What would you do without a constant supply of clean, healthy water in your home? After all, you use it to wash the dishes, bathe your furry pets, serve your guest with a refreshing glass of water, and many more household and personal activities.
But as you try to find ways to combat the potential contaminants in your water, you might end up feeling a bit confused by all the technical industry terms. For instance, one company may call their product a water filter while the other may name it a water purifier. But in reality, filtration and purification are somewhat different terms.
Of course, your ability to distinguish between the two will depend on your understanding of both terms. That’s why it is good to know the specific differences between each type before making your purchase. The right system will help you to adequately protect yourself and your family from the adverse effects of possible contaminants in your drinking water. Luckily for you, we’re here to help.
In this article, we’ll help you understand the differences between water filters and water purifiers so that you can buy with confidence and hopefully get the results you desire.
The Difference Between Water Filters and Water Purifiers
Water filters and water purifiers can offer several incredible health benefits by removing certain impurities from drinking water. However, each option has its distinct water treatment processes.
Water Filters
Water filtration is the separation of pollutants from water using physical barriers or filters. Based on the size of the contaminants, the pores of the filter can retain them by only allowing the water to pass through. Many water filtration systems use activated carbon to block out unwanted microscopic contaminants from entering your drinking water. Because most toxic water impurities are carbon-based, water filters can be extremely effective at keeping your water safe and healthy. Plus, to an extent, filtration can help improve the texture of drinking water.
With that in mind, water filters can efficiently remove even the tiniest of physical and biological particles, including bacteria and microbial cysts. This is due to the filters’ ability to retain dust, bacterial cells, and other microscopic physical pollutants. While water filters usually remove more impurities than other systems, they aren’t effective against chemical contaminants. Chemical pollutants and some bacterial toxins and viruses can easily pass through the pores due to the tiny size of the particles. There are a few water filtration systems that can block these smaller-than-usual impurities, however.
Water filters use a combination of different media to attract contaminants and prevent them from entering places like your kitchen sink. Whole house filters connect to your main water line to reduce pollutants across your entire house. Most whole house filters, like the Springwell CF1 Whole House Water Filtration System, filter water by starting with a sediment pre-filter that captures sediment, silt, sand, clay, rust, and other debris. Afterward, the water moves through the KDF media to filter out some water-soluble heavy metals and even chemicals like chlorine. From there, the water flows to the coconut shell activated carbon filter. This filter removes pesticides, herbicides, PFOA, PFAS PFOS, haloacetic acids, chloramine, chlorine, and other chemical compounds that might be present. During the fourth stage, the system eliminates channeling while establishing more contact time.
An excellent and unique feature of whole house water filters is that they are highly customizable based on your needs. To enhance their functionality, you can:
- Add a water softener to reduce scale buildup in your pipes salt-free;
- Install a UV filter to destroy bacteria and viruses lurking in your water;
- Add a sub-micron post-filter to minimize any remaining sediment and organic particles in the water.
There are also other types of filters for different situations. Shower filters are perfect for treating water coming out of your showerhead. There are even drinking water filters that can sit on your countertop, in your fridge, and under your sink.
Water Purifiers
Like water filters, water purifiers work to remove impurities from water. However, water purifiers focus on killing biological contaminating agents in water with the help of either iodine or chlorine. Besides, water purification involves processes like UV treatment, distillation, deionization, and Reverse Osmosis.
Water purifiers can remove most of the contaminants based on their size, electric charge, and other attributes. Purification processes like distillation and UV treatment are potent. They can remove all impurities from water, which enhances its texture, taste, and consistency. In a way, purification is the ideal way to ensure that your water is perfectly safe.
Water filters are said to remove all of the pathogenic bacteria from water. Despite that, eliminating the bacteria does not mean that your water will be safe to drink. Nowadays, drinking water sources are getting contaminated with dangerous chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers. Such compounds can be destructive to human health as most of them can cause cancer. Thankfully, water purifiers use various methods to remove such harmful substances from water, including:
- UV Treatment: By using ultraviolet radiation, UV technology can destroy the DNA of living organisms like cells, viruses, and spores, thus rendering them harmless.
- Distillation: In this process, water is converted into steam via evaporation, then condensing it into a liquid in another container. This method helps to separate many chemicals from water and can also destroy viruses and bacteria.
- Deionization: This is a multi-process water purification method that filters all kinds of solids based on their ionic charge.
- Reverse Osmosis (RO): RO works like a filter, but instead of using media to trap the contaminants, it forces all the water particles through a small semi-permeable membrane. By doing this, it filters out all the particles that were too large to enter the system. The Springwell Reverse Osmosis Systems filter water through four stages. During stage one, the filters block out all the sediment and larger contaminants in your water. Next, it uses a carbon filter to filter our chloramine, chlorine, pesticides, herbicides, and more. After that, the system uses Reverse Osmosis to remove metals such as lead, mercury, iron, aluminum, fluoride, and others. During the carbon filtration stage, the system finalizes the cleaning process by eliminating any additional contaminants that made their way through the first three stages.
The Springwell UVP-1 UV Water Purification System kills 99.9% of bacteria, Cryptosporidium & Giardia, and other contaminants that can affect your health. It uses Springwell’s UV technology to control microbiological issues in water. It also comes with an electronic monitor that provides a detailed description of the system’s performance and intensity.
Final Thoughts
Creating and maintaining a clean and healthy water supply is a critical aspect of living a healthy life. By understanding the differences between a water filter and a water purifier, you can find the right system for your needs, which will hopefully give you the results you are looking for. While both types of water treatment systems are excellent, it’s best to find a system that includes both a filtration element for large-scale impurities and heavy metals as well as a purification element to ensure the overall water safety and taste.
