Reverse Osmosis Home Water Filters Are The Best For Home Drinking Water Filtration, But ...
Reverse osmosis home water filters have existed for quite a while now, but are still very expensive and uncommon in homes. Its greatest strength is that RO water filters will remove any and every contaminant from your water. This is understandable since it was invented in the 1970s in order to replace distillation as a means for removing salt from sea water. Apart from desalination, reverse osmosis technologies are also used in medicine for dialysis and in industrial waste reclamation to decontaminate waste water.
How does RO home water filtration work?
Those who took science in high school may remember the osmosis demonstrations using visking tubing, (de-shelled) eggs or slices of raw potato. These demonstrations showed that water molecules can cross a membrane with microscopic pores but larger molecules cannot. Reverse osmosis makes use of this effect, except in reverse. Instead of letting the water molecules migrate naturally from the container holding clean water to the container holding contaminated water, RO uses high water pressure to force water molecules from contaminated water across a polymer membrane into the container holding clean water. A high-performance polymer membrane will remove everything including heavy metals, bacteria, agricultural poisons and sediment.
What are the disadvantages of reverse osmosis home water filters?
- The biggest disadvantage is the price of buying and installing the unit. A point-of-use RO home water filter usually costs upwards of $1000, while high-quality water filtration systems using powdered carbon blocks and resin ion exchange cost less than half of that.
- The second major disadvantage is also related to cost. Replacing the filter is very expensive. Most manufacturers recommend every six months but many people who use these filters find that they need to do it more often than that.
- The third major disadvantage is again related to cost. RO water filters are very inefficient. They waste a lot of water. Many home water filtration systems which use RO only produce 5 to 15 gallons of pure water for every 100 gallons which flow through them. The remaining 85 to 95 gallons are discarded.
- Reverse osmosis needs high water pressure to work properly. If your home only receives low water pressure, RO home water filter systems are not practical.
- RO home drinking water filters are slow. Of all the different methods of filtering drinking water at home, RO is the slowest.
- RO removes everything, including beneficial trace minerals and chemicals like fluoride (used to protect the teeth). If you do not eat a nutritious diet, you may need to take multivitamin supplements.
What are the alternatives to RO for home drinking water filtration?
Given the high cost of buying and operating a reverse osmosis home water filter, many people find it beyond their means. If your only problem is chlorine, sediment or rust in your tap water, a cheaper granulated activated carbon filter which typically costs under $50 may be your best option. These units are often small enough and lightweight enough to mount directly on the kitchen tap.
But what if you also need to remove heavy metals like lead, copper or mercury? Then get a carbon water filter with an attached resin ion exchange system. The carbon filter will take care of organic chemicals like fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides while the ion exchange unit will deal with the heavy metals.
Apart from this, you can also drink bottled water. If buying and lugging half-a-dozen bottles of drinking water from the local grocer or Walmart is too inconvenient, you can always get a water dispenser. These units use 5-gallon bottles, and the company you sign up with will deliver as many bottles as you need every month. Some companies will even provide the dispensing unit for free.
Ultimately, if you need the best and can afford it, nothing beats reverse osmosis home water filters. But if the price is too expensive, the other methods listed above work well enough for many people.