"What Filtration Water System Do I Need?"
Need to filter water but not sure about the differences between or applications of our systems? Use our Water Filter Systems Guide to find out which system is best for your filtration needs.
For more information on what water filter is right for your needs, you can also read the CDC’s Guide on Choosing Water Filter Systems.
Drinking Water from a Filtration Water System
Reverse Osmosis
(Under Sink)
Reverse osmosis water filtration systems can remove 90% of total dissolved solids (TDS) from water and can provide the purest water available for your home. Reverse osmosis water filters remove a wide range of contaminants and minerals from your drinking water, including sand, chlorine, fluoride, cryptosporidium, and hexavalent chromium.
Under Sink Filters
Under sink water filters remove contaminants from water like a reverse osmosis (RO) systems but leave in minerals like calcium and fluoride. Under sink filters are easier to maintain, have a higher flow rate & water pressure than RO systems, and unlike RO systems, they produce no waste water.
Ultraviolet Purification
UV water purification can be more effective than chemicals in destroying certain waterborne contaminants without altering the taste of the water. This makes it a practical process for treating water that is used for drinking and food preparation.
Countertop
Counter top filters are an inexpensive and simple solution to home water filtration. Counter top systems can be easily installed in the kitchen in minutes and require no tools. These systems come with granular activated carbon (GAC) media, KDF media, carbon block cartridge, or ceramic cartridge inside.
Portable Gravity
Due to their effectiveness at eliminating water-born diseases such as cholera, typhoid, E. Coli, etc., these water filters are being specified for field operations by many of the world’s major aid and emergency relief organizations. Easily portable and makes water from lakes and streams safe to drink, gravity filters are excellent for camping, emergencies or home use.
NSA Filters & Replacement Parts
Due to NSA no longer being in business we offer a quality selection of comparable replacement filters and parts from H2O International.
Shower & Kitchen
Shower Filters
We carry a wide assortment of shower head filters with multiple features and finishes to suit any decor. Many of our shower filters have multi-function sprays to turn an ordinary shower into a luxuriating experience. And most of our shower heads contain built-in filters to reduce chlorine from your shower water, which can damage your skin and hair over an extended period of time.
Inline Filters
These filters are often used as a Reverse Osmosis (RO) inline post filter. They clip on to the membrane housing and filter the water after the bladder tank, acting as a polishing filter. Other applications include: ice makers, appliances, water coolers, coffee makers, and other low flow applications.
Non-Backwashing Carbon Filters
Non-backwashing systems are smaller, low-priced systems that use replaceable cartridges to remove sediment. These systems are ideal for smaller homes seeking to remove chlorine from all faucets, showers and utilities in the home.
Backwashing Carbon Filters
Backwashing Systems are larger systems that remove sediment automatically by backwashing the system with water. This lifts the media bed and rinses sediment particles to the drain and re-grades the carbon bed. These systems are ideal for consumers who seek lower maintenance and have larger homes.
Large Backwashing Filters for Estate Homes
Large Backwashing Systems are sized for Estate homes or homes with special high-flow shower systems. These systems offer low maintenance and high quality filtration at flow rates between 16 and 35 gallons per minute.
Replacement Tanks
Replacement tanks are offered for consumers who have non-backwashing carbon tanks that require periodic replacement.
Water Softeners
Water softeners remove magnesium, calcium and iron by exchanging these ions with sodium ions in a resin bed . These can cause you to have ‘hard water’, which causes limescale to build up on pipes and soaps and detergents to be much less effective. View a map of water hardness areas in the United States.
Well Water
Well water systems remove elements, such as iron, manganese and hydrogen sulfide, that commonly build up in private wells and also stop the corrosion of copper pipes. There are also models that can balance pH or remove sediment in addition to this.
Multi-Cartridge Housings
Heavy duty commercial systems constructed out of stainless steel with a wide variety of ordering options to customize the system to your needs. These systems hold multiple cartridges and sizes from (4) to (22) between 10-40″ in length.
Single-Cartridge Housings
Heavy duty commercial systems constructed out of stainless steel with a wide variety of ordering options to customize the system to your needs. These systems hold a single cartridge from 10-30″ in length.
Everpure Commercial
Everpure offers a variety of systems for different applications; drinking water, coffee, fountains, icemakers, combo and steam systems. All Everpure systems use easy to replace cartridges.
Big Bubba Industrial System
Big-Bubba filter housings are made of rugged, glass-reinforced polypropylene so they will not chip, rust, or dent. And because all wetted surfaces are non-metallic, they are ideal when chemical compatibility is an issue and for sea water applications.
Aquariums
Aquariums need three types of filtration to maintain a healthy environment for freshwater, saltwater or amphibian aquariums (sediment filtration, carbon filtration, and removal of biological contaminants).
Automotive/RV
When traveling around the state or the country in a RV you might not always know where you will be getting the water from or what might be in it. Water that is stored in a RV holding tank will not stay potable for long and can become a breeding ground for algae and bacteria.
Botany
Chemicals added to public water supplies, like chlorine, can be harmful to the living cells of plants.
Homebrewing
When brewing beer with tap or bottled water, chlorine and chloramine present in the water can combine with malt phenols in the wort to create a compound called chlorophenol, which can give the beer a medicinal taste.
More Links
Water Filter Cartridges Guide
This guide can help you find out what cartridge you need to replace or the type you would need to remove a specific contaminant.
Drinking Water Contaminants
A list of water contaminants and their possible health effects. Click on contaminant link names for more detailed information about a specific contaminant.
