Filtering a household’s drinking water is one of the most important steps families can take to protect the health of everyone in the household. Even though municipal drinking water passes through either city or private treatment systems, water can still contain pollutants that affect taste, safety, and long-term wellness. Aging municipal systems can miss certain pollutants or actually add chemicals or metals to the water delivered to your home.
If you’re considering adding filtration to your home’s drinking water, you might have reverse osmosis (RO) systems and Brita filters on your list to consider. Let’s look at how they compare in terms of performance, cost, and maintenance.
First, why should I filter my drinking water?
Tap water may look clean, but microscopic contaminants all too often make their way into your home’s water. Unfortunately, some of these contaminants can’t be seen, tasted or smelled.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides guidelines and limits for many different drinking water pollutants to protect public safety: microorganisms, water disinfectants and their byproducts, industrial chemicals and much, much more. For example:
- Microorganisms such as E. coli, Giardia, and noroviruses can cause severe gastrointestinal illness.
- Heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic can accumulate in the body and damage the nervous system, kidneys, and liver.
- Nitrates, often from fertilizer runoff, reduce the blood’s ability to carry oxygen and pose special risks to infants.
- Disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids are formed when disinfectants react with organic matter such as plant material, soil compounds or decaying microorganisms. Long-term exposure to these chemicals may increase cancer risk.
- PFAS chemicals (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances)—dubbed “forever chemicals” because they can take as long as a hundred years to break down. They persist in the body too, and are linked to harm to the thyroid, immune and reproduction systems.
Can my home plumbing add contaminants to drinking water?
Even if your municipal water is treated effectively, contaminants can be introduced by your home’s plumbing or local service lines. Faucets and pipes can leach metals such as iron, lead, or copper into your water. For those with rural homes supplied by wells, there are additional risks for bacterial contamination and chemical intrusion from nearby agricultural or industrial activities.
Filtration systems installed at home play a critical role in protecting every household member from these potential contaminants, whether your water source is city-treated or a private well.
Who needs the purest drinking water?
Everyone benefits from clean, healthy water, but some groups have even greater needs for contaminant-free drinking water:
- Pregnant women are at higher risk because contaminants like lead, nitrates, and certain PFAS chemicals can cross the placenta and negatively affect fetal development. The same contaminants can also harm the mother’s nervous system, heart health and kidney function.
- Infants and children consume proportionally more water relative to their body size and have developing organs—particularly their brains—making them vulnerable to damage from heavy metals and bacteria.
- Elderly adults may have weakened immune systems, increasing their susceptibility to microbial contaminants.
- Immunocompromised individuals, including cancer patients and those with autoimmune diseases, face heightened risks even from low-level microbial exposure. Organisms such as Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Legionella, as well as metals like lead, copper, arsenic, and nitrates, are especially hazardous.
Even low concentrations of contaminants can accumulate in the body over time, which highlights the importance of filtration, not only for safety, but also to improve taste and odor, providing peace of mind.
How can I identify the contaminants in my water?
Testing your water is the essential first step before selecting any filtration system. A professional water test will reveal which contaminants are present in your supply. Contaminant profiles differ widely based on geographic location, age of your plumbing, and water source.
Municipal water systems may contain chlorine, fluoride, and disinfection byproducts. However, aging water treatment plants can sometimes allow bacteria, lead, or other pollutants to enter the system from time to time. Well water often carries sediment, nitrates, bacteria, iron, or manganese.
Only by understanding your unique water profile can you select the best purification system for your home. This ensures that your system targets the impurities that are important to remove.
What is reverse osmosis (RO), and how does it work?
Reverse osmosis is one of the most popular and effective home water purification methods. It works by applying pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane with extremely tiny pores—approximately 0.0001 microns in size. This process allows pure water molecules to pass while contaminants are flushed away.
What contaminants does reverse osmosis remove?
Reverse osmosis membranes can remove 95–99% of dissolved salts, metals, ions, organic compounds, and microorganisms. Among these are:
- Lead, arsenic, cadmium, and chromium
- Fluoride and nitrates
- PFAS chemicals and pesticides
- Microorganisms such as Cryptosporidium, bacteria or viruses
- Pharmaceuticals and microplastics.
Few other home systems match RO’s ability to filter out both chemical and biological contaminants comprehensively.
What are the benefits of reverse osmosis systems?
RO produces near-pure water, making it ideal for households with vulnerable members. It effectively removes chlorine and sulfur compounds that affect water’s taste and odor. RO also reliably blocks bacteria and viruses that many carbon filters cannot capture.
What are the drawbacks of reverse osmosis?
- RO filters remove beneficial minerals like calcium and magnesium, which may result in water tasting flat and lacking these healthy electrolytes. Some users choose to add mineral drops or install remineralization cartridges to address this.
- The RO process wastes some water as contaminated wastewater is discharged.
- Systems can be costly, typically ranging from $200 to $600 for under-sink models, often requiring professional installation.
- RO systems demand regular maintenance, with filters and membranes needing replacement every 6 to 12 months.
