You turn on the kitchen faucet, ready to fill your coffee machine with water, when you notice a foul odor. You detect a rotten egg smell from the water, and now you're wondering how you will have water for coffee. With a carbon filter, you'll never find yourself in a similar situation again, but are there any other benefits to owning this filter?
Since 2007, we at Monkey Wrench Plumbing, Heating & Air have installed thousands of carbon filtration systems and seen how beneficial they are to homes across Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. Although each home is different, carbon filters can provide the same benefits to everyone.
Thanks to a carbon water filter, you can take advantage of the following benefits.
- Targets and eliminates impurities
- Improved water quality
- Removes foul odors in the water
- Environmentally friendly
- Cost-effective
In this article, we'll review each benefit and how it can improve the water quality in your home. With our insider knowledge, you'll be better positioned to decide if this system is suitable for you and your family.
Let's start with a quick explanation of carbon water filters.
What Are Carbon Water Filters?
Carbon filters are a type of water filtration designed to target and eliminate contaminants through adsorption. Adsorption is a filtration procedure where the carbon filter attracts contaminants like a magnet attracts metal and prevents them from traveling with water.
The material inside the filter, also known as activated carbon, is what enables the adsorption process to take place. Carbon filters come in two types, either a carbon block or granular activated carbon (GAC). These filters come in various sizes, from water pitchers to under-the-sink systems to whole-house carbon filtration.
Now that you have a general idea of what carbon water filters are and how they work, we can jump into highlighting each of their various benefits.
Benefits of Carbon Water Filters
In the following sections, we'll review each benefit of carbon filtration and how it is useful.
We'll start by looking at the top benefit of carbon filters: their ability to vastly improve the quality of drinking water in a home.
Carbon Water Filters Remove Specific Contaminants
Carbon filters help improve tap water quality thanks to the impurities it helps get rid of. Here's a list of the contaminants carbon filters help remove from tap water.
- Chlorine
- Herbicides
- Pesticides
- Disinfectants like bleach
These are just a few impurities targeted and effectively removed from tap thanks to carbon filtration. These impurities can occur naturally or end up contaminating water due to industrial and agricultural sources.
By removing contaminants such as chlorine, carbon filters help ensure water tastes better.
Enhances Water Quality
The main advantage of a carbon filter is its ability to enhance water quality. By targeting certain impurities like chlorine, the taste of tap water will be noticeably better.
The tap water in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas is routinely tested under strict standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to ensure it's safe for public consumption. Unfortunately, as water travels from a treatment plant to a home, it can pick up contaminants.
As the tap water reaches the home, it can be filtered with a carbon filter to ensure its taste is pure. Not all contaminants are bad, however. Carbon filters still retain minerals found in water that can positively impact health.
The most common minerals retained in carbon-filtered water include,
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Potassium
Tap water has trace amounts of these minerals but can also have impurities like chloramine that carbon filters help eliminate. Aside from taste, carbon filters can also expel unwanted odors.
Carbon Filtration Gets Rid of Foul Odors
Carbon filters improve tap water's taste by removing any lingering smells. No homeowner wants to turn on their house's faucet only to deal with a putrid stench from the water.
With a carbon filter, tap water will not deal with the following smells:
- Fishy
- Musty
- Bleach
- Garlic
- Hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg odor)
If you continue to notice an odor from your water, such as the smell of sewage, then it is recommended to schedule an appointment with a plumber to determine if there's any damage or issues with a home's main water line.
Water shouldn't have an odor, and carbon filters can help ensure it stays that way. Besides odorless water, carbon filtration systems are non-polluting ways of drinking water.
Carbon Filters Are Environmentally Friendly
A carbon filtration system can help reduce reliance on plastic water bottles. A lot of homes have cases of bottled water ready for use. And although plenty of people recycle their plastic bottles, the plastic can potentially end up in landfills or polluting the environment.
A simple carbon-filtered water pitcher is enough to significantly decrease the amount of plastic bottles used in a home. By cutting down on plastic use, homeowners can do their part in being more environmentally friendly.
Carbon filters can also save money by preventing you from buying cases of bottled water each time you visit a market store.
Carbon Filters Are Cost-Effective
Another benefit of owning a carbon filter is potentially saving money. You can save a few hundred dollars annually by not having to buy cases of bottled water anymore.
Maintenance costs for carbon filters are low depending on the size of the carbon filtration system. Smaller carbon filters require filter replacements which can cost under $100. Whole-house carbon filters may require professional maintenance, but with enough carefulness, large filter maintenance can be completed by a homeowner.
Are Carbon Water Filters Worth it?
Having a carbon filter makes sense if you want better-tasting water in your home. Now that you know the benefits of carbon filtration systems, you can decide if this water filter is right for you.
At Monkey Wrench Plumbing, Heating & Air, we understand that every home has different needs for water consumption. Whether it's an under-the-sink or whole-house water filter, we have over 15 years of experience helping homeowners find the right system for their homes.
If you have any questions regarding carbon filtration systems, contact us using one of the buttons below. You can also book an appointment through our water filtration scheduler.
If a carbon filter is a good choice for your home, check out this article on the cost of a carbon filter to understand what pricing for these systems looks like.
