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Faucet mount filters and water pitchers are class III devices that do little more than improve the taste of water. Unfortunately, most leave in dangerous heavy metals like lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic, and are completely ineffective at removing chloramine, fluoride, PPCPs, and other toxic water pollutants. At best they are very poor substitutes for a quality water treatment system. At worst, if people don't change the cartridges frequently they can breed harmful levels of bacteria and mold. They are a waste of money. Avoid them.
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More problematic are refrigerator filters. They are no better at removing toxic contaminants than faucet mounted devices, but the problem is that the cartridges in these devices should be changed every three to six months to avoid the build-up of dangerous levels of bacteria. Most people don't change these filters every once every year if at all. If you have one of these, either change the filter at least every six months, use a filter that contains KDF®55 media to keep the cartridge bacteriostatic, or disconnect it.
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Filters that employ high quality carbon blocks complexed with a lead-adsorbant resin and silver or KDF®55 bacteriostatic media are the entry level of serious water treatment systems. The carbon block construction avoids channeling so the best of these are certified by the NSF to protect from cysts like Cryptosporidium and Giardia. Lead adsorbant resin removes dangerous levels of lead, and the KDF®55 and/or silver used in these devices are non-toxic to humans, but either can keep the carbon block from breeding harmful levels of bacteria. The best of these use coconut shell vs. bituminous carbon. This makes them effective not only on chlorine and its disinfection by-products, but also good for organic pollutants like insecticides, herbicides, fuel additives, pharmaceutical residues and the like. The problem with this class of product is that they are totally ineffective against fluoride, arsenic, chloramine, and most kinds of microbiological pathogens, so if you choose to purchase one of these products, make sure your water is guaranteed microbiologically safe and does not contain arsenic and fluoride. Examples are the line of MultiPure products and a wide variety of others sold on health-related websites or through companies like Amway.
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A incremental upgrade to the carbon blocks discussed above are the Ultracarb® ceramic filters made by Doulton®. These provide a cleanable ceramic shell that incorporates silver into the ceramic matrix, along with a high quality powdered activated carbon block lining that does an excellent job of removing lead. These units retain all the functionality of the standard carbon block discussed above, but are capable of doing a slightly better job on bacteria and virus. Don't confuse them for any other ceramic or ceramic/carbon cartridge because the others are not as effective and cartridges made without the silver complexed into the ceramic media will require frequent boiling for disinfection. Also, don't rely on them for complete microbiological protection.
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Up until a dozen years ago, the best way to assure yourself of a high quality water supply was by using a quality reverse-osmosis system. These systems were made popular by companies like Culligan, Rainsoft, Kinnetico and others. Unfortunately, many of these companies use some extremely obnoxious high pressure sales techniquest to sell average quality products at shockingly high prices. Today it is not uncommon for these companies to charge as much as $6,000 for the combination of a water softener and RO system when much better quality products are available for less than $2,000. While RO is now outclassed on most water supplies by the best cartridge-based systems, it is still a useful technology for those who prefer the taste of demineralized water, or who have high levels of sodium or colloidal turbidity in their water supply. The downside is that the best of these can only produce water at the rate of about a gallon an hour, and are only capable or storing about 2 gallons or so. One downside is that now that many municipalities are using chloramine (not chlorine) to disinfect their water supplies, the chloramine goes right through an RO system to become concentrated in the product water. If you do decide to buy one of these, be sure it is a model capable of removing chloramine. At the time of this writing the only line of RO products capable of removing chloramine are the line of LivingWaters™ Reverse Osmosis Systems. That's because they use a prefilter containing a new form of carbon media called catalytic activated carbon complexed with KDF®55 media. If you already own an RO system and want it to be able to remove chloramine, as long as your system uses standard 10" cartridges you can purchase one of this company's LW10KGAC cartridges and use it to replace the first pre-filter in your system.
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Advocates of distillers still swear by them, but the truth is that they are dinosaurs that are far too hard on our environment and have long-since outlived their usefulness. While they are capable of creating a highly demineralized and microbiologically safe product, they do so at a heavy cost in terms of electricity. There is one other serious drawback. The chloramine increasingly used by municipalites to disinfect water supplies goes right through distillers to become highly concentrated in the product water. This can cause some serious gastric irritation - especially for people who have had or are prone to ulcers and acid reflux problems, or who are otherwise sensitive to chemicals in their drinking water.