For households facing serious contamination or wanting the purest water available, RO remains the gold standard in home filtration.
How do Brita filters work?
Brita filters are among the most common, accessible and affordable household water filtration options. These filters utilize a combination of activated carbon and ion-exchange resin to reduce certain contaminants.
What contaminants do Brita filters remove?
Brita pitcher filters mainly improve water taste and odor by reducing chlorine and organic compounds. They remove as much as 97% of chlorine. They also remove almost all lead, mercury, and copper, depending on the specific filter model. Brita filters further reduce sediments, rust, and particulates.
Their primary benefit is enhancing water flavor and significantly reducing the characteristic chlorine smell from municipal water.
What contaminants do Brita filters not remove?
Brita filters are ineffective in removing the following contaminants:
- Microorganisms such as viruses and most bacteria.
- Pharmaceuticals, PFAS chemicals, or nitrates.
- Hard water minerals like calcium and magnesium cause scaling and clog pipes and appliances that use water.
- Microplastics may not be filtered out well if the carbon filters are not maintained regularly.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Brita filters?
Brita filters offer convenience and affordability. They require no plumbing installation, are widely available, and serve as an eco-friendly alternative to bottled water—each filter replaces hundreds of plastic bottles. They improve taste by removing chlorine and some metals responsible for unpleasant flavors.
However, Brita filters are limited in contaminant removal and are not suitable for water with major pollution. Filters require replacement every two to three months to avoid clogging and bacterial growth. Moreover, Brita filters are inadequate for well water and heavily contaminated supplies.
How do reverse osmosis and Brita filters differ?
Knowing the differences can enable you to more easily choose the right filter.
- Reverse osmosis systems use a fine semi-permeable membrane alongside carbon and sediment pre-filters, providing a. multi-step approach that removes a wide array of contaminants down to sizes as small as 0.0001 microns.
- They remove 95-99% of heavy metals, PFAS, nitrates, fluoride, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, bacteria, and viruses.
- Brita filters depend on activated carbon and ion-exchange resin, targeting chlorine, metals, and sediments, but many dissolved chemicals and microbes pass through.
- Brita preserves minerals in water, maintaining taste but offering limited health-related contaminant reduction. RO systems remove bacteria and viruses efficiently; Brita provides minimal biological protection.
- In terms of taste, RO water is nearly pure but may taste bland unless re-mineralized, while Brita significantly improves flavor and smell in chlorinated water.
- RO maintenance includes filter replacement every 6-12 months and membrane replacement every 2-3 years, whereas Brita filters need changing every 2-3 months to prevent clogging and bacterial buildup.
- Installation also differs: RO systems typically require professional under-sink installation or whole-house integration, while Brita filters are portable and installation-free.
- RO systems involve higher upfront costs, but the filters last longer than Brita filters; a Brita system is inexpensive initially but has ongoing costs because of frequent filter changes.
- Both systems need regular maintenance to maintain effectiveness.
Which filtration system should I choose?
Reverse osmosis is best for families facing significant heavy metal, PFAS, fluoride, or microbial contamination, or those with vulnerable individuals such as infants, pregnant women, or the immunocompromised. Brita filters are suitable for households with generally safe municipal water where the desire is to improve taste and odor with an economical system.
RO systems offer long-term, comprehensive purification, while Brita provides quick taste improvement without high costs or installation complexity. The choice is yours, depending on what you want to remove from your water and the needs of your particular household.
Why should I test my water before buying a filter?
Knowing exactly what contaminants your water contains is critical because water quality varies from house to house, even within the same neighborhood. Professional testing can detect heavy metals, PFAS, pesticides, nitrates from agricultural runoff, toxic chemicals from industrial or military activity, microorganism levels, and water characteristics like hardness or acidity that affect plumbing and appliances. Your own home can also add bacteria from well or plumbing contamination or heavy metals from your plumbing system. The type of local supply pipes in your community can also result in contaminants being leached out of the metal, enabling them to be added to your drinking water.
With the results of a professional water test, you can select a filtration system precisely suited to remove harmful impurities, rather than relying on guesswork or marketing claims. That’s how you can achieve peace of mind, knowing your family has a healthy water supply every day.
ETR Laboratories Helps Thousands of Families Make the Right Choice
For households across the country, ETR Laboratories has provided accurate test results that have guided their filtration decisions. Businesses that rely on pure water, such as hospitals or dialysis centers, have also trusted ETR Laboratories. When you want to know exactly what’s in your well or municipal water, ETR Laboratories has the perfect test for your needs.
A Premium Water Test checks for 113 different substances that you may need to remove from your water supply. These range from coliform bacteria, aluminum and uranium to chlorine and industrial chemicals like benzene. With your results, you will know exactly what your filtration needs are. You won’t buy a system that is more than what you need, or that leaves contaminants that you would rather have removed.
To order a Premium Water Test, click on the link to have your test kit mailed to you promptly! You will have your test results in just a few days. Order the Premium Water Test today!
