5 Factors To Consider When Buying a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System for Home

Water contamination is a hot topic nowadays. Just a few days ago, it was reported that a cancer-causing chemical was found in hundreds of the well water in California. In a separated occasion, residents in Jeanerette, Louisiana experience rust colored water from their tap water.

The tap water no longer safe as compared to a decade ago. Most people are aware about the seriousness of these problems and taking preventive measures to keeping their family safe. One of the way is to get a reverse osmosis water filter system.

Why Reverse Osmosis?

Reverse osmosis is a common and effective method in removing 99% of contamination Reverse Osmosis Diagramdissolved in the water. It uses pressure to force contaminated water to pass through the fine membrane leaving only pure water after filtration.

This method is proven and has been used for more than a decade. Many of the system are fully certified by NSF and WQA on their effectiveness and quality on removing contamination.

Which Is Suitable For My Home?

There are so many reverse osmosis water filter system for home in the market right now. While
most of the system works well in most cases, there are some system might be good in city water but bad in well water source. Here are the 5 factors that you should consider before buying a water filter system.

1. Source Water

The source water pretty much dictates the types of reverse osmosis system that you need. ThereContaminated Water are two types of source water in US, city water and well water source.

If you living in urban areas, in most cases the water source comes from a nearby water treatment plant. City water has been treated before channel to homes. Hence, it is often contain less contamination.

In this case, reverse osmosis system such as iSpring RCC7 and APEC ROES-50 is good enough to do the filtration. Those are consider entry level of reverse osmosis water filter system for home.

For other sub-urban areas where private wells are the main water source, the contamination normally are quite high where it consists of living microorganism, virus and bacteria.

To get rid of these contamination, a system with UV light sterilizer is highly recommended to eliminate the microorganism in the source water. You can consider Home Master TMHP or the iSpring RCC7AK-UV which is great for well water source.

2. Water Pressure

Water pressure is a crucial factor for a reverse osmosis system to work correctly. Sufficient pressure is needed to push the source water through the membrane to filter off the contamination and produce clean water.

Most of the urban housing are able to meet the minimum water pressure requirement of all reverse osmosis system. However, if the source water pressure is less than 40PSI, you will need to look for models that comes with a booster pump.

System such as iSpring RCC7P and Home Master TMAFC-ERP consists a booster pump that can be used on city water while iSpring RCC1UP-AK and Home Master TMHP is suitable for well water source.

3. Filtration Quality

The rejection ratio of reverse osmosis water filter system differs from companies due to the technology differences. Apart from the reverse osmosis membrane filter, there are pre-filters and post filters that will determine the effectiveness of the entire system.

Certified Mineral Removal by WQA

Most company claims that their system are able to removed up to 99% contamination from thesystem. One method to gauge the effectiveness is using a total dissolved solid (TDS) meter to measure the filtered water against the source water.

TDS measure is a good method, but shouldn’t be the sole method to gauge the effectiveness. A reverse osmosis system with alkaline remineralization is often having higher TDS as compared to those that don’t have the feature.

Another method is to check their certification in WQA and NSF if they are certified by these non profit organization. You can find the details of certification and test that was done on the system.

Last but not least, check on your community’s Consumer Confidence Reports on the water quality in your area. You should be able to know what are the contamination are in the source water. Using the information, you can choose the suitable reverse osmosis water filter system for your home.

4. Flow Rate

Flow rate depends on many factors such as water pressure and water temperature. Most of the reverse osmosis system is able to produce 50 gallons per day (GPD) at a optimum condition. For most cases, the amount is about 10-20% lesser as stated.

Hence, if you have a huge family of 8, you shouldn’t go for a system that only produce 50 GPD. APEC ROES-90 or iSpring RCC1UP-AK are one of those systems that claims to be able to produce about 90-100GPD.

5. Budget

Before buying any water filter system, you should consider two types of cost, the initial cost and Budget For Water Filtermaintenance cost. Initial cost is pretty straight forward as it is the initial purchase price of the filter while maintenance cost are cost for filter and faulty parts replacement.

For most cases, the maintenance cost will be higher if the replacement of filter is frequent. If you are on a tight budget, APEC ROES-50 and Express Water RO5DX is able to save some maintenance cost in the long run.

My Personal Recommendation

One of the best brand for reverse osmosis water filter system for home is Home Master. Their Home Master TMAFCsystem is not using the old school canister system which is totally different from other reverse osmosis system in the market.

Apart from that, their patented Full Contact Technology remineralized the water twice in the system provide an alkaline state in the final filtered water.

The Home Master TMAFC is the best seller product and received excellent review from it’s existing customers. Although the price is slightly expensive, it is definitely worth investing in such a quality product for you and your family’s health.

Check out our full review on the Home Master TMAFC.

 

16 thoughts on “5 Factors To Consider When Buying a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System for Home”

  1. Very thorough post. I appreciate the well thought out information, anyone looking for a water filter will benefit greatly from this article. I call tap water crap water, so installing a quality water fileter is important!

  2. I just recently bought my first home, and this is some great food for thought! I actually used to sell water filtration systems (which I really grew to despise! Sales just wasn’t my thing!) But I’m totally with you here and couldn’t agree more! Great informative post!

    • Probably at that time, people aren’t aware how bad the water contamination. With the growing of internet and social media, news spread quickly than ever. People are well informed on their water condition 🙂

  3. Hi Jay,
    Very informative and thorough. Water filteration is a must in my country. It is installed in almost every houses and this give you a picture of how bad is it. My house had installed an outdoor water filter which comes with back-wash function and it is fined for many years. But not until beginning of this year, I found my water quality dropped. The water came out from my kitchen tap is yellowish. After two months of observation and finally I found the caused. It was due to the underground burst pipe after the filter that cause the problem,
    So, sometimes it is not the water source issue but the internal pipes itself that give problem and contaminated our water. What do you suggest on this kind of scenario?

    • I would suggest to get a drinking water filter like the reverse osmosis filter. It can remove most of the contamination including the rust in your pipe. Leaving you with clean water when you drink it. You can choose one of the filter that I suggested in this article. All of them are affordable and good except for the Aquasana Reverse Osmosis Filter.

  4. I have known about reverse osmosis for some time now. I believe it is a great decision to make when looking for a clean efficient way to get water. For people looking for an alternative to regular tap water, this is an excellent option.

  5. In today’s world it is really important to be aware of what our drinking water is like. Reverse osmosis is a great way to protect yourself. Well done article explaining what it can do to remove the contamination that can happen to our water. Thank you for sharing.

  6. Hi Jay,
    Great job , well done , i read your article about what to consider before buying a reverse osmosis water filter system . Do you think that drinking from water filter system is saver and how much can it be the cost of the maintenance of an osmosis water filter system at least for a year . ?

  7. Interesting post! You’ve made me aware of how contaminated the water we drink from taps actually is. Over a short period we won’t notice it but after decades of consuming it it is definitely going to impact your health one way or another! I will be investing in one soon, a quick question though, whats your thoughts on bottled water? Are they as safe as drinking through a water filter?

  8. Hello Jay
    It is sad that tap water is not safe anymore, but atleast in Canada it is safer than in the USA. Good to know what features to look for when investing in a water filter, Home master sounds like a right investment and I would definitely give it a try. Thank you for sharing.

    Cheers
    Ramandeep

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