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Water Filtration Systems: P.O.E. and P.O.U.

Water Treatment

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There are two main types of water filtration systems commonly installed in most homes: Point of Entry (P.O.E.) systems and Point of Use (P.O.U.) systems.

P.O.E. systems are best suited for the water flowing throughout your entire home as it increases the water’s quality from bad or okay to good. P.O.U. systems are best suited for specific parts of your home as they raise the water’s quality from good to great.

Where to Use These Systems

Each system has a practical use, but where to use which system is determined by the water grade level needed for specific tasks.

Utility Grade

Utility grade water is achieved with a P.O.E system and works best for utilitarian tasks as it contains no harsh chemicals or bacteria. It’s safe for washing clothes as it won’t cause water damage or water spots while doing laundry.

Laundry Grade

Laundry grade, or showering water, also achieved with a P.O.E. system, is softer than utility grade water as it isn’t harsh on the skin. This water is gentle enough for washing your hair or doing laundry.

Cooking Grade

Cooking grade, or drinking water, is achieved with a P.O.U. system. This water shouldn’t be filtered throughout the entire house as it will be expensive and difficult to maintain in the long run. If you were to run unfiltered water through a P.O.U system, the system wouldn’t last long.

Some Things to Keep in Mind

It takes good water to make great water–meaning you need a P.O.E system to clean up the water before running it through a P.O.U. system.

P.O.U. systems filter out particulates and anything that could have been dissolved in the water to make it safe for consumption. This, however, strips the water down to its purest form as a solvent. In this state, if water were to pump through your entire house, it would corrode the fittings in your home over time.

P.O.E. systems can be water softeners and water treatment/filtration systems. If we’re trying to filter something dissolved in the water or something we can’t see with the naked eye, we’ll need to perform water treatment. If we’re trying to filter a particulate or something we can see with the naked eye, we’ll need to perform water filtration.

If you have questions about your water and current water systems, call Wisler Plumbing and Air at 540-483-9382.

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Anyone should be knowledgeable about what’s in their water. Unfortunately, many Americans take safe drinking water for granted until they realize they’re diagnosed with lead contamination from tap water.

But what’s in it?

The thing is that we’ll never truly know unless we buy bottled water or have our water tested. American water suppliers are required to uphold a certain level of quality by the government, still, the violations remain rampant.

We’ll never know if lead, chlorine or any other harmful compounds lurk in the tap. Good quality water is essential to our survival and daily operations, and reverse osmosis can help maintain its superb quality.

Here we’ll check out what a reverse osmosis system is, and discover the perks of having one in your home.

What is A Reverse Osmosis System

Reverse osmosis systems are the finest filtration you can get to remove contaminants and other harmful substances from your water. But what exactly is it?

Reverse osmosis is the process of extracting fresh, clean drinking water from unfiltered water using pressure through a semipermeable membrane. What this means is that tap water (higher contamination level) is forced through a filter to produce clean water.

The freshwater extracted is referred to as permeate, while the leftover liquid filled with contaminants is called brine or waste.

In case you’re wondering, the semi-permeable membrane is the substance that filters the water. It has small pores or holes that allow pure water molecules to pass through while blocking contaminants behind.

What Contaminants Does An R.O. System Remove?

According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, there are contaminants that water treatment technologies like R.O. systems prevent:

  • Chemical contaminants including chlorine, fluoride, arsenic, copper and lead
  • Volatile Organic Compounds like tetrachloroethylene, PCE and MTBE
  • Viruses like hepatitis A, norovirus and rotavirus
  • Bacteria like coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Shigella
  • Protozoa like Cryptosporidium and Giardia
  • Herbicides and pesticides
  • Physical sediments

Reasons To Install a Reverse Osmosis System

1.   Your drinking water will go from good to great

Have you ever wondered why some different waters taste different? Some are A-okay, others taste like the nectar of the gods, while others are just plain bad. One reason behind this could be the high concentration of TDS or total dissolved solids. Another angle to look at are the copper sediments from your possibly aged copper plumbing.

Water filtered using reverse osmosis has a very clean taste to it. The reason is that sediments that cause the salty, bitter or milky taste are removed.

2.   You get to concoct the best-tasting tea and coffee

Sometimes the difference between a good coffee and a best-tasting one isn’t the coffee grounds per se. It’s the water.

