Certified whole house well water filters are an assurance that these filters reduce most contaminants that are claimed by manufacturers
Well water is not pure anymore. There are several contaminants like chlorine, iron, manganese present even in well water is harmful for your health as well as may damage your plumbing system. If you have been facing problems like staining and scaling of bathrooms and even the laundry, a whole house well water filter may be the best choice to get rid of these problems. While choosing a filter you have to consider the ability of filter to remove specific contaminants that are present in your well water. It is preferable to ensure that your filter is certified by appropriate organizations to reduce contaminants they claim to remove.
The advantage of certified whole house well water filters is that you are feel assured of getting clean and purified water throughout the household. Independent organizations like NSF international, Water Quality association (WQA), American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) inspect and certify water filters.
It is important to remember that EPA does not certify any water filters. WQA and UL use NSF/ANSI standards for certification. For water treatment devices NSF/ANSI standards 42, 53 and 58 are used. Certification is based on their ability to reduce certain contaminants. Certification is based on ability to treat water containing Arsenic, Cysts, lead, Asbestos, VOCs, PCB, Chloramines and several other harmful contaminants.
Filters should mostly be able to meet NSF/ ANSI standard 53. It is not obligatory but preferable. A certification does not mean that your filter is perfect and flawless. However, it does provide some assurance to manufacturer’s claims as filters are tested to find if they reduce the pollutants they claim to reduce. An activated carbon filter with NSF standard 53 certification, would mostly be able to substantially reduce harmful contaminates like lead, mercury, heavy metals, copper and even parasites like Giardia and Cryptosporidium. Further on they should be able to reduce volatile organic chemicals like trichloroethylene (TCE), methyltert-butyl ether (MTBE), radon and pesticides as well. Generally these filters have a performance sheet that provides specifications on its capability.
Various manufacturers offer certified well water filters. Systems like IronMax series from RainDance water systems use NSF certified filtration media. Similarly their RDWS Platinum package systems also have NSF certified UV treatment systems. It also includes a 5 micron pre sediment filtration system that is NSF Certified under ANSI/NSF Standard 42. The PurHome X-5 fromPuritec is a high capacity filtration system certified by WQA.
If you are buying a water filter it is a good idea to have your well water tested. This would help you to choose the best filter that would be able to remove most contaminants present. Whole house well water filters prove to be a good investment as its health benefits are hard to ignore. Moreover, various costs related to cleaning and maintenance of plumbing, kitchen appliance and bathroom accessories are substantially reduced. While researching on the filters available, it is advisable to study the performance sheet that accompanies most filters. Based on the research you can choose the right filter for your household.
Certified whole house well water filters are surely a good choice over any other filter without certification, even if it costs less. You can feel assured of getting clean and purified water with the certified filter in place at the point of entry of water to your plumbing system.