The water in South Africa is generally drinkable straight from the tap, but recently there have been some scares with things like raw sewage supposedly floating around in it :eek: thus I am considering my alternatives to expensive bottled water.
I like filtered water, and I don’t even feed my houseplants our limescaletastic tapwater any more, but I’ll agree it’s difficult to make a choice when buying a filter as there are so many variables to take into account, as well as many different requirements, and there’s no easy way to make a simple comparison between one filter and another.
Jug filters are better than nothing, but they’re an expensive and slow way of filtering water. Plumbed-in water filters are better, but avoid the salt-loading systems, they’re for non-potable water only. I’ve got one of these, not the best model on the market perhaps, but a good compromise between economy, speed of water flow, and filtering characteristics. A reverse osmosis system would be neat, but a little out of my price range at the moment, so I have to compromise with a single disposable cartridge. This may have a number of different filter elements within it, all doing different things, and professional systems may have two or more specialised cartridges.
One thing to look out for with water filters is bacteria growth. Once you filter the chlorine out the water becomes a tasty environment, and if the filter is only used sporadically then the first filtered batch after a period of non-use may be swimming with bacteria. Flush out the system if it hasn’t been used for a day or two, and/or buy one that’s loaded with bacteriostatic silver compounds.