The original home water filtration method was a reverse osmosis water purifier fitted to your water supply. In the years since this system was introduced, more effective and economical systems have become available and yet major players in the water industry continue to push the old system. This article looks at the disadvantages of reverse osmosis water filters.

Who Buys Them?

There are many people that are still led to believe by those selling them that the best way to filter water coming into your home is with a reverse osmosis filter system.

These systems are disproportionately expensive, starting in the region of $10,000 to supply and fit, let alone the annual running and maintenance costs. When there are systems a tenth of the price that will do a better job and have vastly reduced maintenance costs, how are people still persuaded to buy them? The answer lies in the big marketing bucks available to push this outdated product. These units cost a lot to purchase and install, making profits to large water companies lending their weight to them great; well worth their outlay financially to market hard.

The Waste

One of the many disadvantages of reverse osmosis water filters is the incredible amount of water that is flushed away as waste, in order to produce a tiny fraction of filtered drinking water.

Many using a septic system for their waste water have to upgrade to larger sizes because the tank couldn’t cope with the amount of waste-water it was accumulating. For example, between 40 to 90 gallons of waste-water is produced in order to give the householder just 5 gallons of purified drinking water. This is an unnecessary and flagrant waste of a precious commodity.

Power

This particular system needs plenty of power in order to turn waste water in to that which is drinkable. Certainly when you take into consideration the ratio of waste water to make drinking water a lot of electricity is required and this is not only bad for your home electricity bills but for the environment as well.

So Does Reverse Osmosis Make Water Safe To Drink?

The most important question that you should be asking when considering purchasing any water filtration system, especially when buying one that is costly and expensive to install.

Well, the answer is that this system makes the water safer to drink, but not necessarily safe. It does a competent job certainly, but no better than the considerably cheaper systems employing more economical methods to filter water without all the whistles and bells whilst doing so.

Simply because one of its major disadvantages is that reverse osmosis systems do not actually eradicate all the chemical contaminants and cysts that can be found in water today.

One manufacturer of such equipment has freely admitted that these units are only designed to clean up the waters aesthetic properties. They don’t in fact act as a barrier against waterborne micro-biological and toxic chemicals.

One other very small but very important disadvantages of reverse osmosis filters is that they can also remove some or all of the minerals found in water. So knowing this you would be far better off using a much more inexpensive and efficient way to provide pure clean water for you and your family.