Chlorine and other minerals found in tap water affect the coffee’s overall flavor, giving them an off-putting taste. On the other hand, The Roasterie Coffee Company says R.O. water will not only taste good but improve your cup of joe.

3.   You experience convenience like no other

Some people are compelled to buy a bunch and stock up on water bottles because of the tap water’s quality. With an R.O. system at your disposal, there’s no longer a need for those. You can simply get one of those Nalgene tumblers, put some ice and fill it up with R.O. water. You get the same healthy and fresh-tasting goodness as commercially bought liquids.

4.   You keep your homecooked meals safe

Tap water is chemically imbalanced and can have adverse effects when used to wash or cook food. Moreover, hard water (unfiltered and contaminated water) can affect the cooking process. These undesirable chemicals like chlorine and fluoride can seep through the food and enter the body upon consumption.

Reverse osmosis water eliminates or significantly reduces this risk. Keeping food safe and clean for the family.

If you need a Reverse Osmosis system set up for your home or business, give Wisler Plumbing and Air a call at 540-483-9382.

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In the last post we talked about a day in the life of a water treatment installer. This time let’s take a look at water technicians. The big difference between a technician and an installer is that the installer will just install or replace equipment that needs to be upgraded, whereas the technician is going to be doing both maintenance and service to existing units that need to be kept in good working condition. It might be a new client that has older equipment or someone who doesn’t have a maintenance agreement and has a unit that needs to be worked on.

Similar to a water treatment installer, a typical day for a water technician starts with breakfast that we offer here in the company. The team talks with each other and goes over what their day is going to look like. The technician has to prepare for their routes because they might make anywhere from 4 to 6 stops a day. They need to load the materials and parts ahead of time to be prepared and efficient enough to head home before it gets super late. Unlike an installer, the technician’s day is spent communicating either with the clients or with the office and dispatch. Because technicians go to more jobs, they need to be very comfortable with communication, collaboration, and time management. They diagnose systems where the water might not be correct, so there’s definitely more of a problem-solving skillset required for this role.

Water treatment installers and water technicians are very different from each other. It really depends on the person as to where they’re a better fit. If someone doesn’t really like a great deal of communication and collaboration, they’ll probably fit better in the installer role, whereas if someone gains energy from working with a wide range of people, then they can really shine in the service-oriented role of a technician.

We’re definitely looking for water treatment apprentices to join our team right now. If you’re interested, be sure to head over to WislerJobs.com for more information. Or if you need a new water treatment system in your home, just give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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I love my job to pieces, but one area of our business that I could see myself loving just as much is water treatment. It’s just so cool to take not-so-great water and make it become really great. Water treatment is such an essential part of what we do—it’s cool to be able to make people happy with the water they use for drinking, laundry, washing cars, and cooking. That’s just part of what a water treatment installer gets to experience on a typical day.

The day generally starts with some breakfast, which we offer here in the company. This is when the team talks about the installs, service calls, and maintenance calls they have lined up for the day. After that is handoffs, which is where the service tech or salesperson who gained the customer’s approval to put in a new unit will meet with the installer and hand off a packet of information including pictures and job instructions. We do handoffs so the customer expectation isn’t dropped and the installer knows what they need to do, where they need to do it, and how they need to do it. (These handoffs usually aren’t for jobs lined up on that same day, just to give everyone enough time to be prepared.)

Next, the installer will prep the water treatment equipment and load up all the supplies with job packets that are laid out in the warehouse. They will try to make sure to get to their destination on time and talk with the customer (if available) to discuss what work they’re going to do, how long it’s expected to take, and whether they’ll meet again at the end of the day.

Certain tasks have different timeframes, including soaking media with water, backwash, and the cleaning process. Installers make sure to do all of these at the right time to be as efficient as possible. If present, the technician will review the new piece of equipment with the customer so they know how to work it, what to do if it starts beeping, and how to take care of issues if they don’t have a service agreement. (We like to review these topics just to make sure the customer is 100% satisfied.) Then the installer collects the agreed upon amount and moves on to get ready for the next day.

We’re definitely looking for water treatment apprentices to join our team right now. If you’re interested, be sure to head over to WislerJobs.com for more information. Or if you need a new water treatment system in your home, just give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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I think it’s important to provide a clear, simple way for people to understand the difference between water filtration and water treatment.

