The manufacturers of sediment water filters have enjoyed a fair number of sales over the last couple of years using an advertising campaign designed to catch the eye of mostly suburban homeowners.
These filters range from simple sand traps, to electricity driven equipment like reverse osmosis filter systems. These filters serve a purpose, but not for the average homeowner.
If you are one of the millions that have their water supplied by municipal water treatment facilities, then you have absolutely no need for a filter system that removes silt and sand.
This is because one of the main objectives of the treatment facility is to strain your water for particulates. The water travels through porous membrane filters that get progressively smaller as they go, and this removes all but microscopic particles.
There isn't a sediment water filter on the market that is going to collect a large number of particulates from water that has been through the treatment facility.
Their equipment is designed for demineralization, so you don't have to worry about particulates showing up in your water.
What you do have to worry about though is everything that the treatment facilities do not remove from your water.
Did you know that just about every one of the 80,000 industrial chemicals we use everyday in order to make our lives easier ends up in the water supply?
How about the fact that the favored method for disposing of out of date pharmaceuticals is flushing them down the toilet as recommended by the pharmaceutical companies?
Do you realize that the chemical used most often to disinfect our water was once used a chemical weapon?
It is impossible for the porous membrane filters of the water treatment facilities to eliminate chemical contaminants from our drinking water, so obviously sediment water filters aren't going to help you here either.
Expensive, wasteful reverse osmosis equipment features an activated carbon filter that will remove chemical matter from your water. What are you going to do about cysts and toxic heavy metals though?
Cysts are chlorine resistant parasites that are a threat to the health of everyone that drinks unfiltered tap water.
A special filter that uses sub micron technology is necessary in order to effectively remove these microbes from your water.
Toxic heavy metals such as copper and lead are eliminated through the use of an ion exchange, which swaps sodium and potassium for the heavy metals in your water and also balances your pH levels.
A sediment water filter is needed in places where the only available water comes from wells, and a simple sand trap will do just fine here.
Some people dependant on well water choose to use reverse osmosis filter systems, because they perform demineralization and reduce chemicals. They would be better off with the same countertop tap water system people in the suburbs should be using, and using the low budget sediment filter to trap sand and silt.
Sediment water filters may not be useful to everyone, but a tap water purifier featuring granular activated carbon, submicron technology, and an ion exchange certainly will be.
