Facts about water softeners and water filters

The Information Age we found ourselves in has caused consumers to be more health conscious and has shown a strong trend of society leaning towards natural health such as organic produce and purified water through the use of water filters, water softeners and water purifier systems. This article discusses some interesting facts about water softeners and water filters.

Water Filters

• The best water filter systems available in the market today are so-called “reverse osmosis” or “distillation”. When considering buying a water filter these are not the recommended choice as they not only remove the harmful contaminants from the water but also the good minerals that are good for our health. These minerals are vital for our body such as calcium, magnesium, potassium and many more.
• Many of the water filter systems do not employ multi-filtration resulting in some of the worst toxic offenders in the water not being filtered. That means your body is still consuming these bad toxins.
• Most people don’t consider the purity of water when they cook food, bathe or shower. Remember that when you shower or bathe the warm water opens up your skin pores which mean that contaminated water still penetrates your body. Pure showering or bathing water is very important as your body needs it to hydrate. However if you tend to have a dry or sensitive skin it is even more important to have a water filter system in your house.
• There is a variety of different water filters available on the market serving every consumer’s need: Water filters for individual faucets like your kitchen faucets, individual glass bottle filters and whole house water purifiers and filters.

Water Softeners

• A water softener functions by softening the water through exchanging hardened minerals like calcium and magnesium for sodium or potassium minerals.

Pros of Water Softeners

• Water softeners reduce the hardness of the water which holds benefits for the consumer: Smaller amounts of detergents and soap are necessary for cleaning, reduced staining, spotting and scaling which results in energy saving due to less scaling.

Cons of Water Softeners

• One of the major disadvantages of salt water is that it is neither healthy nor desirable for drinking.
• Soft water is aggressive at leaching metals like lead from your faucets. That means if you have a water softener the initial drawing of cold water will have a higher lead content than normal.
• A water softener can increase your sodium intake.
• It is costly to run a water softener as it wastes up to 120 gallons of water per 1 000 delivered.
• A water softener is not designed to remove lead and other metals, chlorine, taste/odour compounds or chlorine by-products.
• Important: If you have a whole house carbon filter system it should not be combined with a water softener. The removal of chlorine disinfectant from your home plumbing by carbon filtration that can be a part of the “conditioner” may result in extraordinary amounts of bacteria growing in the house water lines and could end up in your face, eyes, nose, laundry and cookware.

Contact Glacier for a wide range of water filters, purifiers and softeners.