My tap water tastes bad and I’m tired of lugging bottled water home. I’m thinking of getting one of those Brita pitcher filters. Do they work well? Is Brita the best brand (it seems to be the most popular). And what’s in the filter anyway? Charcoal? I can see how filters remove particulates but how can they remove chemicals?
Yep, they work to remove bad tastes from water, plus lead, and some chlorine. (also, if you put Pepsi through a Brita the result is kinda like Crystal Pepsi, which is an interesting side note). Brita is a popular brand and is also somewhat cheaper than the other popular brand, Pur. They both work the same way AFAIK, the filters contains activated charcoal.
Here’s how it works:
I live in DC so I can relate to your experience with disgusting tap water. I used to use the Brita filter and I found that it worked well at getting rid of the bad taste and odor. The only thing I disliked about it was the time it took for the water to slowly drip through the filter and the fact that the pitcher doesn’t hold much water. Eventually I switched to a PUR faucet nozzel filter that cost about $40 and is available in most hardware stores. You attach it to the kitchen faucet and flip it on when you need filtered water. You can flip it off when you need to use the normal tap water for cleaning purposes. The PUR filtration system is much faster than Brita and it tastes just as good. The filters last for about 6 months and cost about $20 to replace, so it may also be more economical.
I’m not sure how the charcoal works but I think it absorbs most chemicals and impurities because it is a very porous substance.
Our Brita filter does a poor job of removing the fishy smell and taste from the water hereabouts. Glad it works for other folks, though.
I used to live in the ass-end of Connecticut where our groundwater had a very high sulfer content (At least I think it was sulfer. The water – quite literally – smelled like rotten eggs.)
The Brita worked wonders with that narsty stuff.
We use one at the office to filter the minerals out of the rather hard water that comes from the tap here. It makes a huge difference in the taste of the coffee.
Cl will be removed by just letting the water sit (room temp works better).
The filters work mainly through passing water through activated charcoal which is just a charcoal like product that has a lot of microcracks in it. The microcracks trap contaminates. I think it also uses some ion exchange material that would trap other stuff. And finally some silver material to prevent bacteria growth. The on faucet filters also work but you can’t beat a full pitcher for speed. The on faucet filter restricst the flow somewhat but is faster then waiting for the pitcher to drip fill.
I have 2 britta pitchers and like them, I have never used pur filters.
Around here in North Texas, our water gets an algae taste a couple of times a year, lasting a couple of weeks each time. The water supply gets an “algae bloom,” which is often referred to (incorrectly) by the natives as “the lakes turning over.”
I keep a pitcher-purifier on hand for these occasions, and it works wonderfully.
I started with a Pur pitcher, but found it a bit slow and too small in capacity. So when it sprung a leak after a year’s heavy use I replaced it with a Pur Plus Dispenser, which is much superior. I’m quite happy with it. It gives the same quality filtration, but has a bigger capacity, a more convenient design, and you don’t have to wait for the whole load to be filtered before you can draw some water, so it’s quicker.
The reason I chose Pur over Brita is that the filter has a built-in indicator that lets you know when it has to be replaced. I use Pur because it not only filters out metals and Cryptosporidium, it greatly improves the taste and odor. I too live in the Washington, DC area, and now I cannot drink unfiltered tap water after getting used to filtered, because it has that faint sewage smell.
However, none of these relatively inexpensive Pur or Brita filters gets all the crap completely out of your water. For that you need either a reverse osmosis filter or the copper-zinc alloy KDF filter, according to Dr. Andrew Weil, who is big on water filtration. Or else, if you’re a laboratory chemist, you’ll want ion exchange for that deionized water we all remember from chem lab. Unfortunately, the really spiffy filters run hundreds of dollars. So for me the Pur Plus Dispenser is the best compromise between quality and price.
This will probably sound like I’m anal-retentive on the water issue, but here is what I do to deal with the water in the greater Phoenix area.
I have a Brita pitcher, which I fill with a PUR faucet filter, for “double-filtered” water. The second stage of filtration, provided by the Brita, is likely not significantly improving the taste, but it works wonders for my gadget orientation and sense of “a job well done”.
I have recently begun to grind fresh beans every day, and making my coffee in a french press coffeemaker…and I wanted to have the best tasting water possible, short of buying bottled.
It works. The water tastes significantly better than tap.
The Brita filters I use (maybe it’s a newer system that didn’t exist when you looked at the Brita filters) also have an indicator telling you when they need to be replaced.
I have a well, with very hard water resulting in mineral build ups. Also has a high iron content, which tends to turn the bathroom sink and toilet orange. Also occassional sulfer “frangrances”. Our landlord gets the water tested regularly, and we’re told it’s healthy to drink (especially if you have an iron deficiency) with less bacteria than the city water from Lake Michigan and “acceptable” levels of toxins, meaning it meets federal standards.
My Brita filter takes care of the water - the iron and minerals and sulfur stink. Comes out crystal clear and yummy. Can’t drink city tap water anymore, it tastes soapy to me now. We do have to change the filters a little more often than average, given our hard water, but you can sure tell when it stops working - the taste gives it away.
It works well for us, but as always your mileage may vary.
The process is not exactly filtration, but adsorption a surface phenomenon in which contaminants actually bond to the adsorptive material. The charcoal, called activated carbon, is produced by charring organic materials in the absence of air. The most notable property of activated carbon is its incredible surface area–typical values are 600-1200 m[sup]2[/sup]/g of material.
Activated carbon will remove odors, many organics, and some amount of heavy metals.