Unfortunately, much of our tap water is polluted with chemicals like arsenic, lead, and mercury. While most of these contaminants come from natural sources, they can still make you sick. That’s why it’s important to have a water filtration system in your home.
Not only will installing a water filtration system in your home help keep you healthy, but it can also help you avoid wasting money on bottled water. So, if you’re concerned about the quality of your home’s tap water, you should get a water filtration system installed as soon as possible.
How Can Poor Water Quality Affect Your Health?
Water quality in our homes is an essential consideration when discussing the health of both us and our pets. Inadequate water quality can have serious health repercussions on people and animals, including:
- Gastrointestinal illnesses
- Reproductive health problems
- Nervous system damage
- Other serious issues
What Types of Contaminants Can Be Found in Tap Water?
Tap water can contain numerous contaminants, from naturally-occurring microbes to toxins or chemicals released by man-made activities. The following are the most common of these contaminants:
- Nitrates – This contaminant is derived from fertilizers used in agriculture and can be present in tap water in high levels that may cause illnesses.
- Lead – This contaminant can be present due to rusty pipes or lead service lines, and is particularly dangerous for growing children, as it impairs their physical and cognitive development.
Other chemicals, such as arsenic, fluoride, mercury, chloramines, pharmaceuticals, and chromium are also commonly found in tap water and should be monitored over time to ensure they remain within acceptable limits.
Homeowners should become educated on what contaminants they need to watch out for, so they know how best to protect the health of their families.
How to Test Your Home’s Water Quality
Testing your own home's water quality is an important step towards ensuring the safety and health of all family members. Many at-home testing kits are available, which allow you to test for specific contaminants, such as lead or selenium.
Ensuring that your water is tested for contaminants on a regular basis is the best way to make sure you have safe drinking and bathing water in your home. Though many municipalities offer annual testing of their public water systems, it is important to remember that your pipes may contain contaminants from other places besides the public source.
To help determine if there are any contaminants in your specific piping system, make sure to turn off any valves or faucets that lead specifically into the house and avoid running any outside lines before conducting a test.
Consider purchasing a multi-test kit so you can analyze what type of chemical compounds may be present in your home's water supply.
How a Water Filtration System Can Improve Your Home’s Water Quality
Improving water quality is an important first step to both ensuring your home’s water system is a source of clean water and preventing your family from suffering health problems that can arise from polluted or contaminated water.
Solutions such as filtration, purification, and other treatment technologies can help reduce the levels of pollutants in our home’s tap water. Filtration systems like hydroponic and reverse osmosis filtration devices can remove a wide variety of impurities from water.
In addition to water filtration, water purification is another way to ensure your home’s water supply is safe. Water purification reduces the number of viruses and bacteria that are commonly found in sources of drinking water.
A few of the most common water purification processes include:
- Ultraviolet light technology
- Ozone gas injection
- Chlorination
- Activated carbon filters
To learn more about home water filtration and purification systems, or to discuss your situation with our home water filtration and purification experts in Torrance, call Carter Services at (310) 872-1898 or reach out to us online today.