Domestic water filter - do you use one / recommendations please?

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For simple drinking water filtration, I highly recommend the Berkey systems. I use a "Big Berkey", and have for many years. Outstanding quality, and, after the initial investment, superior value as well:

"Each durable Black Berkey filter will last for up to 11,350 liters (22,700 liters per set of 2). At 38 liters per week, this is equivalent to 600 weeks. That's more than 11.5 years of clean water!"

https://www.berkeywaterfilterseurope.com/big-berkey-water-filter

 
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I agree the UK is lucky and I do happily drink tap water. As a minimum we like to use a filter to protect kettles etc from scale. PFAS, heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, endocrine disrupters, micro plastic , nitrogen etc…. I am just interested to have pure water at home and see how that works for long term health. I suspect testing /awareness will evolve in the coming years as the circular economy grows. What goes around comes around. I know a UK example were water is pumped into a watercourse used for crop irrigation from a sealed site without a permit. The tests do not cover the spectrum of chemical risk at that site. It is being looked into but is taking years and is hugely bureaucratic. It has reduced my confidence for the longer term. Agencies and enforcement are not joined up. Equally it is not a crazy level of worry / it is all in a context and thinking about long term health choices more than a knee jerk panic.

https://patient.info/news-and-features/uk-water-quality-part-1-is-tap-water-safe

Pretty sure I read somewhere a Canadian super fund bought all of the UKs water infrastructure (don’t quote me but pretty sure I read it a few months ago)
 
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Pretty sure I read somewhere a Canadian super fund bought all of the UKs water infrastructure (don’t quote me but pretty sure I read it a few months ago)

There’s about 25 different water companies in the UK who own the treatment and distribution infrastructure in their own geographic region/monopoly. Each has its own complicated ownership structure with some being listed and some privately owned. Very little of infrastructure is held outside of this ownership.

They might be buying a stake in an individual company?
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You’d also need to be a massive coconut to buy UK water infra. Betweeen 10-50% (depending on the company) is still pre-60’s cast iron, some Victorian, and essentially asset life expired. To even replace 2% per year would take a significant increase in bills.

Also, most UK companies are highly leveraged relative to their asset base. Selling off such a huge asset (even with a significant proportion effectively worth zero on the books) would massively impact their value and interest cover ratio. It just couldn’t happen across the entire country.
 
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I am a simpleton, but fairly sure a lot of infrastructure could be bought with…
 
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Just for a bit of background, I've got a masters degree in Water Engineering and Hydrology and have worked for 12+ years in the UK Water Industry.
Far and away the biggest risk to public health are privately owned lead supply pipes. These are the small diameter pipes which connect your house to the water main in the street. The Water company owns the section in the highway, but the property owner owns the section on their land. There are millions left in the UK and checking if you have one and replacing it with PE pipe is the most significant improvement you can make. If you replace your section, most water companies will renew the section in the highway free of charge. Most filters don't remove lead, some of the more expensive ones do but mainly particulate lead, not dissolved.

Despite many people's beliefs to the contrary, most water supplies in the UK don't have fluoride dosing. The acids used to fluoridate potable water supplies are horrible, highly corrosive chemicals and the transportation, storage, dosing and management etc are time consuming and costly. With a few exceptions, fluoride is only added when requested by local government, typically in areas of high depravation to combat dental issues. This is a very lengthy process (as I've been involved in one), the costs are significant and it has to go to the Secretary of State and public consultation. It should be easy to find out if your water supply is fluoridated.

Chlorine is harmless at the doses found in the public water supply in the UK. It will also off-gas and reduce in open containers that are stored for a few minutes/hours and reduce levels. Personally i wouldn't remove chlorine from my drinking water unless i was storing it for a very short space of time in an airtight container out of the sun. Otherwise you risk microbial growth, seeded from the container itself, not the tap water.

PFAS is an emerging risk and the long term effects and acceptable thresholds aren't fully understood. There is no safe PCV (prescribed concentration value) for PFAS but it's coming. The good news is that many of the processes currently employed in UK water treatment, such as GAC and PAC carbon filtration, currently used to remove taste & odour and pesticides, are also the most likely processes to be used for removing PFAS chemicals. The only difference being the additional load provided by water containing significant concentrations of PFAS will exhaust the carbon more quickly, meaning it needs re-firing or replacing with virgin media more frequently. Water Companies are already aware of their high risk sites and are proactively taking steps to ensure levels aren't in the likely unacceptable zone.
High risk sites are typically those who upstream catchment includes airports (firefighting foam is a major contributor) and historic chemical production sites. If you live in an upland area, with no real industry or airports above you, you're unlikely to have PFAS above background anyway.

