Our new house has a well, and when we bought the house I asked about the quality of the water and took it to my own lab for inspection. They told me they drink from the water but my own testing showed elevated levels of arsenic, radon, and iron. While this is dangerous, it is fair common. The levels of arsenic and radon were my biggest concern, when they bought the house, the levels were acceptable but as time went on we realized how unsafe these were and tighter tolerances were adopted.
The levels were not off the charts, just higher than our currently acceptable levels. As I drink a good amount of water on a daily basis and we cook a lot of pasta for our son, I had to do something.
There are a lot of ways to filter drinking water, and one of the best ways is surprisingly easy to do yourself. We have a whole house water filter that is simple sentiment filter. This does a good job at removing most dirt and iron from the water. It will filter all water coming in the house including laundry and showers. This won't remove any serious contaminates like radon or arsenic but these are mostly dangerous when consumed. Radon can be a problem in a shower at higher levels, so always professionally test your water.
If you don't know what a reverse osmosis system is, it is generally a 3-6 stage filtering system which ends with a membrane that water is pushed through very slowly. This removes 99%+ of all contaminates but is a very slow process. Most reverse osmosis systems require a tank (typically 3-20 gallons) to store processed water on demand. Prior to the membrane, the system will typically use one or two sentiment filters, a carbon filter, and a coconut shell filter to remove as much as possible before hitting the membrane.
The system I got is an Apec RO-90 that includes 5 filters, a tank, and faucet.
One of the nice things about this system is the filters are rated for 12 months, most systems you can only get around 6 months out of the filter. The membrane and final stage last 3-5 years.
I called a local water company for a reverse osmosis system and I was quoted around $1,200 to $1,800. Plus another $1,200 or so to put an aerator on our well to reduce the radon. Yearly filter costs were over $600. I got the above system for around $200 and installed it myself. Yearly filters are $20 for the first three stages and around $100 when I have to replace all 5 stages every 3-5 years.
How well does it work?
The water test results when I bought the house showed the following elevated levels:
Arsenic 0.020, acceptable limit: 0.010
Radon 15,700, acceptable limit: 2,000-10,000 but no official limit
While the iron didn't test as elevated (0.094 out of 0.3 limit) I did notice a lot of orange staining in the whole house filter and in one of the toilets. So there was definitely iron coming through their filter. I upgraded the whole house filter with a 5 micron sentiment filter, it is simply using a different consumable over the less aggressive 30 micro filter. You lose a little water pressure but you filter a lot more at the start of the system.
After installing the reverse osmosis system, I ordered a water test and used bottle water until I got the results.
Arsenic <0.001, acceptable limit: 0.010
Radon <200, acceptable limit: 2,000-10,000
That is a massive improvement and made me feel a lot more comfortable drinking the well water. Truth be told, I'd probably be fine drinking it without the reverse osmosis, but I would likely have a increased chance for cancer.
It's been about 4 years and my system was due for a complete replacement. I ordered the full set of filters which cost me $127 shipped and installed them in about 5-10 minutes. Purged the tank twice over the next 24 hours and are good to go for the next 12 months.
If you haven't looked at a reverse osmosis system, I highly recommend it.
Full disclosure, there are some who believe reverse osmosis systems are too good and remove all the healthy minerals from your water supply. You can get a 6th stage filter that adds some minerals back or drops you can add to your water to add them as well. I am not 100% convinced this is a problem and do not do anything to adjust for that. Just keep it in mind and do your own research.
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