Looking to buy a whole house water filtration system....

Joined
Apr 11, 2004
Messages
4,005
Location
los angeles
Any recommendations? I have 1 bathroom,2 teenagers, me and wife. I want to get rid of Chlorine, and scale and use it for drinking water, too. I don't want no super fancy one. Looking for something decent at a good price. Thanks
 
Why does it have to be a "whole house" system? Most people drink water where the ice is. Which 99% of the time is the kitchen. You have generally 2 ways to go depending how your house is plumbed. If you're lucky, and your refrigerator / ice maker is plumbed off the same line coming in under your kitchen sink, you can go with an under sink R.O. system that will provide R.O. water to both a water dispenser at the sink, as well as the Fridge.

I didn't have that, and it was cost prohibitive to re plumb it. So I ran a good water filter in my ice maker line, and have R.O. drinking water at the sink. If you want to filter every drop that comes into the house, (Showers, toilets, sinks, washing machine spigots, etc.), there are several whole house systems available for that. Most are around $300.00 to $700.00, depending what you want to filter out, and to what degree.

All they require is to cut into a straight section of the main where it enters your home. Before I purchased one I would get a report on the quality of the water coming into your home. Most city and municipal water departments will provide that information free of charge.
 
My city is on a well system. That being said, I installed a Morton whole house filter and a Morton water softener which has a built in filter. Both of those automatically flush themselves weekly or on a recharge cycle. I also have a RO system at the kitchen sink. Water is all good here.
 
My city is on a well system. That being said, I installed a Morton whole house filter and a Morton water softener which has a built in filter. Both of those automatically flush themselves weekly or on a recharge cycle. I also have a RO system at the kitchen sink. Water is all good here.
Yes, this is the logical way to do it. Generally a RO system will give you adequate volumes of drinking water but not enough to supply all the taps or showers. In fact if you have softened water, the RO system will usually be set up to pull from the softened water.
 
I was looking into that too. My buddy just installed one in the Fall and he was changing filter every month!
He had a clear canister. Rusty, dirty Water from the town.

I would put a coarse two stage yarn filter on the house at most, an then install a decent two stage cartridge or reverse osmosis system under the sink - or in the basement under the sink - these things are bulky
 
Any recommendations? I have 1 bathroom,2 teenagers, me and wife. I want to get rid of Chlorine, and scale and use it for drinking water, too. I don't want no super fancy one. Looking for something decent at a good price. Thanks
If you have issues with scale and chlorine odor/taste, a water softener and carbon filter are normally used to deal with that. Have your water tested so you know the hardness and if there is anything else that needs to be removed.

Are you looking to install the system yourself?
 
If you have issues with scale and chlorine odor/taste, a water softener and carbon filter are normally used to deal with that. Have your water tested so you know the hardness and if there is anything else that needs to be removed.
This was the issue I had to deal with. Hard water with a lot of calcium. So I had a whole house water softener installed. They are so common out here, that builders usually supply a plumbing loop on the main inside the garage. That way they just cut into it when you have a whole house water softener installed. It makes installation faster and easier. Plus, if you should ever get a leak, it's contained in the garage by a drain, and not inside the house.

The biggest issue with them, is as a general rule you shouldn't drink soft water. Houses are therefore plumbed with a hard water line to both the kitchen sink, and the fridge water line for the ice maker. That is why I had a under sink R.O. system installed. You have R.O. (Reverse Osmosis) water for drinking, and soft water for everything else inside the house.

Outside hose bibs, irrigation cap off lines, and roof evaporator cooler water lines are bypassed from the main softener input line. Depending on how old your house is, and which part of the country you live, yours could be very similar, or completely different. I had a softener professionally installed, after screwing around with 2 bad units from Lowe's trying to DIY the job.

Same with my R.O. system. Both units installed ran around $1,200.00 give or take. Which I didn't think was too bad at all. I have very good water for drinking, showering, and washing clothes. My salt usage is minimal. 3, 40 pound bags of pellets will last me from 2-1/2 to over 3 months. The softener regenerates about once a week with just my wife and I. Depending on how much wash she does.
 
Back
Top