All that said, i get why people like to have a water filter, particularly in hard water areas to reduce furring up of kettles etc. They just need careful monitoring as old filters that aren't changed regularly are hotbeds of microbial growth and if you've also removed the chlorine, you're introducing a larger risk.


Hey , don't confuse us with facts and science, just tell us why all the water doesn't fall off the edge of our flat world.
 
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I am a simpleton, but fairly sure a lot of infrastructure could be bought with…

Well it would cost about £15b to replace just the clean water infrastructure in one of the medium/large companies, so this wouldn’t go far.

The whole wastewater storm overflows is an entirely different and very biased story.
But what other industries don’t take a profit?
 
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Our city water is very hard so we have a Culligan water softener to treat all incoming water, except the irrigation system water. That's fine for the water heater, dish washing, clothes washing or tooth brushing, but for drinking water we just buy a slab of Sam's Purified Drinking Water from Walmart in 600 ml bottles, it's done through a reverse osmosis process and isn't very expensive. I don't want to fiddle around with inhouse water purification systems.
 
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On the Berkley filter, this seems to be one of those that reduces particulate lead but not dissolved lead.

So, if you’re using a Berkley because it tastes better, that’s great, but it can’t be relied on to remove lead from the water. I know I’m banging this drum, but people tend to think there’s all kinds of nasties in drinking water, yet often overlook the main one.
 
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Hey , don't confuse us with facts and science, just tell us why all the water doesn't fall off the edge of our flat world.

And don’t move us back into a dark ages by stifling debate while corporations and politicians buy the ‘science’, and make hay with vast profits. Not all science is fact…. It can be theory and works by sharing knowledge and having open discussions, we seem to be loosing that ability at times. One apparent statistic is that cancer incidence in the UK have risen by 40% since 2002, and by 19% only in the last decade. The science says this is likely (meaning it is opinion and not proven fact) due to the growing and aging population who are at higher risk of developing cancer, as well as improvements in diagnosis initiatives and public awareness…… let’s see how that view develops
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But what other industries don’t take a profit?


industry noun (PRODUCTION)
[ U ]
the companies and activities involved in the process of producing goods for sale, especiallyin a factory or special area:

The water falls out of the sky, ©️ @STANDY, the shit flows into the sea, the money flows over the sea (your & my money). That is not an industry, that is political dogma gone mad.

Companies main, and often only, motivation is profit, which is great in a non-monopoly situation. Surely sometimes humanities right to basic life support should be provided and protected for the greater good?
Water, healthcare, education etc. need to be provided co-operatively.

Others view may differ and I am fine with that. I appreciate your experience and input @Davidt no offence intended.

Apologies for the thread drift, I will shut up and just read from here on.
 
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Never worried about it, whatever comes out of the tap gets used for drinking/washing/garden etc etc.

I grew up 250 kilometres from the nearest fresh water source, it was pumped directly out of the river and through concrete pipes and the town water was held in a hilltop tank that we used to swim in until they put a roof over the tank. Just plain river water, no treatment at all.

Our other source of water was rainwater off the roof and as rain was infrequent, the first run-off usually contained about a kilo of dust, bird shit and iron ore dust that all went into the corrugated steel tank. Give it a couple of days to settle and it tasted better than the tap water.

Living in Melbourne now and were lucky to have some of the cleanest tap water in the world.
 
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rkley filter, this seems to be one of those that reduces particulate lead but not dissolved lead.

While I certainly defer to your expertise, David, this NY Times article from last year appears to contradict you [bold emphasis mine]:

To test these claims, as we do for our filter-pitcher testing, John Holecek prepared so-called challenge solutions and ran them through the Big Berkey system (fitted with the Black Berkey filters). Then he sent samples of the solutions and the filtered water to an independent lab, EnviroMatrix Analytical, accredited by the state of California for analysis. For the Big Berkey testing, he prepared two solutions—one heavily laden with dissolved lead, the other with chloroform. These would provide an indication of the filters’ overall performance on heavy metals and organic compounds.

