Whole house water filter system

[anthracitedub]

Just thought I’d check here to see if anyone else has input regarding adding a filter system to the incoming water supply of their home.

I live just outside city limits and have well water. I have a water softener and overall my water is pretty good. I have a PUR filter on my kitchen sink for drinking. I also have a water cooler and we refill our 5 gallon jugs at a local market. I’m the only one that drinks the tap water in the house.... tastes fine to me...also use it for my coffee.

I travel for work and get to use water from different states often... and when doing so I feel like some of the other water leaves me feeling cleaner after showers and in some cases it tastes better.

My water at home with out the softener is hard and does have a little rust/metal tinge to it.... the faucets outside the house have rust stains below them and the toilet tanks have some rust staining. So I know my water kinda sucks and needs help.

I’ve decided to look into filter systems that I can plumb in myself and I am blown away at all the different types and pricing. I’ve just begun this journey and I also don’t mind spending money on this improvement... but I don’t know where to start... thought I’d ask on here to see if anyone else has had a similar experience and found a decent system.

[kingkarmann]

We purchased a small reverse osmosis system from Kinetico. It has worked very well for us.
The kinetico softener has a prefilter to help with iron.
We have well water so some sort of softener and filtration is necessary.

I chose the kinetico system simply because it operates "on demand" and doesn't require electricity or need to cycle at a preset time.
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[VOLKSWAGNUT]

My home with a deep drilled well is 20 years old this year....
I installed a whole house filter ... the same time I installed a water softener .. which was 18 years ago.

Filter is a Whirlpool single stage with a clear reservoir/bowl.

Its amazing how much sediment it collects. Mostly fine particles. I use the fiberglass filters.

I try to clean and replace the filter every 6 months... I have one cartridge clean and ready to swap out . I reuse them after washing them out with bleach.

I think its a great investment for home well water systems.

My home has CPVC and only has some slight issues with calcium deposits getting through to mixing valves and faucets.

Granted my parents home had copper up until a few years ago... always had typical copper staining.. They switched to Pex and while the staining left.... the bronze pex couplings didnt make it 3 years before the well water ate them alive even with a filter and softener...


IMO have your water tested and evaluate what you really need..

You may find you need a whole house and some satellite filters.


I now just want a damn hot water recirculation system...

.
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[Relyt]

I also live just outside of town, the city limits start on the other side of my driveway, and am on a well.

I would suggest sending out a water sample to be tested, that will show how hard your water really is and what is actually in it. This should be done annually regardless.

Hard water isn’t necessarily bad. It’s usually perfectly fine for drinking. The downsides, as you probably know, are that it can be harder to clean as soaps don’t work as well in hard water, it can cause stains but really the issue is sediment deposits in your water heater and wash machine etc., and the taste.

The 3 main ways of filtering, that I’m aware of, is:

A house filter, it’s just a big filter, better then nothing but not super great. I chose not to do this as it didn’t seem that effective.

Water softener, this requires a device to be plumbed in along with a way to drain out its waste. This uses a type of salt and essentially swaps the salt out with minerals in the water, the harder the water the more salt that is used. I chose not to do this as I didn’t want to be putting that much salt in our water.

Reverse osmosis, this basically removes everything but the water. For a whole house you need the reverse osmosis machine, giant tanks, and a way to drain the waste water. This is by far the most effective but also the most expensive and labor intensive, and some argue that removing all minerals is bad for us, I’ve seen studies showing that it can leach minerals essential for our teeth and bones if used too much.

What I ended up doing, since our water came back drinkable but with trace lead (old house and fixtures that I will be replacing) and reportable nitrate levels (not enough for retesting or concern but enough for the health department to take note, probably due to the mounds of horse poop and not pumping the septic for 10+ years, both of which I have corrected), is I got a small under the sink reverse osmosis system for our drinking/cooking water. This is the system I got:
https://www.amazon.com/APEC-Alkaline-Drinking-Water-ROES-PH75/dp/B00NWZ1RCK?
I liked this one because after it filters it puts some minerals into the water.

In the spring I will check the water heater and everything for sediment to reassess if I want a water softener or house filter.
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[KTPhil]

Start with a water test, so you know what you are trying to remove or balance. Otherwise you are shooting blind. There can be many elements in well water that may have no taste or smell.

Michigan? Not Flint, I hope...

[Zundfolge1432]

I was talking to a buddy from work about whole house filters. He did it when House was built and primarily to make beer. I helped him run off 20 gallons at a time and it was great, that’s reason enough to invest in filtration😀 probably already mentioned but filtered water is easier on everything washers,toilets,water heaters etc. but the beer was reason enough.

