Contaminants Possibly in Your Water
- Lead
- Chloramines
- Hydrogen Sulfide
- Pesticides
- VOCs
- THMs
- Calcium Carbonate
- Magnesium
- Limescale
- E.coli
- Giardia
- Cysts
- Sand
- Silt
- Clay
- Rust
- Sediment
- Coliform Bacteria
- Cryptosporidium
- Iron
- Hydrogen Sulfide
- Manganese
- Fine Particles
In the city, when you drink water from the faucet, that water also has contaminants removed. But you may find it tastes a little different than the bottled water.
If you drink from a well, depending on how it was setup, your water will possibly have contaminants.
However, some contaminants, like iron, carry no health risks but simply just change the color of water. Others, like pesticides or giardia, have the potential of creating serious health risks. To find out if your water has contaminants, you should collect a sample and have it tested.
“…the most dangerous contaminants are those that consumers cannot see, smell or taste”
Stew Thornley
NC Sate Univ.
Benefits Of Whole-House Water Systems
You turn the water on anywhere in your house and your water is purified. You don’t need to wait, go to another room or replace any parts on a near consistent basis. You turn it on and the water is there. Those are the obvious benefits but consider these:
- healthier looking and feeling skin and hair
- longer lasting clothes from the removal of chlorine and chloramines and other chemicals
- reduction in the cost of beauty supplies
- extending the life of water-using appliances
- reducing the number of time to replace water fixtures
- extending the life of your water heater
- reducing your utility bill
- extending the life of your pipes
- reducing your carbon footprint
- protecting against breakdowns in municipal water treatment and sanitation systems
Continuous Bottled Water In Your Home
It’s possible to have bottled water safety and taste in your home by using point-of filtration products like those you attach to your faucet or pitcher filters you pour water in to and store. You can also have a whole-house water filtration or whole-house water softener (or a combination) installed.
The Difference Between Waters
Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). City water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both of them set standards for water purification, however, in some instances, standards for bottled water are different than those for city water. Lead is an example.
City Water
Because lead can leach from pipes as water travels from water utilities to home faucets, the EPA set an action level of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in city water. This means that when lead levels are above 15 ppb in city water that reaches home faucets, water utilities must treat the water to reduce the lead levels to below 15 ppb. In bottled water the lead limit is set at 5 ppb. Based on FDA survey information, bottlers easily produce water products with lead levels below 5 ppb. The reason for the lower level was the FDA goal of reducing consumers’ exposure to lead in drinking water.
Like bottled water, your city water is also tested and treated. However, in 2001, one out of every four community water systems did not conduct testing or report the results for all of the monitoring required to verify the safety. [source: EPA]. Although failure to monitor does not necessarily suggest safety problems, conducting the required reporting is crucial to ensure that problems will be detected.
Well Water
Water from the ground is easily impacted by environmental changes and those changes can happen quickly without you noticing. And the water you pump from the ground is not regulated or checked by any regulatory agency. Because their is no consistent verification process, it’s easy to miss something that could be causing health risks to you and your family. That’s why it’s imperative to have well water testedat least once a year.
The Costs of Bottled Water
Tap water costs a fraction of the price of bottled water. The same $2 you spend on a liter of bottled water will get you about 1,000 gallons of tap water [source: EPA]. That’s nearly 2000x more expensive than tap water[source: Business Insider ]
Other costs we don’t see include environmental impacts such as landfill waste, fuel consumption for transportation and petroleum for the bottles themselves.
Wisler Plumbing and Air Will Never Apply Hard Sales Tactics
We’ve installed more than 1,080 whole-house systems in and around the Roanoke, Virginia area. Less than 1% of them have asked us to remove it or have been unhappy about their decision. We like to think it’s because we don’t believe in hard-sales tactics. We’d never do that to a friend so why would we do it to you?
Wisler Plumbing and Air is always professional, thorough and provides EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE! I would definitely recommend them to anyone with plumbing or water treatment needs!!!
– David P.
If you want to learn more about whole-house water treatment or softener systems, John Sink, our Water Treatment Specialist, is happy chat. He’ll conduct a water test and if you want he’ll discuss costs, options and answer questions you may have. He’ll even tell you if you don’t need a system.
You will never be hassled with continuous sales calls from us. We’ll follow up only if you ask or if you have more questions.
