Question:
I Does anyone know of an unbiased source for water filter comparisons?I'm looking into a whole house filter and can't seem to find anydecent info that doesnt' come from someone selling the equipment.Consumer reports' comparison seemed pretty lame. I had a Rainsoft rep come to my house for what turned out to be aloooong sales pitch only to try to convince me to buy a $7,000+system. There must be other alternatives that work!

I live in Charleston, SC and have city water. I just don't trustwhat's in it. Anyone with filter experiences out there?

Answer: Depends a lot on what you are trying to filter. If your water ishard, then a demand-type of water softener will do the job. We haveused Sears water softeners in several houses since the early 60's andnever had a significant problem with them. Our current Sears demandsoftener uses very little s We got a year's supply (bag a month)of salt with the softener. That was a year ago and I still have somuch salt in the garage I can't hardly get around it.

If it is impurities in the water that you want to filter, then youneed to look at what you are really trying to do. Do you really needto filter the water to your toilets and showers? You need pure waterfor drinking and cooking - period. For that we have a Culligan filtergoing to our ice maker in the refrigerator, and a Culligan filter inour kitchen faucet (Moen). The one to the ice maker (actually in thereefer) needs changing once a year at $35. The one in the faucet lastabout 6-months at $25 each. Both remove giardia (cysts) and numerousother elements like lead, chlorine, asbestos, lindrane, etc. Theseare not just taste filters.

We are in the process of changing out the one that takes a filter inthe kitchen sink faucet to a 5-stage Watts reverse osmosis system fordrinking water. This is the same process used by major bottled watercompanies. About $140 at Costco.com, but you have to be a member.You can buy similar systems at Home Depot, etc.

When we get done, we will have soft water at every faucet except theoutside hose bibs. And we will have very well filtered water in theice maker, and perfectly filtered water in the sink for drinking.Note that you can hook up the ice maker to the reverse osmosis system,but it's a long way to the refrigerator from the sink and it may notbe worth the effort.

You don't need to spend anywhere near $7,000 for soft and filteredwater. If you had to start from scratch, around $1,000 would give youa water softener and reverse osmosis water filter installed. Might bea little more depending upon how much re-plumbing they have to do forthe softener. If you are only after pure drinking water, $300 or lessshould do it.

this is the same problem I have encountered - but I want whole housefiltering and NOT softened water, as the municipal water is not hard. But Ihate the smell and taste of chlorine and other chems which I want to filterout. currently using a GE Smart Water filter, but have to change the filter($21) monthly to keep pressure up.