A boil-water advisory or boil-water order is a public health advisory or directive given by government or health authorities to consumers when a community’s drinking water is, or could be, contaminated by pathogens.
Learn how to make an emergency water filter for disaster situations out of some common items.
This method does work and can keep you heathly if clean potable water or a manufactured water filter system are unobtainable.
The Hydrologic Cycle (also called the Water Cycle) is the continuous movement of water in the air, on the surface of and below the Earth.
This cycle is the exchange of energy which influences climate. When water condenses, it releases energy and warms the environment.
90% of the garbage floating in the Earth’s oceans is plastic and less than 5% of all plastic is recycled.
The patch mostly consists of pelagic plastics, formed from plastic bags, plastic water bottles, bottle caps and styrofoam.
Hydraulic fracturing (sometimes referred to as fracking or hydrofracking) is a relatively new form of natural gas extraction.
The fluids used in the fracking process flow back to the surface, often entering the water table or polluting the drilling area, and sometimes improper disposal of waste water from the wells.
As our technology advances, so do new forms of pollution and contaminants that effect our environment and our health.
Read more about drinking water contaminants and their health effects.
Chlorine has long been recognized as an oxidative agent, meaning that it not only kills the germs in the water supply; it will damage any living tissue with which it comes in contact. And your skin, like the rest of your organs, is living tissue. But that’s not the only problem.
Since the discovery of its health benefits in the mid-1940’s, fluoride is often added to the public water supplies of industrialized countries in order to reduce the populations tooth decay, which is especially effective in low income communities, where good dental hygiene may be too costly.
Chromium-6 was found in the drinking water supply of the southern California town of Hinkley and brought to national attention by Erin Brockovich.
The EPA is reviewing effects of Chromium-6 after a recent report brought to light dangerous levels in a number of major US cities.
Giardia is a flagellated protozoan parasite that colonizes and reproduces in the small intestines of humans and other animals, which can cause giardiasis.
Symptoms of Giardiasis usually show after 3 to 4 days, and include gastrointestinal and constitutional problems.
Cryptosporidiosis is a disease caused by the parasite Cryptosporidium parvum.
Since a outbreak in 1993 in Wisconson, new attention has been focused on determining and reducing the risk for Cryptosporidiosis from community and municipal water supplies.
What is reverse osmosis? What is a 4-Stage system? What are the components in a system? Visit our ‘How Reverse Osmosis Works‘ guide to find the answers.
Also see out list of contaminants RO removes and comparison chart for particle sizes to learn more about reverse osmosis.
What is ultraviolet light? Do I need to filter the water before the UV process? How exactly can light kill organisms?
Visit our ‘How Ultraviolet Purification Works‘ guide to find out how it works.
The typical water softener is a mechanical appliance that’s plumbed into your home’s water supply system. All water softeners use the same operating principle: They trade the minerals for something else, in most cases sodium. The process is called ion exchange. More…
Step by step instructions on installing replacement cartridges and sanitizing filter housings. It is highly recommended that you clean and sanitize your system once a year.
Need help installing your new RO system, how to perform maintenance, or how often to change your cartridges?
View our printable Reverse Osmosis Installation Guide to learn more.
Step by step instructions on making a connection with Quick-Connect fittings. Quick-connect fittings allow you to connect and disconnect tubing without the need of tools. For larger, plumbing size fittings read our using twist lock guide.
Step by step instructions on making a connection with Twist and Lock fittings. Twist-Lock fittings allow you to connect and disconnect tubing without the need of tools.
Step by step instructions on making a connection with SharkBite Push-To-Connect fittings. SharkBite fittings allow you to connect and disconnect pipes without the need of using PVC glue or welding copper.
Need to filter water but not sure about the differences between or applications of our systems?
Use our Water Filter Systems Guide to find out which system is best for your filtration needs.
Need to replace your system’s cartridges but not sure what type is best for your system?
View our Cartridge Replacement Guide or contact us to find out what you need.
View a chart comparing the specifications of all the reverse osmosis systems we sell on this site. All bladder tanks are NSF certified.
The size of your water softener depeneds on the total grain per day that need to be removed.
This is determined by the number of people in your household, grain per gallon (GPG) hardness and the amount of Iron present in the water.
A micron is a unit of measurement for how small of particles a filter will catch. The lower the micron size, the tinier the ‘holes’ in the filter cartridge are that allows water to pass through, ranging from 0.1 absolute to 150 microns.
Use our Pore Size Efficiency Guide to find out what micron size to use.
Pleated sediment cartridges remove dirt, rust and sediment from water while providing an increased surface area and longer life. Pleated filters down to 5 microns are washable and reusable.
Use our Pleated Sediment Cartridge Comparison to find the filter cartridge you need.
Aquariums need three types of filtration to maintain a healthy environment for freshwater, saltwater or amphibian aquariums (sediment filtration, carbon filtration, and removal of biological contaminants).
When traveling around the state or the country in a RV you might not always know where you will be getting the water from or what might be in it. Water that is stored in a RV holding tank will not stay potable for long and can become a breeding ground for algae and bacteria.
Chemicals added to public water supplies, like chlorine, can be harmful to the living cells of plants.
When brewing beer with tap or bottled water, chlorine and chloramine present in the water can combine with malt phenols in the wort to create a compound called chlorophenol, which can give the beer a medicinal taste.
View our Filtered Water for Home Beer Brewing guide.
Bottled water requires a lot of resources to manufacture and ship, and costs a lot more than reverse osmosis water.
Use our Bottled Water Cost Calculator to find out how much of an impact you have on the environment.
