Throughout history there have been diseases, health issues and even famine or drought related to water scarcity and purity. When the dry times come its hard to even have water to filter but when the times of plenty are present you want to drink clean, good tasting water and store for when the dry times come around again. Here I will go over the easier Home drinking water filtration systems, cost efficiency and the importance of them.
Home drinking water filtration: Tap water Vs. well/spring water
Water treatment methods go back centuries and have been found in books as well as paintings on the walls of tombs. It wasn’t until the early 1800s in Scotland when a treatment plant for municipal water was built and put into use. The water was run through a sand filtration system and then distributed to local residents and businesses. A few years later the treatment plant began installing pipes to reach customers more quickly.
It would be over 90 years before America began building the same type of large sand filtered water treatment plants to bring safe drinking water to homes and businesses. This was in direct response to the knowledge that contaminated water would spread epidemics like Cholera and Typhoid through the cities and towns.
Membrane treatment solutions started becoming more common and popular in the 1980s because it was vastly superior to other systems for removing both suspended solids (membrane filtration) and dissolved solids (reverse osmosis) efficiently and cost-effectively. Today membrane treatment is used as a solution for everything from small businesses to large city and municipality water systems.
Well or spring water, depending on the area its collected from, can be anywhere from very clean to very polluted and sulfuric smelling. Most well water comes from wells drilled into what’s called Aquifers, hundreds of feet into the earth then pumped up and filtered through private filtration systems for home or irrigation purposes. Spring water comes to the surface through natural direction and can usually be some of the cleanest water to drink, keeping in mind location of course.
There are natural spring locations and aquifer supplied city operated spring locations throughout the rocky mountain west in the United States and other parts of the world. Cities or jurisdictions operate them and have them tested on a yearly or 6 month basis, for purity and public certification for use.
3 easy methods of Home drinking water filtration
There are 3 types of water filtration methods that I find to be the least
complicated and probably most cost-efficient.
- Reverse-osmosis water filtration
- Gravity-fed water filtration
- Evaporation process water purification
Reverse-osmosis water filtration (RO) is a water purification process that pushes water through a partially permeable membrane to remove ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. This produces totally clean water without any impurities. Whole house systems can be roughly around $4,000 to $12,000 depending on the amount of water to be produced daily while a personal system, for instance, used to produce drinking water only can be anywhere from $50 to $1500.
Gravity fed water filtration uses a multiple stage gravity fed filtration system where the water is pulled by gravity through a charcoal or other type of filter to remove multiple types of contaminants including ions, large particles, chemicals, some pharmaceuticals and reactants and is sometimes touted to be the strongest filtration method. It is a method that takes a little time and is a little slower than reverse-osmosis. Gravity fed systems for the whole house can cost up to $10,000 while personal systems can cost as little as $50 to $350. A gravity fed filtration system I highly recommend and use at home is the Alexapure pro system from My Patriot Supply. It is extremely high quality and very efficient.
Evaporation process water purification or Distillation, is basically what it sounds like. Water is brought to a boil then captured as it turns to steam and vapor, against a cool sheet or other surface, condensing the vapor. This process can produce water that is very safe to drink and in a lot of cases, extremely pure water. It kills viruses, microorganisms and parasites along with separating salt and other contaminants. While this process can take longer than gravity fed systems it is very cheap and versatile, being easy to make one at home or for survival needs. A distilled water system can be as cheap as $50 to $100 dollars. For storage purposes you can also boil water for 60 seconds(elevations above 6,500ft boil for 180 seconds) and let stand till cool. Then store in clean sanitized containers with tight covers.
There are other methods of water purification and filtration but they are not as effective or as cost-efficient and I will not go into those here as my goal is to focus on the most efficient ones.
Contaminants and hazards
Some contaminants include microorganisms, parasites, viruses, reactants, heavy metals, human and animal drugs like pharmaceuticals and other chemicals like chlorine and fluoride.
Microbial, parasitic and organic contaminants cannot always be detected by human senses. You might go years before realizing a problem exists. Many folks never become suspicious until people in the community start to get sick. Water near agricultural areas may contain harmful organic material from pesticide or fertilizer application. Chemicals from pesticides and fertilizers in water may increase cancer risk and reproductive problems, and can impair eye, liver, kidney, and other body functions.
Water authorities add fluoride to the municipal water supply, because studies have shown that adding it in areas where fluoride levels in the water are low can reduce the prevalence of tooth decay in the local population. However, too much can be toxic to health. In some cases, excess fluoride can damage the parathyroid gland. This can result in hyperparathyroidism, which involves uncontrolled secretion of parathyroid hormones. In 2014, fluoride was documented as a neurotoxin that could be hazardous to child development, causing future cognitive problems along with 10 other industrial chemicals, including lead, arsenic, toluene, and methyl mercury. Chlorine is another chemical added to water in the water treatment process that ends up in the supply. It is toxic and highly dangerous for health.
Heavy metals that may end up in your tap water or drinking water include; cadmium, mercury, lead, manganese, chromium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, antimony, thallium and Beryl. Heavy metals can bind to the cells in your body and cause some adverse health effects.
Household purification devices
There are many different devices that you can use to filter your water at home from the water dispenser on your fridge having a filter to a pitcher filter to an in line water filtration device for the whole home. Many of these kinds of devices or products will filter mainly larger particles or (floaties) while some of them will do much more. A few examples include:
- In-line water filtration devices for whole homes
Water filter - Under-sink water filtration system
- Refridgerator filtration
- Sink-attatched filtration devices
- Pitcher-style filtration devices
- counter-top gravity fed devices
Many of these are great options and should be researched and chosen based on you and your families water consumption and needs.
Water pollution and our contribution
Humans have contributed to pollution of water sources on this planet for hundreds of years. Everything from industrial waste dumping to simple littering of trash and landfills to human waste has been irresponsibly discarded by irresponsible people. Even these things can degrade over time and wind up in our ground water supply, where a lot of people and municipalities source their water from. Many cities and municipalities have taken steps to stop these kinds of practices and have regulations in effect to control the accumulation of such pollution. New technologies have been and are being developed to find uses for waste and trash that can contribute to ground and water pollution. The advancement of plumbing and water treatment technologies have come a long way in the last 50 to 100 years as well, to help prevent pollution of our water supplies.
Even though we have these technologies in place, getting the cleanest water possible to the most people possible is an almost impossible feat. Mistakes are made, corners are cut and processes made more simple. Therefore, not everything gets filtered out at the city treatment level and it should be important to each individual to assess their water quality and storage needs and get the water filtration they and their family need.
You can also see a review of a very valuable and effective water filtration device here.
If you find my blog to be helpful, have any questions, comments or input please feel free to do so in the box below.
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