Whole house water filter
Is it a good idea to install a water filter for the whole house? Have any of you installed one and is there a brand that you’d recommend.
Guest User | 4 years ago
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andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
JH, this is true. when i lived in other parts of the country, people knew if they had hard water or not. there was no discussion about it and often, in more traditional homes where the men did not partake in laundry duty, it was the women who were concerned with the water hardness. not to sound sexist, but it was a women’s kitchen table topic. rarely did men talk about it.
another thing about this sort of discussion. if we were not in a city but were in a more rural setting with both a different kind of workforce and with hard water, we would have more input here from folks who understand it – perhaps even geologists. there are still people on eastern long island who have their own wells; i have cousins who have a well and they have to have it tested for chemicals that had been used on the farms in the 1950’s and the next time i go to their house i will ask about the water hardness and i bet i will get more details than all of us on this board can m ention, combined.
i pushed the part about the pipes closing up to make those who question whether they have hard water or not to really think about what they have seen with their own eyes.
JohnHancock | 3 years and 11 months ago
Those that have or had hard water will know the difference, you don’t have to wonder and guess if you do. Coffee machines, teakettle, washing machines, showerstalls. It doesn’t take longer than a week to realize you have hard water, also the taste is not the same at all. NYC does not have hard water
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
so this leads us to this: when we did our bathroom i decided to switch out the pipes that lead up to the bathroom from the basement and i expected to find them narrowed down with deposits; they were not. they were as clean as whistles. so in reading about hard water, there were pictures of pipes cut out of buildings in hard water regions and they were closed down with calcium deposits. what is others experience with the old pipes in there houses – here in NYC? and perhaps in other regions?
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
bob, that is exactly what i am suggesting – or it came from the sky onto the hilltops (the swiss consider the catskills hills) and flowed to the reservoirs.
i have something for you, next post.
hkapstein | 3 years and 11 months ago
It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s just because new york is awesome compared to other places.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 3 years and 11 months ago
I’ll make a guess Steve. In the past there were periods when lack of winter snowfall lead to a water shortage here so I suspect that the reservoirs are filled with water that falls from the sky, without any significant contribution from groundwater.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
so last night i googled “why is the NYC water so soft” and the result i found said “the water comes from the catskills and the water in the catskills is soft” i gave up at that point but i would still like to know if it is because the reservoirs are stocked with mountain runoff that falls from the sky or if the region’s underground water is soft. No geologists out there?
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
and here is another report that says long island has the most contaminated water in NYS and NYC the least contaminated: https://www.wshu.org/post/report-long-island-has-most-contaminated-drinking-water-new-york#stream/0
i am still curious as to why NYC’s water hardness is lower than most areas and i would be interested to know if it is because it comes down out of the hills as opposed to up through the aquifer. that has to be it though as most people i knew who had wells in the south had water softeners or at least knew what they were and we hear very little about them here. i just check and even the water on long island is softer than most of the water around the US.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
you know the city has all these silver boxes on the streets that stand about 5′ tall and they say “DEP water sampling station”. and that got me thinking; i once worked in a building where the DEP had no street sampling stations so they would come ask to take monthly samples from our building. (at some point the union began balking that the water in the building was “bad” so i made sure that the DEP sent a copy of the monthly report over to me). that got me thinking – they must have a public water quality report and i have attached a link to it below. according to the US Gov, calcium carbonate and magnesium are the causes of hard water and it looks like NYC, with readings between 16 and 106 mg/l of calcium carbonate fall into the low to moderate hardness range but when we consider that the average of the reading of all the samples (for the year?) come to 24 mg/l, NYC has soft water.
Here is a link to a USGS r eport on water quality and they show a map indicating hardness around the country:
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
and for those of us on here who have never had to live in a region where the water softeners are needed, you will not understand why they are needed. the water is horrible in some places and it is disgusting to dry an old iron frying pan on a burner top (yes, we did that in my lifetime) and see a ring of minerals and whatever else (whiteish treatment salts which i suppose are minerals) sitting in the pan. as i mentioned, the Wilmington City water was horrible (and that was from a river). Suffolk County water is only a tad better (because fussy yankees won’t have it any other way) and for those on here who have recently discovered a village called Greenport on the North Fork, that water is horrible and i have meant to see what they treat it with (when i drink it i feel thirstier after i drink it though that may have to do with other things we drink during the evenings when we are out there, not sure). my relations in Greenport all had private wells until sometime when i was in college in the 1980’s and they had no idea what water softeners were and if they were al ive today they would have no idea what any of this discussion is about; my great grandfather’s house had a hand pump over the kitchen sink until 1948 when my grand aunt put “modern” plumbing in that house for them.
even the water here in Queens was different when i moved here in 1995. it tasted different than the water in manhattan and it was cloudy. i was worried that something was wrong so i called the DEP and they told me “the queens water (was) from ‘Jamaica Water’ and they ‘aerate’ the water and that is why it is cloudy” (aeration keeps it “fresh” is what they told me). Jamiaca Water pulled their water out of wells, i think five wells (maybe nine and they used five at any one time) in Jamaica Queens (yes, i once looked that up; i wanted to be sure their wells were not under a metal plating facility or benzidene plant or something). it has since closed down and about 15 years ago they put a new tunnel in that tied parts of queens into the NYC reservoir system.
