How to Choose a Home Water Filter

Drinking water is vital for human life, yet very few people pay enough attention to its quality. People often only address water filtration when tap water becomes visibly cloudy or when faucets become clogged. However, mechanical impurities are far from the only source of water contamination. How can you easily improve the quality of drinking water, and what type of water filtration is suitable for a family home?

Water from Public Water Supply, Wells, and Boreholes: Which is the Best Quality?

Whether you use water from a public water supply or your own well at home, it will never be completely pure. How does the quality of different sources and types of water differ?

Tap water from the municipal water supply is subject to strict controls, but it also contains various chemicals. Most commonly, it contains chlorine, which is used to remove unwanted microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. Additionally, tap water contains traces of pollution that wastewater treatment plants cannot adequately remove. This includes residues of pharmaceuticals from domestic wastewater and nitrates from industry and agriculture.   

Generally, the highest quality is water from a drilled well. Boreholes are deep enough to prevent surface contamination from entering from the soil. However, even the highest quality boreholes can become clogged over time, and further contamination can occur during the transport of water to the water supply. This water is also not disinfected and contains various soil microorganisms.  

Conversely, water from a dug well is characterized by the lowest quality and may not even meet the criteria for drinking water, as rainwater seeps into such shallow wells, bringing with it surface contamination from agricultural fertilizers, transportation, and industry. Domestic treatment of well water for drinking is essential for your health.

Drinking water must be filtered. 

How to Determine Water Quality

Water contamination is categorized into:

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

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

• organic (viruses, bacteria, etc.).

You can verify the quality of water from the water supply with your local water company, which is legally obliged to provide information about the current composition of the water. However, the data relates to the supplied water, which has to travel a long way before it flows from your tap. Therefore, there can be significant discrepancies in the data.

You can only determine the exact content of individual contaminants through a professional water analysis, which will establish whether the individual values meet the limits of the government regulation on drinking water requirements. This option is particularly important for water from wells and boreholes, as no one is responsible for the quality of this water. 

How to Choose a Home Water Filter

Filtering water is important for our health regardless of the source of the water. When choosing a home water filter, focus primarily on:

• the source of the water: whether you have well water or public water supply,

• the volume of filtered water: whether you want to purify it throughout the entire property or only at certain taps,

• the type of impurities.

Home Filters for Drinking Water from Wells or Boreholes

Water from wells and boreholes can be contaminated mechanically, chemically, and organically. For owners of their own wells and boreholes, the best choice is so-called entry filters, which can be part of a domestic waterworks. These large-volume filters can clean all the water you bring into the house from mechanical, chemical, and organic impurities.

In the case of recreational properties, simpler point-of-use filters, or faucet filters, which filter water only at a specific tap, are often sufficient. This way, you can treat water at the kitchen sink or bathroom washbasin, while other taps will provide you with untreated utility water.

Home Filters for Drinking Water from Public Water Supply

If you draw water from the municipal water supply, focus mainly on chemical treatment, as the presence of mechanical and organic impurities can be ruled out. But how do you remove chlorine from drinking water? For this purpose, you can also use faucet filters, which are easy to install and much cheaper than entry filters.   

If your analysis has shown high water quality, a filter jug may suffice, allowing you to easily treat only the water intended for consumption. Low sub-limit values of chemical additives do not matter when cooking or washing, but drinking water should always be treated.

Principles of Water Filtration and Treatment and Their Use for Different Types of Contamination

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

Mechanical Filtration

This is particularly important when filtering water from wells or boreholes. A mechanical filter uses a fine mesh to clean drinking water from mechanical impurities that reduce water quality and clog water and heating pipes, as well as faucets and appliances.

Honeywell Water Filter. 

Carbon Filter

Activated carbon removes not only organic and chemical impurities from water but also odours, residues of pharmaceuticals, industrial fertilizers, and disinfectants, while not depleting the water of minerals. A carbon filter for drinking water is a very effective and popular method of water filtration.

Capillary Filter

A capillary filter is added to the mechanical and carbon filter in the case of non-disinfected water from wells or boreholes, where there is a risk of microorganisms being present.

Other Specific Water Problems

Although minerals in water are desirable, in higher amounts (so-called hard water), limescale forms, which clogs faucets and appliances. In such cases, it is advisable to install a filter for hard water, known as a water softener, which captures excess minerals.

CAUTION: So-called membrane filtration or reverse osmosis, sometimes recommended for softening water, removes all minerals and creates distilled water, which is not suitable for drinking. This method of filtration can only be applied when filtering water for appliances or in industry.

In the case of ferruginous water, which also does not negatively affect health but causes undesirable corrosion, a filter for iron and manganese can be purchased. In agricultural areas, there is typically an increased occurrence of nitrates and nitrites in the water. This problem can be solved with a filter with anion exchange resin.