By Matt Vandevert |
Homeowners often spend thousands of dollars to upgrade their bathrooms so they can bathe in luxury. Hours of preparation go into choosing tile, stone, glass, fixtures and wall colors with surprisingly little thought of the most essential facet of any bathroom: water. It lies inside pipes just outside your home. Turn on a shower and it rushes through your plumbing to greet your skin. Along with it come chlorine, heavy metals and hundreds of disinfection byproducts, many of them toxic and many unregulated by the EPA. Just the thought of being engulfed in these chemicals can spoil what would otherwise be a relaxing, luxurious shower. You can buy a Brita pitcher to reduce toxins in your drinking water, but a pitcher is useless in the bath or shower.
You may be surprised to learn that, in terms of your health, sink and pitcher filters accomplish little. In fact, if you drink unfiltered tap water, your exposure to toxins is quite small—plus you have kidneys to help filter out those toxins. But when you bathe or shower in hot water, the chemicals vaporize, and you breathe them right into your lungs with only nasal hair to protect you. You also absorb chemicals through your pores, which open wide up in 120º shower water. Other activities expose you to tap water’s toxins as well: enjoying a steam room or sauna, cooking with boiling water, doing dishes with hot water, opening a steaming dishwasher, turning on a humidifier.
So it’s smart to filter the water that supplies all your taps. To do this you need a whole house filter. Don’t mistake a whole house filter with a water softener or reverse osmosis (RO) unit. A water softener does not protect you from chemicals in your water. And while a whole house RO does remove toxins from water, it often costs upwards of $10,000. So what should you look for in a whole home filter? Well, filters come in different shapes and sizes, but it’s mostly what’s inside them that matters. And the principal component of any good whole house purifier is carbon. It’s in Brita and Pur pitchers, it’s in under-the-sink RO filters and there’s carbon in any good whole house filter.
Carbon removes chlorine, disinfection by-products, some chloramine and improves taste and odor. In filtering tap water, nothing protects your health more than carbon. It comes in granular (sand-like) form and in cartridge-style block form. Granular carbon tends to channel: water often carves a path through the carbon and thereby avoids contact with it, defeating the filtration process. Granular carbon is also untidy and hazardous to remove from its container: when it comes time to replace the toxin-saturated carbon, it’s difficult to avoid contact with it during disposal. If carbon is formed into blocks, this problem no longer occurs. So while both granular carbon and carbon blocks work to varying degrees, carbon blocks have some important advantages.
Aside from what form it comes in, it’s crucial to know what kind of carbon is employed. Many companies, whether their filters sell for $500 or $8000, use bituminous, coal-based carbon, which is the cheapest, most quickly spent carbon. A good alternative is coconut shell activated carbon. It’s the highest grade carbon for removing the cancer-causing disinfection byproducts created by chlorine. Catalytic carbon is the only carbon that arguably works better at removing chlorine itself. Unfortunately catalytic carbon only comes in granular form.
KDF is another type of media that deserves special mention: it’s a mixture of copper and zinc flakes that work to remove free chlorine, heavy metals and bacteria. In combination with carbon it can greatly improve the purity of water and help the carbon last longer. Everyone wants their filters to last a long time, and KDF can help if used properly. Be aware that even the best carbon only lasts one to two years before it becomes saturated with toxins and starts leaching them back into your home’s water. Don’t believe companies that say their carbon filters last for years. Even with backwashing devices to wash toxins off the carbon, you’re not protected for years. Carbon not only gets worn out, it also can be a breeding ground for bacteria, which is why forward-thinking manufacturers combine UV disinfection with their carbon filters.
This information will help you select a quality whole-home water purifier that will enhance and protect your life as well as the lives of your children, pets, and plants. Once installed, there’s a wonderful difference that you can feel, taste, and smell. You can step into a steamy shower, slip into a bubble bath, wash your face with a warm cloth, soak your dishes in scalding water, pour yourself a cup of tea or let a kettle whistle for an extra minute, and you’ll be assured that you are enjoying the ultimate luxury—and the ultimate necessity: good water.
References:
1. University of Nebraska Guide to Carbon Filtration: http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1489/build/g1489.pdf
2. Minnesota Department of Health: List of Water Contaminents & Their Health Effects: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/com/fs/voc_soc.html
