Are Faucet Filters Effective? [In Depth Guide]

In 2022, the terms’ filtration’ and ‘purification’ are still misunderstood by people.

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They combine the two frequently. But, to be exact, filtration means improving the quality of already treated water, and purification means cleaning untreated water.

From this, questions regarding the effectiveness of various filters also come into place, such as, “are faucet filters effective?”

For them, we would like to state that faucet filters are the excellent and most effective mild contaminant remover for treated water. In cities, water supplies are already treated from various heavy minerals and sediments.

So, we get soft water followed by some sourness and odor that is further treated by faucet filters mounted on taps, making water tastier.

Is faucet filters effective?

Before reaching us, you are already aware of the term faucet filters. But, you may not be familiar with where they should be used.

One can know about their effectiveness once they learn where to use and yield the best from them.

That said, faucet filters are not a universal filtration procedure that you can fit almost anywhere and everywhere. You should know about the terms’ treated’ and ‘untreated’ water so that the faucet filter can help you!

You can expect faucet filters to work miraculously and effectively in filtering treated water filled with lead and chlorine. Faucet filters can’t reduce any minerals other than these two.

So, you can conclude that faucet filters are very effective for treated water but are of little to no use in the filtration of untreated waters.

The results of a small experiment about the faucet filters and their effectiveness are-

  1. Faucet filters are proved 90% effective in filtration of treated water and can only provide 20% filtration to untreated water.
  2. Faucet filters provide the safest yet one et-friendly option to filter treated water. But highly contaminated untreated water needs more advanced systems like reverse osmosis (RO).
  3. They can remove odor due to the bleaching effect of the treated water and also aid many other sediments which are harmful to your health.
  4. Minerals like arsenic, calcium, magnesium, etc., present in untreated water are only a waste of time and money if you want to treat them with faucet filters.

We can finally add that faucet filters are effective for already treated water but don’t ever fall for them where only 20% of the overall water quality can be improved. Instead, a RO system can work effectively as much as 95% and give you the purest form of water you can ever have.

How do faucet filters work?

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There is almost no alternative other than mounting a faucet filter on the point where water comes to get sediment-free and tastier water.

Once you adjust them on your kitchen faucets, you’ll start to notice the changes in your cooking and everything as the water no longer contains chlorine, sands, and other dirt. There is a cartridge placed inside the faucet filter that does all the work for you.

And to understand how it works, we need to explore deep inside the faucet filters-

Removing sediments: As you first turn on the tap, water runs into the faucet filter through a screen wrapped around the cartridge. Those screens capture tiny deposits like dust, dirt, sands, etc.

Blocks of Activated Carbons: Once the water are free of sediments, they go through partnerships of compressed carbon,s which are porous surface and lets water travel through them. The slower the water travels, the more they get treated by activated carbons.

This stage removes bacteria, fungi, and chemicals from the water. Suppose too many contaminants remain on that surface. In that case, the water filtration process becomes ineffective, due to which the cartridge needs to be cleaned or replaced.

Removing chemicals: During the final step, significant amounts of the substances are removed by chemical removal. Although activated carbons do most of the job, they are still not as effective in removing chemicals.

Besides chlorine, chemical remover removes chemicals like magnesium and calcium in the modern faucet filters.

Are Faucet filters better than pitchers?

Faucet filters are better than pitchers again when it comes to infiltration of treated water as they do it cheaply and in less time. Again, pitchers are superior to faucet filters in filtering untreated water as they are cheaper than systems like RO.

Water pitcher filters depend on the gravity filtration procedure. They contain two chambers, and the water passes from one section to another through a filter. The first chamber is where you pour unfiltered water, and the other room is where your filtered water is stored.

The filtration chamber contains an Activated charcoal cartridge that removes arsenic, mercury, lead, and other contaminants.

So, there is no point in comparing faucet and pitcher filters as one of them works better for treated water. At the same time, the other one is designed for untreated water.

Conclusion:

You can now convince almost anyone about the effectiveness of faucet filters in your kitchen and believe every tap should be designed with faucet filters. Because the cleanest supply of water can also be contaminated with traces of lead and such sediments as they travel through the plumbing system.