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What Is a Whole House Filter System and How Can It Protect Your Plumbing?

Protecting your plumbing should be one of your top priorities if you own or manage a property in New York City. Installing a whole house filter system can go a long way in accomplishing this. Let’s take a look at how these water filter systems work and what you should think about when adding one to your home or apartment building.

What Is a Whole House Filter System?

Upstream water protection

You’re probably familiar with water filtration devices that attach to your kitchen or bathroom taps (AKA point of use or POU filters). They clean the water, getting rid of impurities you don’t want in the water you use for drinking or cooking. A whole house system filters water at the point it enters your property, rather than filtering it at each spigot.

Every water source is different, so property owners install whole house water systems to remove different types of undesirable material. Often, chlorine in drinking water is a major reason property owners add water filters, but other common impurities include sediment and minerals found in hard water.

What Are the Benefits of a Whole House Filter System?

Multiple advantages

You will find there are many pros to installing a whole house filter system and essentially no disadvantages. Most importantly, from our perspective as experienced plumbing experts, whole house filters protect your plumbing. They keep sediment and minerals from clogging and encrusting your pipes and other plumbing parts. They reduce wear and tear on pumps, boilers, hot water heaters, and other machinery too. Appliances that use water, such as clothes washers, dishwashers, and refrigerators, benefit from filtration as well.

Without this protection, sediment, hard water scale, and chemicals can accumulate on plumbing components, causing them to narrow, corrode, rust, and malfunction. Gaskets and seals can harden and break. This can be far more costly in the long run than installing a whole house filtration system now.

For a single-family home or duplex, a whole house filter system generally costs somewhere between $500 and $2,000 to install, with minimum upkeep after that. There are filter systems for apartment buildings and high rises too. While they cost more to install, there is more plumbing to protect in these properties, so the savings are commensurate. In the long run, whole house filter systems save you money.

Another advantage to a whole house filter is that all your water is free of impurities, not just water from a few faucets. If you don’t like the smell of chlorine in your bathwater or feel itchy after taking a shower, a whole house filter can fix that. Your dishes will be less spotty after washing them, and the ice from your refrigerator will taste better. Many of our clients appreciate having cleaner water for their pets, plants, and laundry too.

Some whole house filter types remove other unwanted substances from your water as well. You can find filters to handle:

• Parasites
• Viruses
• Bacteria
• Algae
• Fungi
• Rust
• Pesticides
• Excess acidity

Screening out many contaminants doesn’t just make water smell and taste better; it improves health as well.

Whole house water filters are environmentally friendly. If you are spending money on bottled water, the containers for which are hard to recycle, you can protect the planet by using a whole house filter system. Whether you own a single-family home or a large apartment complex, if you are looking for ways to join green initiatives, improving your water quality at the building level is a great start.

What Should You Think About When Installing a Whole House Filter System?

Considerations for your property

If you are making the smart choice to add a whole house filter system to your property, here are a few final things to consider:

• What are your water concerns? You may want to have your water tested before selecting a filter or a combination of filter systems.
• What kind of maintenance is necessary once a system is installed? Will you have to replace mechanical filters or add chemicals periodically?
• Will adding a water filter reduce your overall water pressure? This can be solved by adding a pressure booster pump or increasing the pressure if you already have a booster pump in a tall building.
• Have your tenants been complaining about water quality? Perhaps it’s time to put their worries to rest.
• What new filtration technology is available today that makes it easier for you to use a system? From water softener granules that never need changing to easy-change filters with alarms, there are innovations that save you time and hassles.

Installing a whole house filter system is not a DIY job in most cases. To explore water filtration for your property, contact Sanitary Plumbing today by calling 212-734-5000, or schedule an appointment via our website.