XP: Point-of-entry water filtration/treatment systems?

inamra

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right board for this type of question but I'm trying the Green Living and Decorating/Renovating boards for help. I'm usually on TheBump but DH and I recently bought a house and we currently have a boil water notice in our area. We're looking for a entire-home water filtration/treatment system and was wondering if anyone has any experience with anything like this? TIA!

CDMay2006

I don't know anything about them.  Is the notice b/c of flooding?  Best of luck!

sunshine_day_dreams

I don't know anything about them.  BUT if you have a boil water notice, I would boil it and not rely on filtration.  There are organisms that can get through the filters and they need the heat to kill them.

inamra

Thanks for the replies!

The notice is not because of flooding, but because of lack of adequate treatment on our water company (it's a small private company that went bankrupt so the dept of public health stepped in and issued the notice).

Yeah, I wouldn't just rely on things like carbon filtration but have heard that UV should kill microorganisms/bacteria/viruses--I just don't know to what extent and whether it would take care of a boil water notice. I've tried to do a lot of research on the CDC/EPA websites, as well as NSF (certification for water treatment systems) but they don't specify that either, even though the NSF has UV certifications, but I can't find anything that addresses boil water advisories in particular (even if it may). Certain water treatment companies claim certain things but I don't know how to "prove" it and with something as important as water safety, I don't want to take any risks. So I wanted to ask around to see if anyone possibly has any experience with this sort of thing. I know it's rare though but figured I'd at least try.

We don't mind boiling the water for cooking and drinking but I'm mainly concerned about showers/baths. My toddler is too young to understand and often drinks the bath water and it's hard to control it all the time and I don't want him to get sick, but it's not going to be really feasible to boil his bath everyday. Also, I'm currently 5mo pregnant, so I don't want to potentially be showering in E.Coli or something. So that's the main reason I'm looking for a treatment system of some sort.

jennyk213

I'm not sure if this will help you or not but I did some research a while back on this. The husband of someone on my local nest board works with water testing/treatment and said the first step was to get our water tested to so we could figure out what we wanted to filter out. A test was outside of our budget so we never actually did it and we just buy filtered water for cooking and drinking. Anyway, once you get the water test to see what you need to filter out, you can look for products that meet your requirements (and hopefully are independently tested so you are sure they do what they say they do).

Also, a condo we stayed at in Mexico had a point of entry reverse osmosis system and we didn't have any issues drinking the water. That might be a good place to start. 

CDMay2006

Oh my gosh, that suck so bad!  There should be filtration options, since there are portable options (for backpacking), but i don't know what they are.  I wish i could offer more information... good luck with all this!

SuperGreen

We're moving to a farm in a few weeks, and in order to determine the water quality we took samples to a lab.  It was about $200.  We tested for heavy metals (lead), bacteria, and other contaminants (arsenic, etc..).  The metals test came back fine, the bacteria test failed.  So our landlord is putting in a UV filter, which will kill the bacteria.  Unfortunately I don't know if that would be enough if we had a boil notice in our area.  I would look up water testing labs in your area and ask them, I'm sure they would know.  I would also get your water tested so you know what kinds of contaminants you're dealing with.  Heavy metals and other particulates would require a filter, like a whole-house reverse osmosis system or you could go with a large countertop filtration unit like a Berky.  Those won't kill bacteria though, you'd need a UV light for that.  I hope that helps!