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A new fad known as "Water Ionizers" are sweeping the country. These appliances are heavily promoted through multi-level marketing schemes and others trying to take advantage of the new-found interest in the advantages of alkaline water and diets.
While most of the people promoting ionizers are well-meaning folks who have been convinced of the supposed benefits of these things, as I read their promotional material it is obvious that most of them have either no background in chemistry or weren't awake when they were in class.
In the first place it is not possible under ordinary circumstances to "ionize" water. Even if it were you wouldn't want to drink the stuff because an increase in positively charged hydrogen ions would make the water too acidic. Nor is it possible to make water molecules smaller, or clusters of water molecules smaller so that water becomes more bioavailable to the body. That is all just hype foisted on uneducated people to try to convince them to spend upwards of $4,000 on water treatment appliances that are at best marginally beneficial, and at worst, downright dangerous.
What these things actually do is separate substances that are already dissolved in water (known as ions) into two separate streams. The stream containing negative ions (anions) is dispensed as "acid" water. The stream containing positive ions (cations) is dispensed as "alkaline" water.
The problem is that there are many kinds of positively charged cations in water that are not healthy to drink at all, much less in a concentrated form. These include the heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury, and the incredibly dangerous toxin we call arsenic. The so called "alkaline" stream of water produced by these ionizers can increase the concentrations of these substances by as much as tenfold. Not only that, but they are completely incapable of making water safe from microbiological pathogens, and many other dangerous chemicals that are the reason you want a water treatment system in the first place.
I don't want to be seen as hawking one particular product, but if you truly want the benefits of healthy alkaline water without the risks, use one of the LivingWaters™ Cartridge-Based Alkalizers mentioned in our Reviews section. If complete microbiological protection is not important to you then consider one of the MultiPure or Doulton systems mentioned elsewhere. You don't have to waste thousands of dollars on one of these things.
For more detailed information consult the link Water Ionizers in our Reviews section. You can also download our special free report entitled: "10 Very Important Questions to Ask Before You Buy a Water Ionizer."
If you know someone you care about who has purchased one of these things, be sure to let them know about this report. If you have made the mistake of purchasing one of these things, unless you want to destroy your child's IQ and elevate your risk for cancer by many times, don't sell it or give it away. THROW IT AWAY! If you have made the mistake of choosing to sell these things, STOP!
Some of you won't care. But for those of you who understand the principle of karma (what goes around comes around - except multiplied,) you don't want anyone else using a device that can produce dangerous concentrations of heavy metals and arsenic in their drinking water.
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Because of recent advances in water treatment technology, unless your water is unduly salty or has extremely high levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) or turbidity, the best water treatment technology is a multi-stage cartridge based filter. Advantages of this technology include:
- Systems of this nature are capable of equalling or out-performing reverse-osmosis at removing toxic contaminants;
- Cartridge-based systems preserve healthy alkaline minerals;
- Cartridges are easily replaceable;
- Most systems can protect against cysts and some offer complete protection from all forms of microbial pathogens;
- They don't require power or high water pressure to operate.
By far and away, the best products in this category are the LivingWaters™ Cartridge-Based "Alkalizers." This company introduced capillary membrane and hollow-fiber technology to the country over 15 years ago and have led the field ever since. This technology, known as "ultrafiltration," has revolutionized water treatment because it is capable of producing water that is guaranteed safe from all forms of microbial pathogens without the need for power or water waste. Hospitals and laboratories rely on it. Even entire communities like Racine Wisconsin have switched to this method of providing high quality water to their residents. More and more communities in water-starved regions are turning to hollow-fiber technology to treat waste-water so high quality water can be returned to rivers for users downstream.
As of the time of this writing, LivingWaters™ Cartridge-Based Systems are the only water treatment systems on the market that can adequately meet every one of my requirements as outlined in my "10-Point Guide to Water Treatment Systems."
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