Safe, contaminant-free drinking water remains essential for family health. While municipal supplies get treated, lingering risks still necessitate purification methods, like specialized filtration, to boost on-site protection. This article explains why water filtration is so important.
Removes Lead Particles
Aging interior pipes and some exterior municipal lines still utilized in communities contain lead soldering remnants from installation decades ago. Over time, gradual corrosion causes trace lead particulates to enter home systems through supply plumbing. These dissolved heavy metals pose severe developmental and neurological risks, especially for young children. Certified water filtration pitcher filters like those we recommend and install capture over 98% of lead flowing through household plumbing. These filters can proactively protect families.
The only permanent solution entails upgrading deficient soldering lines. Until full home pipe replacements occur, advanced filters effectively extract existing ambiguities. We offer affordable testing to identify if risks lurk in your water, and if your plumbing needs urgent attention.
Eliminates Cloudiness
While not acutely hazardous itself, visible cloudy or opaque water flowing from the tap never provides appealing aesthetics or confidence. Cloudy water is often due to high volumes of air bubbles trapped in the supply lines or holding tanks. Dedicated point-of-use countertop filtration units using multi-phase membranes with compressed carbon blocks filter away air particulates to create crystal-clear water streams devoid of bubbles or aeration for improved clarity. Certain models even improve the taste by filtering out compounds that affect the flavor.
Lowers Chlorine Levels
Municipal community water treatment facilities legally add small, measured levels of chlorine compounds to public tap water supplies for disinfection before distribution through regional supply conduits. Lingering disinfectant byproducts tend to exacerbate smells and influence taste. Our multi-stage carbon block filtration units efficiently capture a high percentage of residual chlorine particles for fresher and cleaner flavor water.
While some individuals may enjoy hints of chlorination, children often balk or reject drinking water with heavy scents. Over time, chlorinated water can compromise health and nutrition. Under-sink and countertop filtration methods allow you to customize your water for your household’s unique preferences. We offer free consultations.
Extracts Rust Contamination
A subset of aging galvanized interior pipes still utilized in older homes built before the 1980s will eventually corrode over decades of natural erosion. This reaction causes visible bright orange or brown rust particulate fissures that begin shedding traces of loose iron contamination directly into home water streams through microscopic gaps.
If consumed, rust contains small levels of carcinogenic heavy metals. This makes purification critical. Both whole-house and dedicated multi-phase drinking water filtration systems contain units that are highly effective at capturing common household plumbing corrosion threats.
We also offer full-home pipe inspection services using camera scoping. This service physically gauges actual pipe integrity threats that may be impacting your family’s water quality from within the walls. Identifying issues early helps target solutions.
Softens Hard Water Scaling
Regions built along limestone bedrock aquifers suffer from notoriously hard natural water chemistry. This typically manifests as the notorious white/chalky calcium carbonate mineral scale buildup along sink basins and boiled pot edges. True whole-home water softeners can actively reverse hard water side effects during usage through ion exchange processes. Filters can’t soften any hardness levels alone. However, advanced multi-stage carbon block filtration does help capture loose mineral particulates moving through pipes after initial scaling occurs while also buffering scale recurrence.
If your region falls into the ‘very hard’ water classifications on reports, standard carbon filtration likely won’t fully offset hard water concerns enough to consider skipping softeners. Some instances necessitate either central softening units or more advanced reverse osmosis methods under sinks.
Neutralizes Metallic Tastes
A small but very frustrated subset of homeowners serviced by old community distribution lines or private residential wells can detect foul metallic tastes when pouring a fresh glass of water from the tap even after thoroughly flushing their pipes.
This likely indicates low-grade iron, manganese, copper, or zinc contamination from slow corrosion of either antiquated lead pipes, galvanized iron plumbing, old alloy well casings, or just the natural soil composition itself leaching traces. Multi-phase carbon block filtration pitchers adsorb and trap unseen dissolved metallic particles responsible for unpleasant metallic tastes or smells manifesting at the point of use, like kitchen taps.
We always recommend homeowners with private wells have a comprehensive annual water test panel performed. This water test can assess over 15 potential contaminants to identify any specific risks. This can help us determine what filtration or treatment plans to use. Don’t assume purity without hard data.
Lessens Disinfection Byproducts
Standard chlorine compound treatments used by most municipal plants to disinfect public tap water against pathogens also generate measurable levels of carcinogenic byproducts like haloacetic acids, bromate, chlorite, and trihalomethanes. Unfortunately, this results in long-term exposure consequences. Multi-stage carbon block filtration methods capture these dangerous compounds efficiently while still allowing some residual disinfecting chlorine to remain for continued protection against bacteria in pipes. This also greatly improves smell and taste.
As environmental regulations rightfully evolve months ahead further curtailing disinfection byproduct limits for healthier tap water, this benefit only grows in importance for at-risk families using public supplies. Our under-sink and countertop filtration solutions give homeowners increased control, limiting exposure to these common yet avoidable water additives.
Boosts Water Pressure
Some unfortunate households located at distant ends of aging distribution lines or properties positioned at higher elevations may suffer from inadequate household water pressure. This generally necessitates central pressure booster pump installations to intensify flows room to room once the root cause is identified. However, strategically placed high-volume carbon block filtration units with special minimal friction multi-stage designs and unimpeded output release valves can also enhance incoming residential pressure capabilities just by improving flow efficiency.
Combining booster pumps with filtration creates maximum pressure circulation. Streamlined filtration alone also measurably bolsters performance from previous constraints giving struggling shower heads or bathroom sinks new life. Expanding deficient main lines rarely presents cities with viable large-scale pressure drop cure-alls in old neighborhoods. Our team can identify and then isolate fixtures that need help.
Prevents Scale Buildup
Hard water regions with heavy calcium carbonate mineralization face perpetual issues of thick white scale accumulation coating sink basins, faucets, and boiling pots. Although filtration cannot actually soften already hardened water chemistry, it does capture scale particulate shedding through pipes over time. This helps slow visible buildup on fixtures when paired with descaling cleaners. Units featuring compressed carbon block matrices also mitigate loose particle passage.
Although filters don’t equal softeners for preventing rigid mineralization, multi-stage filtration still benefits hard water households significantly by filtering out loose particles. We recommend source water tests to determine your true grain hardness levels first. Then combine basic filtration with cleaners to fight visible mineral scaling on bathroom and kitchen surfaces.
Our Experts Can Help
As your local area plumbing experts in Milwaukie, Oregon, 3 Mountains Home Services also provides a full range of drainage solutions, sewer/septic services, leak detection, and all related home water system repairs to keep interior infrastructure performing reliably for decades. Contact us to learn more about boosting whole home water quality through advanced filtration methods. We can help eliminate risks lurking within your aging pipes. Besides comprehensive plumbing services, we also provide electrical services.