[calvinater]

Look into charcoal filtration.
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[anthracitedub]

Alright... good info to help kick start this project. I’m certainly gonna do the water test first. From there I can source a type of system, hopefully something simple and affordable that covers my needs.

[Abscate]

You can’t leach your bones out drinking DI or distilled water.
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[hitest]

Volkswagenut "spoke" for me as well- a good, inline filter, changed every six months works well- on my well water.

Well water, if left unfiltered will wear out your softener faster. Once you start filtering and you clean your shower heads it will feel like you doubled you pressure.
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[anthracitedub]

I may just go ahead and get an in-line filter to put in for the time being... they’re affordable and easy to splice in. Our water really doesn’t seem too bad, I just want it to be the best it can be with in reason. Our water softener works and I often hear it regenerating at night, but I only have to put salt in it a few times a year... it doesn’t seem to use a lot. My old house had the exact same unit and I would have to add a bag every month... this house maybe 4 bags a year. It is working but seems strange that I barely use salt. I can put it in bypass mode and the water tastes bad... with it on the water tastes good, it’s always ice cold and clear. I’m also thinking that some of the issue is with my hot water heater... the water from there seems to have a little metallic odor to it... probably time to replace that unit as well, it’s gotta be quite old. My house was built in 96 and it possibly could be the original.

[cdennisg]

[oprn]

Our well started to produce sand. Just a bit at first but it got worse so I put a filter in the line into the house. That only took out the course stuff so I found a centrifugal pre filter to add. Eventually the sand volume got so bad that it was not sufficient either. We had to drill a new well.

Now the filter does very little. I check it every 3 months so and there is virtually nothing in it. Both wells are very alkaline though. Too high in salts for human consumption so I installed a reverse osmosis filter for just the drinking and cooking water. It’s working well and I calculated the payback time at about a year as opposed to buying bottled water.

Treating all the water this way is just not economical.

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

[oprn]

Not true in our case. The affluent from our septic system is deadly to plant life due to the alkalinity in the well water.

I had the sewer outlet to the field freeze off one winter so I dropped a sump pump into the septic tank until spring. There was a dead strip across the yard that took 3 years to grow grass again and the trees on that corner did not make it. The same thing happens when we water the garden from the well.

So nature’s filter in is not perfect in all cases.

[anthracitedub]

I actually have city sewer and as of last year there is a city water line they installed for miles down the highway heading north to a brand new giant hospital they finally opened just a few weeks ago. I don’t know if there are plans to branch out to our subdivision or not... but we do have fire hydrants installed at the entrance of the sub.

[Cusser]

I'm on my own well here.

I use an undercounter charcoal filter to a separate spigot for drinking, cooking, making ice.

Since we had sediment clogging the washing machine inlet screen, I put a small sediment filter inline for that.

When we clogged a couple of toilet fill valves, I bought inline toilet fill filter screens for those (yes, they do exist) to save on replacing toilet fill valves.

I've had to clean the screen in a shower head once, and sink faucet aerators occasionally.
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[Busstom]

Late to the show but I just noticed this post (actually I've been distracted on other sites now that I got a OneWheel ).
Yes, I installed a whole-house filter on the incoming 1" service line to the house when I repiped the whole place (yes, I repiped it myself, and copper is easy to sweat). I'm on municipal water.

It's one of the best things I could've done, I love it. I drink the tap water and it tastes good (or DOESN'T taste?). It doesn't stink either. It's the big canister that takes the filters that are about 5" in diameter and roughly 12" tall. The filters I use have a charcoal component, and when I go to replace the filter every 3 or 4 months, the white outer element wrap is discolored a disgusting greenish-brown.

But here are a couple of UN-scientific indicators that tell me it's doing an excellent job:
1) I'm still on the same chrome-plated brass shower head that I installed new when I repiped 13 years ago, with nothing more than a scant amount of calcium deposited around the outside perimeter, and the spray adjustment gizmo in it still works perfectly (while all the neighbors complain of crusted fixtures within a couple years), and
2) One way I determine if excess minerals are in the water is by adding about 1 cup of water to a sauce pot and boil it dry, down to nothing...and see what kind of crusty residue is left behind in the pot. In my case, nearly nothing, a very slight white haze that you can barely see, and wipes away with a fingertip.
Oh, one last piece of evidence, no crust in the coffee maker

I think it's better for ALL of the fixtures, and the water heater too, and pipes, etc. I've had zero problems or leaks from my faucets since then, either.
So there's my experience with it. Now where's my OneWheel?!

[oprn]

[calvinater]

Spring in front of house, when dug 25 yrs ago, found an old oak pipe used to water cattle, never runs dry, others come during drought to water their live stock, stick a pipe ten feet in the ground here , get all the water you need.
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