The Water Treatment Process (and Why You Need an In-Home Water Treatment System)

Many people don’t think much about the water that comes out of home faucets. The quality of the water we drink at home is affected by the pipes we use and the natural landscape. All of these things can cause the water to absorb minerals that are not very good for our health.

To combat this, many people have started drinking bottled water. However, lots of research has found that the quality of bottled water may be no better for you than tap water. In fact, bottled water can get contaminated as a result of elements in the plastic leaching into the water.

A move to a more health-conscious society has led to many people installing in-home water treatment systems. You may have heard of terms like filters, diffusion, and reverse osmosis—which are key parts of water treatment systems—but what exactly do these processes do?

Why treat water?

Water is essential to humans, but we can’t just drink any water. For example, if we were lost at sea with no fresh water, we couldn’t rely on the seawater to quench our thirst. It would end up making us more dehydrated. The same thing happens with the freshwater supply that we rely on to come through our taps. If we drink it directly from the source, there may be some bacteria or viruses that could make us sick.

That is why before we receive the water in our taps, the water companies treat our water. This process is designed to improve the overall quality of the water and remove any naturally occurring minerals, sediments, bacteria, and parasites that are harmful to humans.

The local authorities regulate this process throughout the US, which creates one of the safest sources of water in the world.

The Process

Water flows from freshwater sources into water treatment plants where the water goes through four stages before being put into storage for distribution. These are the four stages:

  • Coagulation and Flocculation- Chemicals are added to the water. These chemicals have a positive charge which draws dirt and unwanted particles into larger flocs.
  • Sedimentation- When this occurs, the floc slowly falls to the bottom of the treatment tank.
  • Filtration- The water at the top will then pass through filters to remove dirt, rocks, sand, and other particles such as bacteria and parasites.
  • Disinfection- Once the water passes through the filtration process, a disinfectant is added to the water to kill any other bacteria and germs that are still present.

Despite this long process, some unwanted by-products of the disinfection process can remain as can other minerals that we don’t really want. This can affect the smell and taste of the water and its overall benefits to human health. This is the reason why many people have started using water treatment systems at home.

In-Home Water Treatment Systems 

There are many kinds of systems on the market such as:

  • Water Softeners
  • Water Filters
  • Reverse Osmosis Filters
  • Distillation Systems

All of these in-home water treatment systems are in place to remove any impurities or allergens from the water. The problem in the past was that these systems were seen as too expensive for installation in the average household. In recent years, this has changed with the development of home reverse osmosis systems that are not only cost-effective but also easy to install and clean. There are many benefits to installing a reverse osmosis system. These include:

  • Better taste
  • Removal of a greater range of contaminants
  • Better for kitchen appliances as the water is less hard
  • More environmentally friendly
  • Better for the healthy development of children

It’s not as Complicated as It Sounds 

The technology utilizes a system that seabirds naturally use to filter out salt and sediments from saltwater. This isn’t much different to the process that a home water treatment system uses.

The main difference is that the system uses the water pressure of your household water supply to push water through its membrane and filters. The membrane and filters act as a barrier to dissolved sediments and chemicals, such as chlorine.

This means that when the water reaches your glass, it is fresh and clean—minus the stuff you don’t want, which goes down the drain. This leaves you to enjoy all the benefits that clean water brings.

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