a water test to determine your drinking water quality. Your community’s water supplier is required by law to produce consumer reports detailing any contaminants in the water that are at a higher level than what is set by EPA regulations. That information is available to you for free simply by requesting it or by finding it on the Internet. It is also much more reliable than any commercial water quality scam that will always deliver dire results to fool you into buying a water filter from the scam artist’s company.
Another way to tell the quality of your water without purchasing a scam water test is to use your five senses. If the water looks, tastes, or smells bad, sometimes that is a signal that your water quality is not quite right. From there you’ll want to order a report or check with your local water supplier about what can be done about the quality of your water.
To avoid water filter system scams, learn all you can about the technology in water treatment systems. You should know that there are all kinds of filters out there. The most common are activated-carbon filtration devices, reverse osmosis, and distillation. If you are being offered an unrealistic promise that the filter can provide or do something unbelievable, the pitch is a scam. Don’t give into false claims that water filter system scammers use claiming that they can remove contaminants with magnets and other myths.
