Alkaline water filters are available in a huge and sometimes confusing range of types and prices. The technical terms used are sometimes confusing and before making a major purchase you should satisfy yourself that the water filter has a large enough capacity to handle all your drinking water needs.
Home Water Filters vary from simple jug or bottle filters with a basic charcoal filter up to serious water processing filters that will produce crystal clear water of far higher quality than municipal tap water. Cost is a major factor of course but there are some outstanding bargains in-home water filters.
Remembering your budget, think about how much you spend every week on bottled water. Bottled water comes in either 2 liters or 5-liter plastic bottles and according to which plastic the bottler uses can have a strong taste from the plastic material. Many brands of bottled water are just bottled tap water. Municipal tap water normally contains various chemicals and possibly micro-organisms
The average family drinks from 30 to 40 liters of water every week and that works out at over $1500 a year! That is for basic supermarket bottled water. Fancy imported water would double or treble that cost. That would buy a pretty fancy tap water filter.
Here is a breakdown of the different kinds of water filter available:
- Jug type water filters – commonly the Brita is the most popular and is a good choice as it comes with a good filter cartridge. It is possible to use cheaper supermarket cartridges but these often leave an aftertaste and do not last as long. There is a countertop model which uses the same Brita filter and has a larger reservoir for filtered water/Filters last around 2 months. Most jug type filters are designed to fit into a refrigerator door. Lids on this type of filter are sometimes fragile.
- Cartridges are widely available.
- Refrigerator Filters – these are plumbed into a refrigerator. This is easy to use a filter that needs to be changed every 6 months. The main advantage is that cold drinking water is always available on tap
- Under sink water filters. These are plumbed into your kitchen faucet and provide clean water on tap. They have the disadvantage of not removing micro-organisms. Should be changed every 2 or 3 months, Cost around $30 for a new cartridge. Some units have a charcoal and a ceramic cartridge and the charcoal cartridge needs changing regularly. The Ceramic cartridge needs cleaning and can normally be reused.