Reverse Osmosis Water Filtering

These days, it’s getting harder to find good drinking water without resorting to expensive, hard to implement water systems.  Our tap water is getting worse all the time, and yet our population is growing at a fast enough rate that it’s important we take advantage of the benefits of drinking water from the cleanest and most advanced source possible.  Especially if you have children, it really pays to research the options that are available.  That being said, let’s take a look at a really cool filtration technique called reverse osmosis.

Many people are surprised to find that the big water companies, the source that was previously the only (expensive) option for reliably clean water, actually use reverse osmosis in their heavy duty water purification equipment!  If you had a way to somehow duplicate this system at home with an affordable and easy to find device, it would certainly add some great peace of mind know that your loved ones were drinking the safest water possible.

So how does it work?

There’s the next surprise:  the system is fairly simple, and most people let the name “reverse osmosis” scare them off.  In reality, the system just involves using a membrane to trap contaminants that are in most tap water, and in fact you can obtain a whole house water filter system which works in much the same way as some of the smaller units such as aqua pure water filters.  The factor that separates a good reverse osmosis water dispenser from a bad one is the quality of this membrane, and this should be your primary guideline when shopping for one of these products to install in your own home or office.  A higher quality membrane will trap more contaminants while wasting the minimum amount of clean drinking water for you and your family.  This adds up to big savings each month as you stretch your water much farther than it would be with a lower quality reverse osmosis product.

Another big thing to keep in mind is that if your house does not have a high-pressure water system, you may be required to install a pressure pump in the filter, itself.  This is not at all a big deal and plenty of people have been able to do this at minimal cost and effort, similarly to what is done with a countertop water filter.  There are plenty of services that will do this for you, and many of them will even specialize in the brand of the product you installed! Remember, if you live in a somewhat more unsettled environment where the water quality is questionable at best, you might even want to look at a product like the Big Berkey Water Filter System or even Pentek water filters. These companies are two of the most reputable suppliers currently on the market for situations involving undrinkable water.

So those are two big issues that separate different reverse osmosis products:  1) membrane type and quality and 2) whether a pressure pump will need to be installed in order for the unit to function properly.

Want to read more about water filters?  Check out my posts on big blue water filters, water softener parts, hiking water filters, and whole house filters!

If you already have a reverse osmosis system, you may want to check out this post on the Whirlpool ice maker which can benefit from your existing filter.