Home Water Filter, Is One Filter Enough In Bkk/Pattaya ?

[Soboringtochooseaname]

Hi,

I have seen and Omnipure countertop waterfilter and I wonder if only 1 filter is enough in Bkk or Pattaya ?

Also, if one is enough, why do they sell water filters with sometimes 5 filters ? Just for stupid people to buy more filter cartridges every year, right ?

I am looking for the cheapest (if possible for countertop) water filter that is enough and easy to service.

Which one do you use, or which one you wished you have bought ?

Thanks a lot.

[xthAi76s]

Hi -

What are your water concerns? You may know all this already, but the reason I ask is because filtration and disinfection are completely different and most cheaper water filtration units (esp counter top models) don't offer much disinfection. If you are concerned with biological and/or chemical issues with the water, most likely you need something that purifies/disinfects your water.

I'm not sure if your Omnipure (http://www.omnipure.com/residential.htm) does that...

For example, many of the very large, shared water purification units in Thailand (like the ones you see in condos) are water purification units which filter and disinfect ... The fact that many see it as a good investment to disinfect the water could be a sign to pay attention to even though the water in BKK is supposed to be just fine under normal (non-flood) circumstances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_purification

Just make sure you're meeting your concerns if they are not only filtration but also the more important disinfection esp with the flood related problems.

Good luck,

[wayned]

As ThailandMan said , most cheaper filters use activated carbon and remove/reduce many volitile chemicals, pesticides and herbicides that affect color and taste, but they do not remove bacteria and viruses. I have had a house in Bangkok for 12 years and up until the flood, drank unfiltered tap water. My neighbor has a four stage activated carbon filter and I really can't tell any difference, but maybe it was the whiskey we always added to it.. An brief explanation is copied below.

What Contaminants Does Carbon (GAC) Remove?

Activated carbon filters remove/reduce many volatile organic chemicals (VOC), pesticides and herbicides, as well as chlorine, benzene, trihalomethane (THM) compounds, radon, solvents and hundreds of other man-made chemicals found in tap water. Some activated carbon filters are moderately effective at removing some, but not all, heavy metals. In addition, densely compacted carbon block filters mechanically remove particles down to 0.5 micron, including Giardia and Cryptosporidium, turbidity and particulates. Although some iron, manganese, and hydrogen sulfide will be removed by these higher quality activated carbon filters, a manganese greensand iron reduction filter is generally preferred to remove these contaminants as the effectiveness of carbon filter against iron and manganese is generally short-lived if the contaminant concentration is high.

Carbon filters are NOT generally successful at removing dissolved inorganic contaminants or metals such as minerals/salts (hardness or scale-causing contaminants), antimony, arsenic, asbestos, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, mercury, nickel, nitrates/nitrites, selenium, sulfate, thallium, and certain radio nuclides. Removing these contaminants requires either a reverse osmosis water filter system or a distiller (some can also be removed by KDF-55 or manganese greensand).

GAC does not remove sediment / particulate material very well, so they are often preceded by a sediment filter. Sediment pre-filters also prolong the activate carbon cartridge life by eliminating gross contaminants that would otherwise clog the activated carbon thereby reducing the surface area available for absorption. Carbon block filters are generally better then GAC filters at removing sediment.

Edited December 30, 2011 by wayned

[Heng]

We use two Pure brand RO filters, it has three filter capsules that need to be changed every 3-6 months for two of them and once a year for the other one. There's also a rough filter that picks up large sediment that we change when it is visually getting dirty (about once a month). About 4,000 Baht a year in filter changes per unit, 12,000 Baht each for the original main unit (5-6 years ago). Happy with the results, and yes we do periodically test our water with water test kits from Amazon.

The big question is the quality of your local tap water and also how water gets fed into your filter (straight from the tap water mains or stored in your water tank first for example). We also have rough filters filtering our water storage tanks as in the past if we didn't do that, sediment would build up rather quickly. I would think that if we didn't do that, it would quickly overload the water filters inside the house.

It's a big decision, good luck!

[dave111223]

You can buy water filters that use UV Light to disinfect the water. The ones with UV cost more obviously (about 10,000THB up) and require a power source.