Water filtration removes anything you can see in the water. Some particles can’t be seen unless there are a lot of them—take coffee, for instance. What makes coffee brownish or blackish in color? It’s actually very, very small particles in the water. If you introduce enough of those particles, the water changes color. It’s also like dropping a handful of mud into water and stirring it up. The tiny bits of dirt will cause the water to become a different color. Filtration is measured in microns (µ) and filters can block particles of different sizes. Your naked eye can see a 20 micron particle. Anything smaller than that will not be visible to your eye unless there’s a whole bunch of them. All of these particles are handled by filtration.

Water treatment, on the other hand, removes things you cannot see. These things are completely dissolved in the water. They do not produce a smell and they do not discolor the water. Water softeners are a kind of treatment, and they use something called ion exchange. The word exchange is important here because if you want to remove an element from the water, you have to put another element into it. Exchange is essentially what treatment does—you’re exchanging one element in the water for another. In the case of hardness, the treatment/softener removes calcium from the water by introducing sodium.

That raises the question, if you can’t see or smell anything in the water, how can you find out if something is there? It all starts with a water test to make sure we’re not making any assumptions. We must test the water to verify if there’s something like iron or calcium, and to find out how much there actually is. If there is a sulfur smell, is it really sulfur in the water? The exact substance and amount is best determined through testing.

Once you know what is or isn’t in your water, you can make a decision about what needs to be done. Some homes only have filters (like reverse osmosis) because there’s no iron/hardness in the water. Other homes do have hardness and might need some sort of treatment to remove it. (This happens a lot with city water.) If you would like to get your water tested, reach out to the team at Wisler Plumbing & Air. Contact us online today or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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I think most people who hear the word osmosis think of plants absorbing water. But we’re talking about reverse osmosis today, which is generally referred to in RO drinking water or RO treatment. Reverse osmosis treatment is a way to purify food-grade water for cooking and drinking. It’s generally done at the point of use (e.g., the kitchen sink). One thing to remember about RO is that it takes good water to make great water. If really bad water was put through reverse osmosis, the filter would get plugged up very quickly.

Reverse osmosis is a pretty extensive process, with four different stages of filtration. Water first goes through a pre-filter to remove any sediment particles large enough to get trapped. After traveling through the filter, the water goes through the reverse osmosis membrane. In layman’s terms, the membrane is a piece of plastic that the water runs through. Any contaminants or larger particles will get caught in the membrane and might cause it to get stopped up. To get the water to go through the plastic, it has to have enough pressure and be at the right temperature. The hotter the water is, the easier it will go through the plastic. Higher pressure helps too, but is limited because the membrane is extremely fine.

If you run a gallon of water through an RO system, it will produce about a half gallon of drinking water. Basically, this means that 50% of the water is wasted. The other half gallon of water is actually used to rinse the membrane and keep contaminants from stopping it up. (This water goes down the drain.) The amount of wasted water isn’t anything to be alarmed about, though. It doesn’t really add up to a ton because a person will generally only drink a gallon or so every day. After the filtered water leaves the membrane, it goes into two different post-filters that use carbon to polish the water. The purpose of this step is to improve the taste of the water and make it as attractive as possible for drinking and food-grade purposes.

Because of the 50:100 ratio of usable water, it takes a little bit of time for the RO filtration to do its job. There’s usually a 2 gallon storage tank that’s part of the system so you’ll have plenty of water immediately available for use. Sometimes overnight or whenever you use a lot of water, the system will kick in, start making more water, and reserve it in this tank. The storage tank easily fits right under the sink because it’s only about 12” tall and 10” around. But since it does take up some space, we might be able to put the system elsewhere and just run a little tube to the sink. (This really depends on the house. There needs to be a place where we have access to run the little plastic tube.) In my house, the reverse osmosis system is located in my mechanical area in the basement instead of under the sink.

There are three different levels of water: utility grade water that’s useful only for pressure washing or car washing, laundry grade water that won’t stain fixtures, and then food-grade water that’s only used for drinking and cooking. It doesn’t make sense to put food grade water throughout the entire house. Not only would that be really expensive, but it is corrosive and not suitable for whole-home use.

To learn more about using reverse osmosis in your home, contact us online or give us a call at 540-483-9382.

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