The Best Water Filters For The Home

I’ve been reviewing water filters for about twenty years. These are the best filters I’ve found for most people are:

Very Effective: Counter-Top Reverse Osmosis Filters

I recommend the AquaTru Reverse Osmosis Filter. These filters are a reliable way to remove almost all the pollutants in municipal water. The AquaTru machine removes 99% of lead, 97% chromium, 95% copper, 93% fluoride, 96% radium, and 96% chlorine. The full list of contaminants remove can be found in this test report (PDF file).

The AquaTru filter will purify about one gallon of tap water into purified water in 12 to 15 minutes. Aquatru filters are not cheap — Amazon sells them for about $425. Replacement filter sets cost about $60 and are required every 6 months to 2 years.

Big Berkey Drip Filters: Effective For Well Water and Remote Locations

For well water or other problematic water, I recommend Big Berkey drip filters. These filters use a combination of ceramic and carbon block filtration. Overall, they are the least expensive type of filters to maintain.

Whole House Filters: A Worthwhile Investment

If you are able to spend $1500 to $3000, “whole house” filters are a sensible long terms option for home filtration. Plus, this is the only way you’ll be able to filter your shower and bath water effectively.

Whole House Filters are installed at the pipe where the municipal water pipes enter your home. I recommend the whole house filter by Pure Effect.

The Contaminants In Water That You Want To Remove

Typically, you want to remove these contaminants from your water:

• Toxic metals (Lead, Mercury, Aluminium, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, etc.)
• Additives (Chlorine, Chloramines, Fluoride)
• Chlorination By-Products (Trihalomethanes or THMs)
• VOCs and other Organic Compounds (Pesticides, Herbicides, Pharmaceuticals, Fuels)
• Bacteria and viruses (Giardia, Cryptosporidium, etc.)
• Radioactive substances (Radon and Uranium, etc.)

If you use municipal water, you will usually find these contaminants:

• Chlorine
• Chloramines
• Fluoride
• THMs (Trihalomethanes)
• VOCs (volatile organic compounds)

If you use well water, these are the most common contaminants you’ll find:

• Particulate matter (dirt, bits of leaves, etc.)
• Bacteria and viruses
• VOCs (volatile organic compounds)
• Radioactive substances

The Effectiveness Of Different Types Of Water Filters

Pitcher Filters

Pitcher-style filters such as Brita filters are inexpensive units, making them very popular with consumers. However, in the long term, they are actually one of the most expensive options. The filter cartridges require frequent replacement — the cost for 40 gallons is $7-10 each, or $130-$190 for 750 gallons.

Almost all pitcher-style filters use GAC or “granulated activated carbon” as the filtration medium. Typically, GAC is coconut husks that have been heated to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen and then granulated. These filters do remove some chlorine and hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs odor) — but are not effective at removing VOCs, metals, pesticides, or fluoride. Overall, they are not very effective water filters.

Faucet Filters

Filters that attach to your kitchen faucet are very similar to Pitcher Filters, but they do filter a little better than pitcher-style filters. However, they have the same drawbacks — they are expensive to maintain and they do not remove many contaminants. You must replace filters every 100 gallons at $20-$40 each or $140-$180 for 700 gallons.

Colin Ingram, author of The Drinking Water Book rates all faucet filters no higher than “Acceptable”.

Gravity-Fed Drip Filters

In my opinion, the best water filters are gravity-fed drip water filters. These filters are excellent at removing chlorine, chlorination by-products, fluoride, VOCs, pesticides, particulates, and pharmaceuticals. These filters use “candle” type filters, which are widely available and can be customized to your specific filtration needs.

Gravity-fed filters require no electricity to operate — water is filtered as it drips from the upper chamber to the lower chamber. Because the water is filtered slowly, the filtration is much more effective than a faucet-mounted filter. Generally, slow filtration methods tend to be best.

Berkey is the best-known drip filter, manufacturer. They make good quality filters. You might also consider ProPur filters. Their latest filter, the ProOne G 2.0, will remove fluoride — including hydrofluorosilicic acid (few filters remove this contaminant).

These filters use carbon block filtration, which works by the process of adsorption (different than absorption). In this process, the carbon attracts certain contaminants at the molecular level, and the contaminants become attached to the surface of the carbon. Once the surface of the carbon is full, the filter must be thrown out and replaced. However, the ProPur filters can be periodically scrubbed, and thus reused for years.

These filters are certified to NSF/ANSI standards #42 (test for chlorine, taste, odor, and particulates), NSF Standard #53 (tests for Cryptosporidium, Giardia, lead, VOCs, and MTBE), and NSF Standard #61 (tests that toxins aren’t leached into water). They are manufactured in England.

Berkey filters are available from Amazon for about $300.

Overall Rating: Excellent

Reverse Osmosis Filters

Reverse Osmosis filters use a membrane that removes many contaminants from water. They are usually paired with a Granulated Activated Charcoal filter to remove chlorine. Most reverse osmosis filters are installed under the sink and have a holding tank. The semipermeable membrane separates many contaminates (which usually have a larger particle size than water) from the water and rejects a large amount of water in the process. The result is a waste of several gallons of water for every gallon filtered and many naturally occurring minerals (including calcium and magnesium) are also removed from the water.

However, they are quite effective filters, in terms of removing contaminants. However, they do not reduce VOCs or pesticides (unless a Carbon Block filter is included). They can take up to an hour to filter one gallon of water and the filters need to be replaced regularly.

If you want to go this route, I recommend the iSpring Reverse Osmosis System, which is quite reliable.

Overall Rating: Very Good

Countertop Distillers

Countertop distillers are effective water purifiers, but they take some time to distill water (for example 5 hours to distill 1 gallon). They also require electricity to run, and they give off some heat and the integrated fans make some noise. Also, most distillers do not remove VOCs (like benzene) because they have a lower boiling point that water. So they will vaporize together with the stream, resulting in a contaminated distillate.

Countertop distillers that get a rating of “Excellent” from Colin Ingram in The Drinking Water Book are: Megahome Countertop Distiller, Waterwise 4000 and Waterwise 8800, Kenmore 34480, and Pure Water Mini-Classic.

Megahome Countertop Water Distiller

This distiller is sold under many brand names — it’s the most widely distributed distiller in the world. It has many quality components despite being inexpensive. It produces 1 gallon of water in 5 hours. The water is passed through a small granular carbon filter. There’s a sealed connection from the distiller to the water collection container, so there is minimal risk of contamination by air. The unit has a stainless steel boiling chamber that is easily accessible for cleaning.

The Megahome Countertop Distiller is available from Amazon for about $370.

Waterwise 4000 Countertop Distiller

This is a more powerful version of the distiller listed above. It has the same features but produces 1 gallon of distilled water in 4 hours. Also received an “Excellent” rating from Colin Ingram in The Drinking Water Book.

The Waterwise 4000 is available from Amazon for about $370.

Overall Rating: Excellent