You may have noticed that your drinking water isn’t quite as crisp as you’d like it to be. Luckily, point-of-use reverse osmosis water filters can help you achieve the crisp, clean taste you’ve been after, but how much do they cost?
We’ve been in the plumbing business for over 15 years and have installed our fair share of reverse osmosis water filters. While this type of water treatment won’t suit every homeowner's needs, they do fill a niche for those obsessed with drinking water quality.
In this article, we’ll give you a heads-up on how much reverse osmosis water filters cost, along with what impacts cost and when they’re practical. With this information, you’ll be able to decide whether a reverse osmosis water filter is right for you.
Let’s cut to the chase and talk about how much a reverse osmosis water filter will cost you.
Cost of Reverse Osmosis Water Filter
If you’re considering a point-of-use reverse osmosis water filter for your home, you should budget $600 to $1,500 for the water filter itself. With installation, you can count on costs running between $1,600 to $3,200.
Whole-house reverse osmosis water filters do exist but can cost as much as $7,500 and beyond to install and waste a lot of water carrying out their process. The water waste aspect of whole-house reverse osmosis water filters makes them unideal candidates for water treatment in drought-prone areas like Los Angeles County.
While the cost of a reverse osmosis water filter is somewhat straightforward, there are still factors that can dictate whether the price slides to the high or low end of the scale. Let’s take a look so you can get a better idea of how to budget for your home.
What Impacts the Cost of Reverse Osmosis Water Filters?
The range of $1,600 to $3,200 is pretty vast, so what’s up with that? Typically, only a couple of factors impact the price of a reverse osmosis water filter. Those aforementioned aspects are stages and types.
Reverse osmosis water filters have several stages in their filtration process. There are typically four stages to a reverse osmosis water filter:
- Sediment filter
- Carbon filter
- Semi-permeable membrane
- Postfilter
While these are the main four stages, it’s possible to tailor your water filter to include extra stages. Adding additional stages drives the cost up, though. This type of expansion won’t be necessary for every user.
If you were interested in adding additional stages to your water filter, you would likely look at a remineralizing or alkaline filter to add back minerals lost in the reverse osmosis process.
The second factor is the type of reverse osmosis water filter. If you’re going for the whole-house option, then you can expect to spend far more than you would with a point-of-use water filter. To reiterate, these water filters are not ideal for areas like Los Angeles County, where water waste is a major concern.
It’s important to reemphasize that reverse osmosis water filters are point-of-use treatment water filters, meaning they won’t offer treatment to any other fixture in your home. So, who are they for, and when are they the practical choice?
When Is a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter Worth It?
Since point-of-use reverse osmosis water filters can only be installed in a handful of places, the main spot you’ll find one is under the kitchen sink. These water filters are ideal for those who value clean, crisp drinking water. Sure, you could install them on at a washer hookup, but the benefits wouldn’t be quite as dramatic as with one mounted beneath the sink.
That’s really all there is to decide whether a reverse osmosis system is for you. It’s valuable for a select audience and not so much for others.
So, Now You Know the Cost of a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter
Over the course of this article, we’ve touched on the cost of reverse osmosis water filters, what affects cost, and when they’re worth it. Reverse osmosis water filters are somewhat niche and won’t appeal to every homeowner, but now you know where you stand in terms of that decision. Now, you can figure out if there’s another solution you’d like to pursue, like whole-house water treatment.
After installing many point-of-use reverse osmosis water filters in Los Angeles County and beyond, we know how important clean drinking water is to homeowners. If reverse osmosis water filters sound like an interesting prospect to you, call in at 310-853-8690 or visit our water filtration page to learn a bit more about hard water and water treatment or to schedule a consultation.
Regardless of which type of water treatment you choose, it’s wise to look into problems associated with water treatment before diving in head first so you know what you’re stepping into.
