Recommendations for Whole-House Water Filtration System
jimg1126
| Posted in General Questions on
Anybody have an opinion on the best whole-house water filtration systems?
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It's going to depend on your goals. You'll need a water test to determine what's in your water and the concentrations of the various minerals you want to filter out, if any. From there you can determine what type of system you need.
I live in Los Angeles so it's probably safe to assume the water is terrible.
I did whole house reverse osmosis & love it...
I've installed whole house filters in my last two houses. The last time I installed a fairly basic Rhino million gallon filter and was happy with the performance. (Just got an email that they are 58% off regular pricing. But the price is always discounted as far as I can tell.) It was easy to install and, unlike my first filter, didn't require much in the way of monitoring.
In both cases, the homes were on municipal water and tests reports indicated good quality. I wasn't really worried about the treatment plants, but I did have concerns about the infrastructure between the plant and the house. Pipes everywhere are pretty old given decades of under-investment. That may be because years ago I lived in a developing country that had frequent earthquakes, which caused the water and sewer lines to intermingle (or so the rumors suggested). In any case, drinking tap water was likely to lead to some serious hospital time. LSS, this experience has made me a little neurotic about water quality.
Would love to hear recommendations for systems that could specifically remove chloramine.
I don't know specifically aout that compund, but R.O is the gold standard. Search for that name and reverse osmosis % of removal...
Carbon block filters can remove chloramine. You absolutely need a fine particular filter ahead of the carbon block filter to avoid premature clogging though. I would use a 1 micron spun filter ahead of a carbon block filter. On my own system, I use one of the Pentek 2501 "dual density" filters, which is essentially a 1 micron filter with a 25 micron filter on the outside of the cartridge. I've found these filter cartridges last longer.
Standard activated carbon can remove chloramines too, but needs a longer contact time so you end up needing more filter media than you'd otherwise expect.
It's the carbon block pre and post filters in an RO system that are doing most of the work removing chlorine and/or chloramine from water in an RO system, not the membrane itself. You don't need a full RO system if you're only trying to remove chlorine or chloramine, but an RO system will get most of the "other stuff" that you might also want to remove.
BTW, I find that I use my RO water as a household cleaner more than I use cleaners in bottles. RO water evaporates cleanly, leaving no residue behind, and it's very handy for cleaning crud off of all kinds of surfaces. It's very handy to have for more than just drinking!
Bill
Do you know what the rough size ranges are for whole house filtration systems? No water softener needed. I haven't decided on a particular model but I'm trying to leave space for it in the floorplan.
No softener needed but a filter is needed seems like a strange set of requirements.
What do you want- need to remove from the water?
A spun fiber filter will remove sticks and stones and needs about 1 square foot of space.
If you need to desalinate ocean water you are likely to need a few hundred square feet.
Walta