5 Signs You Need a Home Water Filtration System

Most people do not go looking for a water problem. They notice something small and annoying, live with it for a while, and only later find out it was telling them something. Here are the five signals worth paying attention to.

1. A smell or a taste. Chlorine is the common one on a city supply, and it is usually the first thing people here mention. It does not go away by letting the tap run.

2. Cloudy or gritty water after the tap sits. Sediment picked up in a building's own risers and service line settles out when water stands overnight, and it shows up in the first glass of the morning.

3. Dry skin and dull hair. Chlorine strips the natural oils from skin and hair, and a long hot shower is where most people notice it first.

4. Water that tastes different from one building to the next. The supply is the same across the city; the pipework it travels through is not. A different taste after a move usually says more about the building than the reservoir.

5. Rust-colored staining or discolored water. In an older house it usually has more to do with the pipework the water travels through, the service line included, than with the supply itself.

None of these prove you need a system. They prove a test is worth doing, and a test is where we start.