Residential reverse osmosis systems are one of the best systems, if you are fighting a salt water battle. If you don’t have a salt water issue, then you have options with the newer technologies that are much less expensive to buy and to operate. We will compare one of these options with reverse osmosis in this article.

The increase of chemical toxins in our environment has led to a lot of discussion about our “body burden”, the term for the total amount of these toxins in our bodies at any given time.

Toxic contaminants in the water we drinks and bathe in has long been a concern to us all, and we should be concerned, but more and more the guys in the white coats are telling us the air quality in our homes is imposing even greater burdens on our bodies. The worst toxic contaminants in the air come from chlorine byproducts such as chloroform.

In a report from the EPA, it state, “Every home in America has an elevated level of chloroform gas due to the vaporization of chlorine…from the tap and shower water.” (What they didn’t say is the dishwasher and the washing machine are not far behind the shower in chloroform output).

The quality of the air and the quality of the water in our homes can both be enhanced greatly by whole house water purification units, since they remove the toxins as soon as the water enters the home.

And, there is a compelling reason to look at RO and SF technologies before you buy, because they differ significantly in initial costs and the cost to operate.

In today’s world, cost differences might determine whether or not we can even buy a whole house unit. Very good residential selective filtration systems will run about $800. Comparable residential reverse osmosis systems are in the $10,000 range.

What causes the huge price difference?

One of the hardest things to remove from water is salt and, years ago, RO was developed as a cheaper way to clean up salt water than by using distillation. But that was when water and electricity were both very cheap. Today RO is an expensive technology as you will see.

RO systems push water through a membrane using the home’s water pressure. The membrane’s pores are microscopic in size, allowing only molecules small than a water molecule to pass through. Larger contaminants remain behind the membrane.

Some contaminants will pass through the membrane with ease, including chemicals such as chlorine and chlorine’s toxic byproducts. To capture these pollutants, and to protect the membrane, a carbon filter is always included in these systems.

The small RO systems are very slow, taking two or three hours to produce a single gallon of filtered water. Whole house units, on the other hand, can filter upwards of 2,000 gallons per day. Large or small units require a pressurized tank in order to be able to deliver a larger quantity water quickly.

The smaller RO units need the home’s water pressure to be at least 40 psi (pounds per square inch) to operate efficiently. Older homes, or well water systems, may require booster pumps. Whole house systems typically come with booster pumps.

These systems waste a large quantity of water that will not go through the membrane even with sufficient pressure applied. This water is often thrown out with the collected contaminants. The typical system wastes two to five gallons of water for each gallon that is filtered.

This waste water is recycled in some systems, however, the need for electricity, recycling, storage tanks and (maybe) booster pumps are the cause of the increased up front costs and they add to the higher cost to operate as well. And, all the extra equipment means it is more likely there are going to be additional maintenance costs too.

About 95 percent of us are on a chlorinated water system, and that means a good option to consider is selective filtration.

Selective filtration on the whole house level uses an innovative multistage filtration process consisting of mechanical filtration, redox and adsorptive filtration to rapidly process the water.

Toxic metals dissolved in the water, such as lead or mercury, are removed by a chemical exchange process using a redox filter in a simple filtration technique. Until the recent development of redox filters, only RO or distillation could remove dissolved lead and other toxic metals from water.

Over 99 percent of the chlorine, chlorine byproducts and other organic chemicals are removed by the adsorptive power of the activated charcoal. The overall process of selective filtration removes bad tastes, odors and sediment from the water and acts somewhat like a water softener, but there is no unhealthy sodium added to the water.

These systems produce filtered water rapidly (over seven gallons per minute), without electricity, storage tanks, or booster pumps. Their simplicity also makes for simpler installations.

So, if you are considering a whole house filter system to clean up the air and water in your home, you may want to give selective filtration a look.