Whole house water filters are an excellent solution to poor water quality no matter where you live. These devices are installed at your water main before any water enters hour home, and they can remove most contaminants you're concerned about before any water reaches your family. Instead of worrying, you'll have clean, pure water with great taste from every tap in your home.

There are some very good reasons for installing whole house water filters. For one, these devices remove much of the chlorine in your water, eliminating the growing modern problem of chloroform contamination in your house when chlorine vaporizes in the shower or when you run hot water devices. For another, they can contribute toward softening your water, eliminating many of the minerals that make your soaps and shampoos work poorly and saving you money. In addition, fewer contaminants means you won't have residue on your body, your shower wall, or your dishes.

With a whole house water filter, you won't have to have a separate water filter for your drinking water supply, either; a good filter will provide you with bottled-water quality water right out of your tap.

A whole house water filter is a home improvement project, and should be approached as such. While it is a significant expense, it also adds to your home's value. These filters will take up about half the space of a standard water heater, and you'll need to hire a professional plumber to install them. Filters need to be changed out once or twice a year, depending on the type of filters you have and how contaminated your water is. Costs of your whole house water filter will be offset by savings on bottled water purchasing and by the decrease in the amount of soaps you'll need to use; if you have a problem with indoor air quality, a whole house water filter can often improve that as well, and the lung health of your entire family.

Whole house water filters typically use a three stage system, starting with the sediment tank where larger contaminants are allowed to settle out of the water. This cleaner water is sent through an activated carbon filter or a ceramic filter, where most chemical and biological contaminants are removed. Last, a redox potential high filter removes chlorine from the water before it is allowed to continue into your home. The result: very clean water with few if any contaminants that still has fluoride and calcium dissolved in it for your family's heath and better tasting water.

Choose your whole house water filter carefully. You'll need to find out what contaminants are in your water at the main source; if you have no idea how to go about this, your water company may test it for you for free, or they'll be able to tell you where to go to have it tested. Worry more about removing all the contaminants that are a problem in your water than about how much your filter is going to cost; it will pay for itself, but only if you get every contaminant at the source. And find out how and when to change filters, and how much filters are going to add to your bill each year.