My wife is pushing for one of these very expensive home water treatment/filtration systems, but it all feels like a scam to me. No one I know has one, so turning to random strangers on the internet for opinions.
Edit: We’re on city water in a decent area. No well water. It’s more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything.
Get your water tested. That will tell you what’s in YOUR water - including the city treatment, city supply pipes, and even the pipes running into your home. Do your research based off the values you see in those results.
If you do thinks it’s worth getting a filter, install one in the kitchen. That’s where you get your drinking and cooking water from. Not much sense in buying a huge system to treat the water that goes into your shower or toilet or waters your garden.
Spends $2000 on a water system…shits in it.
The problem with removing chlorine at the home water source is that you then have nothing preventing bacterial and fungal growth in your pipes and water faucets.
You just need an under sink carbon water filter for drinking or cooking water.
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Water softeners use a salt brine to flush out the ions off the resin beads. The resin beads do eventually wear out but should be good for 5+ years in most residential applications. The softener salt does have to be topped up frequently though. Softeners are not particularly exoensive to keep operating.
We have a salt water system, came with the house, system was about 2k in today’s dollars. buy like $15 of salt every quarter, works great and saves the plumbing
Does your water taste salty?
I’m confused by this idea
Actually no, not enough salt gets in the system to make it taste salty, we have really hard water where I live (lots of minerals in the water). The salt helps as a filter and helps remove those mineral. Helps the plumbing as well as hard water corrodes fixtures and valves a lot faster
Yes I’ve used them. They are worth it. What the EPA says is safe still has stuff you should probably remove.
Not to mention that treatment plants are not infallible.
This is the correct database to use. In the US, we haven’t invested any official effort into updating our drinking water standards in many decades. So take whatever your municipality or water supplier says about your water quality, with a grain of salt. Maybe a very large bag of salt.
No, its not the correct database to use because EWG is bullshit who lists anything above a functional zero as dangerously contaminated, with links to sell you water filters for every bullshit claim they make.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/environmental-working-group-ewg/
It’s more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything
Yeah that’s a scam for boomers
The water in my house tastes like crap. We used to buy gallon jugs of water not for health reasons but because of the taste. I bought a reverse osmosis system and I love it.
It wastes water to cycle (less than most) but still not great and it takes cartridges, but to me it’s still with it. I mean is it better to waste water or put plastic jugs in the landfill? The cartridges last a long time. So to me, the scam is worth it. One of the best things I’ve ever bought.
We have one :3 well 2 kinds of water filters, technically, but one is the big kind of water treatment thing im imagining you’re referring to.
But that’s because we get water from our own well, so if we didn’t have water filtration systems our water would actually just be brown and taste of iron ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No, unless you live somewhere where tap water isn’t drinkable there is no need for those.
It’s not a scam if your town/well water is shitty or causes issues.
I don’t have one, but many restaurants in my city have them because the city water is hard, and will destroy pipes and equipment. So in terms of lowing your plumber and equipment bills it’s a very good investment. Often in my city water heater tanks, for example, will last 5-10 years instead of like 20. Also, a lot of people find the hard water in my city unpalatable.You have to be specific to answer properly. Where do you live (how is your water) and what treatment/filtration are you considering.
Lots of folks on well water have hard water, bad tasting, etc… Other may have lead, or other pollutants.
The truth of the matter is you should get ypur water tested at an independant lab. Based on the results, you can tailor a system to your needs, if any.
We’re on city water in a decent area. No well water. It’s more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything.
Why is removing the chlorine important to your wife? Why does she think a filter won’t introduce more microplastics than it removes? Is the entire filter system plastic free? (The answer to that is "no. ")
You are only partially correct. The systems have plastic in them, but that’s nowhere in any way a guarantee they’re adding more plastic than they’re removing. At all.
Ok, but where the evidence it’s actually removing more than it adds? You won’t get a study like that from the company selling them.
Also where’s the study on OPs city water showing the level of Microplastics?
I’m not claiming anything, I’m asking the questions of OP they should be asking with their wife.
Where is the study reinforcing your claims?
You can say, “I’m not making a claim of my own” all you want, but you are!
Just as there is no evidence that microplastics actually cause any disease. Remember when we were kids and loved to chew on lead blinds?
Without a test you wouldn’t know. Cities have lead, pfas, god knows what. Older areas of cities may still be using lead pipes.
Put it together yourself and it’s cheap af. The whole system package is the scam.
so like reverse osmossis?
If your water is good, don’t bother. You’re getting way more microplastics from driving with your windows down than a municipal source. I lived in Orlando for a little where they used wayyyy too much chlorine, but a cheep faucet filter made it serviceable.
After college, I had a Brita pitcher. The filtered water tasted noticeably better than it did straight from the faucet. When I lived in another state, I connected a filter to my sink. That was even more of an improvement.
I don’t blame you for being cautious. There’s so much bullshit out there, and it seems like everyone is trying to sell you crap for as much money as possible. In my experience, though, water filters work well and are not a scam.
You want to know the funny thing about those types of filters? Unless you religiously replace them as soon as they are saturated, they leech the crap they sucked up back into your water. So people who let the filter go too long are drinking water that is worse than they started with.
Huh. That’s good to know. I always changed the filters when I was supposed to, so I never experienced that. Thanks!
No, you just experienced Brita filters doing almost nothing to the water. They only absorb a few tasting chemicals and do fuck all for actually filtering the water.
Project Farm on YouTube has two videos about filters, and Brita et. al. that are about making “tasty” water fail miserably every time.
Thank you for mentioning Project Farm. Now OP and I know where to look for additional information!
