Whole house water filtration

What people are actually trying to fix

Worth naming the complaint precisely, because each has a different answer and a system that solves one will not touch another.

Chlorine smell and taste. The most common reason people call. Municipal supply is disinfected, and in some systems the residual is strong enough to taste at the tap and smell in a hot shower. Activated carbon handles this well.

Chloramine. Chlorine combined with ammonia, used by a growing number of Texas utilities because it persists longer in the distribution network. It is considerably harder to remove than free chlorine and needs catalytic carbon and more contact time. A standard carbon filter sized for chlorine will underperform on chloramine, which is the single most common specification error we see.

Sediment and grit. Sand, rust, and scale fragments from mains work. Blocks aerators, wears cartridges, and shortens the life of every valve in the house. Wells and older distribution mains are the usual sources.

Discolouration. Yellow, orange or brown, usually iron or manganese, common on wells. Needs oxidation and filtration rather than carbon alone.

Rotten-egg smell. Hydrogen sulphide, almost always a well. If the smell is only on the hot side, the culprit is frequently the water heater's anode rod reacting with the water rather than the supply itself, worth checking before buying a system.

Hardness. Not a filtration problem. Filters do not remove it. That is a softener, and conflating the two is where money gets wasted.

The stages and what each one does

Sediment pre-filter. A spun or pleated cartridge, typically 5 to 20 microns, catching particulate. Cheap, consumable, and it protects everything downstream. Almost every system should start with one.

Activated carbon. The workhorse. Removes chlorine, improves taste and odour, and reduces a broad range of organic compounds. Available as a cartridge for lower demand or as a backwashing tank of granular media for whole-house flow.

Catalytic carbon. Carbon treated to be far more effective against chloramine and hydrogen sulphide. Costs more; necessary where the utility uses chloramine.

KDF media. Copper-zinc, used alongside carbon to reduce chlorine and heavy metals and to inhibit bacterial growth inside the media bed. Common as a supporting stage.

Oxidation and iron filtration. For wells with iron, manganese or sulphur. Air injection or chemical oxidation converts dissolved metal into particles a filter can catch.

UV disinfection. Inactivates bacteria and viruses. Standard practice on wells, unnecessary on treated municipal supply. It needs clear water to work, so it always sits last, after filtration.

Reverse osmosis. Removes almost everything, including dissolved solids nothing else touches. Slow and wasteful at whole-house scale. It belongs under the kitchen sink for drinking and cooking, not at the point of entry.

Specifying it properly

Test first. Every time. A municipal consumer confidence report tells you what the utility produces and whether they use chlorine or chloramine, which is the single most important input. A well needs a proper laboratory test, bacteria, nitrates, iron, manganese, hardness, pH, total dissolved solids. Specifying a system without one is guesswork with a price tag.

Size for flow, not just capacity. A whole-house filter has to pass peak household demand without a pressure drop you notice. That is typically 8 to 12 gallons per minute for a family home, more with multiple bathrooms. Undersizing here is the most common cause of the complaint that pressure dropped after treatment was installed.

Contact time matters. Carbon needs the water to be in the media long enough to work. A physically small filter at high flow does much less than its rating suggests, and this is where cheap systems disappoint quietly.

Cartridge or backwashing tank. Cartridges are cheaper to buy and need changing on a schedule. Backwashing tanks cost more up front, need a drain and power, and run for years with only occasional media replacement. For whole-house flow, tanks are generally the better long-term answer.

Order of equipment. Sediment first, then carbon, then softener, then UV if fitted. Carbon before the softener protects the resin from chlorine and materially extends its life.

Installation and what it needs

Location. Point of entry, after the main shut-off, before everything else. On most Texas slab houses that is the garage wall where the main comes up.

Bypass. Every system gets isolation and bypass valves so cartridges and media can be serviced without shutting off the house.

Drain. Backwashing systems need one, air-gapped, same as a softener. Cartridge systems do not, which is sometimes what decides the choice.

Power. Backwashing control valves and UV lamps need an outlet.

Pressure gauges either side. Inexpensive, and the clearest possible indication of when a cartridge is loaded. A growing gap between the two gauges is the filter telling you it is due.

Space and clearance. Tank systems need height for media replacement and room to get a wrench on the head. Enclosures outdoors need shade and freeze protection. A hard Texas freeze will crack a filter housing as readily as a pipe.

Typical install: half a day for a cartridge system, a full day for a multi-stage tank arrangement with a drain run.

What it costs to keep running

Every treatment system is an ongoing commitment. Ignore it and you are worse off than with no system at all, because a loaded filter restricts flow and an exhausted carbon bed can shed what it collected.

Sediment cartridges: three to six months typically, sooner on a well or after mains work in the street. Pressure gauges tell you rather than the calendar.

Carbon cartridges: six to twelve months.

Backwashing carbon media: five to eight years, sometimes longer.

UV lamps: annually, regardless of whether they still glow. Output falls off well before the lamp fails visibly, and a lamp that looks fine can be doing very little.

Sleeve cleaning on UV: at each lamp change. A filmed quartz sleeve blocks the light that does the work.

Annual check. Pressure differential, valve operation, and a retest of the water so you can see the system is still doing what it was bought to do.