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Water quality and filtration

Filters are sold as one thing and are actually five different things. What you need depends entirely on what is in your water — which you have to measure, not assume.

A filter only removes what it is designed to remove

"Water filter" covers products that do completely unrelated jobs. Sediment filters remove particles and protect everything downstream. Activated carbon targets taste, odour and chlorine. Reverse osmosis removes dissolved solids, which is a much bigger job, wastes some water and strips minerals. UV disinfects but removes nothing physical. Softeners address hardness — scale — and are not a purification device at all.

Choosing between them without knowing what is in your water is guesswork. On mains supply, your water authority publishes water quality data for your area and that is the honest starting point. On tank, bore or spring water, the only real answer is a laboratory test by a NATA-accredited lab.

We do not tell anyone their water is safe to drink. Not tank water, not bore water, not filtered water. That is a laboratory result read against the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, and it is specific to your property, your roof, your catchment and your season. A website that tells you otherwise is guessing with someone else's health.

Hard water is a plumbing problem before it is a drinking problem. Scale shortens the life of a hot water system, blocks aerators and shower roses, and reduces heat transfer. If your kettle scales quickly and your shower rose blocks every few months, that is what you are looking at — and maintenance matters more for you than for most.

Water quality guides

Sources

What this page explains is based on these official sources. If you check one and it does not match what you read here, send it to us and the article gets corrected.