Charcoal To One-Micron Particle Filters: The Gamut Of Shower Head Filters

The cheapest shower filter on Google Products at this moment is a single, $10 filter – as advertised, it snatches up sulfur and chlorine in the water, keeping these chemicals from damaging skin and hair. The most expensive filter costs $379.90 (cheap!) and removes 95% of chlorine, sediment, total organic carbon and volatile organic compounds.

Very different systems, obviously. But, specifically, what does all this mean? Do they mean anything substantial, or do they just act as a lure for customers? Or are they real a danger?

TOC – Total Organic Carbons

Simply put, Total Organic Carbon is used as a general indicator of water quality. The total count of carbon in an organic compound makes up the TOC count. What this means is that if your TOC count is above normal, you could potentially be getting doused with pesticides, detergents, or decaying plant matter. Normally public water systems are supposed to use chemicals to remove the decaying plant matter and treat the water, but some amount does get through.

Volatile Organic Compounds

Volatile Organic Compounds are contaminants such as benzene or trichloroethylene that enter the water system due to spills or cracked pipelines. There are numerous causes for this – the trichloroethylene above, for instance, is used to clean septic tanks, and may have been left by careless workers, or accidentally spilled. Benzene entering the water system might be due to gasoline or oil spills. Usually these are monitored pretty strictly by public water systems, but if you live in an old industrial or agricultural region, it might be wise to get your water checked every so often.

Chlorine

The classic disinfectant. This is usually used to treat and disinfect water at disinfection plants, and to make it suitable for drinking down the line. If you’ve ever swam in a swimming pool, you’ve found yourself exposed to one of the most effective basic disinfectants – exposed to the point of skin irritation and dried hair, if you stayed in too long: that’s the risk of chlorine. The good news is that the chlorine is easy to treat – even the most basic of charcoal filters remove chlorine from the water supply.

Usually, municipal water sources filter TOCs and VOCs very well – paying $400 to remove harmless trace amounts borders on wasteful. Those aside, the amount of chlorine in the water system shouldn’t be enough to worry you – unless you fret about perfect hair. If the worries are still sticking with you, though, and you can’t find a way to push them aside, a far more inexpensive sixty dollar shower filter will do all that, besides restoring pH balance and culling heavy metals.

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