Before you go shopping for water purification devices, it's a good idea to learn a little bit about what they can do. A water purification device is something that every homeowner needs today, but for safety's sake, you need to shop carefully.
In order to remove the widest range of contaminants, water purification devices must contain numerous steps, similar to the number of steps used by public treatment facilities. The most common contaminants include chlorine, THMs, lead, pesticides, herbicides, drugs, hormones, parasites, bacteria and about 2400 hazardous chemicals.
You might wonder if it is even possible to remove them all. Well, rest assured, the right water purification device can handle the job.
If you are serviced by a public facility, most bacteria have been removed through chlorination and other disinfection steps. If you have a private well, you should have testing done to verify the steps necessary to guarantee your safety.
At times when bacterial contamination is a problem, for instance after a major flood, you should filter first and then boil. Boiling first would release dangerous chemicals into the air.
Certain parasites, specifically giardia and cryptosporidium, may be present at any time in the form of cysts, a very early stage of life. Cysts are resistant to most disinfection methods. They can be killed through boiling, but water purification devices with submicron filtration can remove them completely.
Chlorine is very simple to remove with carbon and the average water purification device does an adequate job, but in some cases, that's the only thing that they target. It is important that you understand that whenever chlorine is used for disinfection, THMs or trihalomethanes are created, as a byproduct.
THM exposure causes cancer and increases the risk of miscarriage and birth defects. Exposure can occur through drinking, showering or cooking without first using water purification devices with an adsorption step. Adsorption traps contaminants like THM on the surface of a block.
A multi media block can remove pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals. When combined with submicron filtration and carbon, almost everything mentioned above, including drugs and hormones are removed. Bacteria have already been covered. The only remaining threat is lead.
Lead can be present in any home. It is present in some groundwater and for many years most plumbing fixtures contained it. A water purification device must contain an ion exchange step to remove lead.
With ion exchange, lead and copper ions are exchanged for potassium and sodium ions. So, you have a better pH balance, the taste is fresher and you are safe from lead contamination, all in one step.
If you compare product performance data for the most popular water purification devices, you will see that most of them do not remove all of the contaminants mentioned in this article. There are only two products that I have seen that remove them all and one cost three times as much as the other.
To get the best price on a water purification device, you should buy direct from the factory. Retailers mark up accounts for the extreme difference in price.
One final suggestion; avoid the very inexpensive water purification devices. They simply don't do a very good job.
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