John prepared challenge samples to match or exceed the contaminant concentrations used in NSF/ANSI certification (150 ug/L for lead and 300 ug/L for chloroform). After confirming that the filters were installed and performing correctly, according to Berkey’s dye test (video), he ran a gallon of contaminated solution through the Berkey and discarded the filtrate (the water and whatever else that had passed through the filter). For the contaminated solution measurements, he filtered a total of two additional gallons through the Berkey, taking a control sample from the second gallon and collecting two test samples of the filtrate from it. The control and filtrate samples were then sent to EnviroMatrix Analytical for testing. Because chloroform is highly volatile—it “wants” to evaporate and combine with other compounds present—John mixed the chloroform into the contaminant solution immediately prior to filtering.

At EnviroMatrix Analytical, the chloroform and any other volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) were measured using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The lead was measured using an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) device, following EPA method 200.8.

EnviroMatrix Analytical’s results partially contradicted and partially supported New Millennium’s claims. The Black Berkey filters showed poor reduction of chloroform. On the other hand, they performed spectacularly well on lead reduction.

Note that this article, linked below, was in some ways critical of the Berkey filters, and some of the criticisms, cost in particular, are dubious. So if there was any bias involved, it would likely have been negative.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/big-berkey-water-filter-system/
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Thanks for all the responses. I think I am getting near a decision and swinging towards upgrading to a Berkey style carbon filter.
@Davidt thanks especially for the qualified comments and help.

Flipping the question a bit is there a risk of over filtering water. Of course some salts, minerals and metals are important for health. I suppose if you have a balanced diet water is not a main source anyway. Any thought or experience on that issue here?
 
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While I certainly defer to your expertise, David, this NY Times article from last year appears to contradict you [bold emphasis mine]:



Note that this article, linked below, was in some ways critical of the Berkey filters, and some of the criticisms, cost in particular, are dubious. So if there was any bias involved, it would likely have been negative.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/big-berkey-water-filter-system/

Actually that does indicate it removes more lead than the evidence I found on their website.
I’m an engineer/assets person (or I was, I actually changed careers last month!) so only have a rudimentary knowledge or chemistry but I’ll try and give the article a read later.
 
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Thanks for all the responses. I think I am getting near a decision and swinging towards upgrading to a Berkey style carbon filter.
@Davidt thanks especially for the qualified comments and help.

Flipping the question a bit is there a risk of over filtering water. Of course some salts, minerals and metals are important for health. I suppose if you have a balanced diet water is not a main source anyway. Any thought or experience on that issue here?

The issue with filters is not really the ‘over filtering’ of the water. It’s the filters themselves. By their very nature fine filters introduce a medium with a large surface area. The perfect conditions for microbes to grow, even when the filter is still performing well.

As a example, we used to install filters on properties which suffered with discolouration (commonly seen on supplies at the end of unlined cast iron pipes with low flow, which are thus conditioned to low shearing velocities). These filters were usually changed at the first sign of breakthrough. This could often be 3/6/9/12 months. However, one time someone decided to undertake a bacterial analysis of a filter and the results were staggering. It was still performing perfectly at removing discolouration but was seeding the supply with all types of bacteria. A much more serious and health impacting issue than the purely aesthetic discolouration it was there to remove. As a result we had to switch to monthly renewal of filters regardless of condition/performance as further analysis showed microbial growth was unacceptable after 4-6 weeks in some cases.
This is the main concern I’d have with filters that are in situ for too long without being replaced or thoroughly cleaned. Especially if they also reduce chlorine, the very things that’s there to kill such microbes.
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One extra question.... testing and timing?
I guess EC/TDS gives a basic indication if a filter pack is doing something (noting the warnings about cleaning and avoiding bacteria build up). Anybody able to suggest a cheap (hopefully digital) tester which would show a relative reading to show the system is doing something. Are the basic ones even worth bothering with? (when the kettle starts to fur that is normally a good indication for me).
@Tony C. How do you tell when it is time for a change?
.
 
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How do you tell when it is time for a change?

When you notice any significant buildup of sediment or discoloration on the filters, it would be time. Note that depending on the quality of water being filtered, there can be some modest buildup and/or discoloration long before the end of the filter life, but after cleaning they look as new.
 
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One extra question.... testing and timing?
I guess EC/TDS gives a basic indication if a filter pack is doing something (noting the warnings about cleaning and avoiding bacteria build up). Anybody able to suggest a cheap (hopefully digital) tester which would show a relative reading to show the system is doing something. Are the basic ones even worth bothering with? (when the kettle starts to fur that is normally a good indication for me).
@Tony C. How do you tell when it is time for a change?
.

Know a mate with bore water uses something like this 👍

(Not this one but something similar)