Sometimes the water you draw may contain harmful chemicals which cannot be removed with standard filters. In such cases, other specialist filters can be used which will remove or reduce the harmful effects of many specific chemicals for example: Chlorine, lead, benzene, arsenic, mercury, cadmium and pesticides.
It is far beyond the scope of this webpage to offer a definitive list of all known harmful chemicals and the various means to remove them. Should your analysis show the presence of harmful chemicals, we will advise you of your options and the filtration solutions available.
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String Filters
People are becoming increasingly concerned about environmental pollution and the limitations of water treatment processes. Because safe drinking water is essential to human health, the chemical and biological quality of our drinking water are of great importance and accordingly, always under scrutiny.
String filters as the name suggests, are very long lengths of fine strings of varying compositions and thicknesses which effectively filter out solid particulate down to microns in size. Such filters will remove most organic matter, and bugs or tiny creatures present, grits and sands and in short, most solid particulate.
String filters render the water clean, and clean to the eye, but probably not suitable for drinking.
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Ultra Violet Filters
Ultra Violet light systems use high frequency light to irradiate water through a glass element. Water passing the element is exposed to the light, which destroys bacteria, viruses and other pathogens.
It achieves this by damaging the DNA of an organism’s cells, thus preventing the cell from multiplying and causing disease.
Ultra Violet light is an excellent sterilising system as it is proven to inactivate anything exposed to the UV-C range. Periodic laboratory analysis of the output water is required to ensure that the system is working correctly and for this reason such systems incorporate counters so a new element can be replaced at a safe interval.
UV systems are very common in Third world countries where the possibility of serious disease occurring from local water consumption is high
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Water Softeners
Water softeners come in a range of different types from sodium based units to more complex electronic systems. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. The most common used is the salt based which we will discuss below.
Water hardness is removed by a process called ion-exchange.
Hard water is passed through a cylinder containing ion-exchange resin in the form of millions of tiny plastic beads. The resin attracts and exchanges the hardness ions in the water.
The resin is automatically cleaned or 'regenerated' by rinsing a small amount of brine through the resin cylinder. Brine is made from dry salt tablets that are topped up by the user periodically. The used brine, containing accumulated hardness, does not enter the household water system - it is automatically flushed away down a nearby drain.
Refreshed by the regeneration the resin is again ready to remove hardness ions from your water.
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Harmful Chemical Filters
Although the presence of chemicals in our drinking water often creates concern about pollution and disease, chemically pure water doesn’t exist in nature.
Water, always contains a variety of chemicals and minerals. Fortunately, our drinking water supplies are largely free of the disease  causing organisms found in water supplies of many developing countries.
A number of different devices are available for removing undesirable chemicals from drinking water, or to reduce those chemical to safe levels. Processes employed include reverse osmosis, activated aluminium oxide absorption, ion exchange, and distillation.
Once again, rather than try to create a definitive list of possible scenarios here, we would advise you of your options after an
analysis test has been performed. |
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