Chris, i suspect the softener companies are telling you that they cannot get a foothold here because of “rumors” that NYC water is good. in truth, it tastes much better than the water other places and i suspect a chemical analysis would would indicate that the water is better than the water in other places and the demand from consumers is just not there in NYC (i think bob m said is is considered “soft”). i suspect most people here are more worried about biological contamination at this point and less about minerals and heavy metals. i won’t get worried until guys who used to fly airplanes into buildings for a past time decide to drop things from planes into the reservoirs.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 11 months ago
i have had conversations with people about NYC water starting when i was still living in North Carolina after college. we were discussing water quality in the carolinas and where we lived the water was pulled from the Cape Fear River (just below where a hog slaughter house was dumping blood into the river) and was treated with something that left a ring in the frying pan. and it tasted bad. i was at the home of a local and if anyone knows the south they also know that the locals love to deride anything about the north and new york and new jersey in particular. i said “well, I suppose the water here is better than what they have in NYC” and this man (well read and traveled; i will be a name dropper, his name was Claude Flynn Howell; google him) said “the contrary. NYC water comes from the mountains and is the best in the world”. that was in the early 1990’s.
in the south they had water softener companies – i know one family who got their foothold in the south about 1920 (in charlotte) by moving there to open a water softener company and i know someone else who ran one in the 1980’s and wanted me to help run a route, delivering the treatment chemicals. it seemed popular there and i have wondered why and i did call my mother last week (long island) and brought this post up and she said they also need them on Long Island as the water comes up from an aquifer and picks up minerals (as opposed to down from a mountain; i think, i think that is the implication) and in her case, she has burned out two kerigs because of the minerals and her failure to clean them. she added filters to her tap water and it helps. (so for people here, if you are not cleaning your kerigs and they are not burning out, perhaps there is less of a need for water softeners here? bob marvin mentioned a good soap lather, no?)
to chris petri’s post, about 20 years ago there was an article in the NYT that said the days of clean water for NYC are over and due to development of the area around the reservoirs and related runoff, they are or had to start thinking about treating our water. i do believe they opened a treatment plant under one of the parks someplace, was it in central park? van cortland park? but this was less for minerals and more for bacteria.
we have a friend who lives very near a reservoir in New Bedford and there is a whole list of do’s and don’t for people living near the reservoirs and the NYC DEP has people up there enforcing the rules which rubs some locals the wrong way – big city money exerting its influence.
Guest User | 4 years ago
Once I have done some more research or brands/filter, will post on what I find. Thank you all, very helpful.
Guest User | 4 years ago
I read that as well Chris, thanks for sharing.
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years ago
Water Treatment is a major part of the Plumbing Industry all over the country…except for New York City. All the manufacturers will tell you the same thing: they cannot get a foothold in New York City. They all say it is because of how fabled New York City water is even though regular tests show otherwise.
That being said I do have a filter myself as do most plumbers I know; it really is not because of the source of the water but yet the system of piping it needs to go through to get to my house.
lkrshacmzcy | 4 years ago
Water Treatment is a major part of the Plumbing Industry all over the country…except for New York City. All the manufacturers will tell you the same thing: they cannot get a foothold in New York City. They all say it is because of how fabled New York City water is even though regular tests show otherwise.
That being said I do have a filter myself as do most plumbers I know; it really is not because of the source of the water but yet the system of piping it needs to go through to get to my house.
Lurker | 4 years ago
NY water is 90 percent unfiltered which is amazing and why NYers love to tout it as being special. There’s some truth to that however it is also a bit of hype, as our water is chlorinated just like suburban systems and you can smell and taste it. I don’t have a system yet but am interested as I get all kinds of crud in our aerators, scale etc. There are all kinds of filters and some may require a monthly check but others are every 6 months—depends what you get.
stevecym | 4 years ago
I did bring this up with someone on long island and they said the water had more minerals and needed to be softened and hence the filters.
Guest User | 4 years ago
Thank you. I was waiting to see a response from someone who had installed one. You touch upon many of the things things I had heard or read and included details that will help me make a decision. Thank you also for the info about needing pipes and extra room. After multiple plumber mishaps, I finally have one I like.
It sounds like a good investment depending on where the ‘thousands’ falls. If I chose something less expensive I could do what urbandad and bob are suggesting. I had initially planned to go that route but wanted to understand the benefits of this approach.
If you don’t mind me asking, how much do the filter costs run per month? And did you use a site or talk to someone to help you decide which filter to buy?
markwalker | 4 years ago
We have just installed a whole house filter.
Some things to consider:
—it will cost thousands for a good one, plus installation by a licensed plumber
—The kind we got filters out particulate matter, chemicals and it softens the water. In a 3 step process. You can choose a system that does only a few of those tasks or all.
—you will need space in your basement near your water hook-up (extra extension pipes added by the plumber will add to the cost)
—You will have a new maintenance task every month — changing the filter. You will have the added expense of the filters. And if you will be scared or disgusted to see how much gunk is collected by the filter don’t buy one.
—If filters are not changed in a timely way once they become dirty your water flow, showers, etc will become a trickle. It’s not optional to forget to change the filter.
—if you want to use a garden hose, mix cement or wash your car, you can and should turn it off for a bit. A small nuisance.
—Your laundry will be cleaner, your coffee will taste great and your friends will stop bringing bottled water w ith them when they visit you.
Only you can decide if it is worth it. We are happy, I must add. But up to you.