Water Purification Equipment - Suggestions

Water Purification Equipment provides for one of three essential elements so necessary for a healthy natural existence.  These three elements are:

1. Air
2. Water
3. Food

These elements have been listed above in relative order of importance - i.e., oneself cannot go without proper air to breathe for more than a few minutes or oneself will die; one can go without water for some days; one can go without food for, perhaps, some weeks.  Speaking about breathing air, if you would, as a bit of an aside, be interested in learning about what we consider to be one of the world's great products - an Easy Living Air air purifier, please "click" here and you will be connected to our webpage on that product.

We believe - we have found from our own experience - that drinking good, clean, fresh, great-tasting water not only tremendously enhances your satisfaction in the actual glass of water that you are imbibing to quench your thirst, etc.; but, is a great, healthy way to help your body work better and longer.  It is simple: clean water is beneficial to your body's most essential functions.  Water that is not clean , at best, does not "work" as well in your body and, at worst, can possibly kill you.  Everything that uses water that goes into your body also tastes markedly better with clean, fresh water - from coffee and tea to everything that you will cook before eating.  Clean water is better!

We suggest one of two Water Purification product manufacturer's equipment - either Everpure or EcoQuest.

Everpure has been an industry leader in the field of water purification since 1933.  Everpure uses a unique, pre-coat design in most of their filters which completely filters out all particles down to .5 microns in size (1/50,000 inch).  At this size, harmful, parasitic cysts such as cryptosporidium or giardia are completely removed as well as asbestos fibers (common in older piping) and any other particles to .5 microns.  A precoat filter/septum design such as this is fairly common in large bottling plants (such as Coke and Pepsi - both customers of Everpure); but, is not usual in smaller, residential or office type of drinking water filtration equipment.

Everpure's pre-coat design completely eliminates the channeling or dumping that can occur with regular, carbon block filter units.  Channeling is a process whereby the incoming water carves channels, or tunnels, through the carbon material.  The result of this is that the water continually goes through these channels (only) and the water never encounters the rest of the carbon block material.  Thus, the contaminants in the water load up the carbon relatively quickly in the channels, and the carbon then fails in its ability to remove further contaminants.

Dumping is a process whereby the carbon ultimately fails in its ability to adequately hold onto the pollutants being filtered out from the water.  When this happens the carbon releases, or dumps, pollutants back into the water.  In this way, the water leaving the DWS can actually be dirtier than the incoming water.  Neither of these problems can ever occur with the Everpure's unique, pre-coat design.  The filtered water will actually slow to a trickle if the filter is not changed at the proper intervals; however, even in this situation, the Everpure DWS maintains its filtering quality.

Everpure provides a complete range of filters from above-the-counter to the more usual under-the-counter, Point-of-Use (POU) DWS (Drinking Water Systems), as well as whole-house systems to ensure that the water at every spigot or faucet is as clean, healthy and fresh as possible.  We tell our (local) customers to bring us a clean, taste-free empty container.  We will fill it with water filtered through an Everpure DWS and send them home to make one of the best-tasting cups of coffee or tea they have ever enjoyed!  (We can say this with confidence because Starbucks, as an example, uses Everpure filters to help deliver their great-tasting cups of coffee).

At this point we should probably boast a bit and recite to you a partial list below of Everpure customers:

Coke, Pepsi, Starbucks, Wendy's, Hardee's, KFC, MacDonalds, Arby's, Bennigan's, Burger King, Exxon, KLM, Pizza Hut, Harrah's Casino, 7-Eleven, Tropicana, TWA, WAWA, the US Navy, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Days Inn, Denny's Hardee's, Jack-in-the-Box, Marie Callender, Pizza Hut, Popeye's, Taco Bell, Stop'N'Go, Ice-O-Matic, Caesar's Palace, General Foods, Golden Nugget, Marriott, Resorts International, Smuggler's Inn, University of Texas, Texas A&M, Westin Hotels, E.I. DuPont, Westinghouse, Boeing Company, almost all the major airlines in the world, Hess, Bechtel, , Litton, Lockheed, Shell, Tenneco, US Air Force and dozens and dozens of others!  All these above-listed firms have one thing in common:  they either want or absolutely need to have the best available water.  This is a very impressive list, isn't it?!

NSF:  We should stop for a moment and talk about NSF.  One of the most important elements in initially deciding upon the proper DWS is to be aware that any suitable DWS will have received a satisfactory NSF rating.  NSF is an independent rating organization - like UL or CSA - that sets the standards by which water purification equipment is measured.  In the most important criterion, Everpure rates at 99.9% efficiency to a Class I standard - Everpure's highest.  This ensures that the product performs at stated levels throughout the expected life of the filter(s).  This is extremely important, as it ensures for health reasons that a filter does not start its life at one level of performance and then gradually degrade to a lower level.

We could continue to "tout" the abilities and quality of Everpure filtration; however, we very subtly suggest you cannot own better quality water filtration equipment than is provided by Everpure, and we think you might like to "click" here to connect to our webpage on Everpure products.

The second DWS that we recommend is made by EcoQuest International (formerly known as Alpine Industries) and is called The Living Water Machine.  This excellent - we can say "unique" - water filtration system provides the same, essential quality that is provided by Everpure DWS with the addition of ozone and ultraviolet light.  This is a step up the ladder, so to speak, in providing better/safer drinking water as ozone and ultraviolet light provide industry-accepted methods of destroying bacteria and other micro-organisms.  The Living Water Machine also enjoys the same NSF ratings as does Everpure.

In most water treatment facilities in the USA where water is treated and prepared to make it safe to drink before it leaves the facility enroute to your home or office, the common, traditional method of destroying bacteria is to infuse the water with chlorine (bleach).  Chlorine works nicely to destroy bacteria and suchlike; however, it is a suspected carcinogen and, since it is used in such a widespread fashion in the world of water treatment facilities, it is regularly/usually found in the drinking water coming out of the faucet.  A first-class DWS, of course, will remove the chlorine. In addition, the activity of the chlorine with certain organic compounds present in the water causes the formation of toxic gases called Trihalomethanes (THMs).  Again, a first-class DWS will remove THMs.

Our point in speaking of the chlorine is to highlight the fact that the use of chlorine involves a dual-edged sword - it destroys bacteria but itself remains as a contaminant.  The use of ozone with ultraviolet light, however, not only neatly circumvents this latter problem; but, works much better than chlorine to destroy bacteria.  Ozone, a triate form of oxygen (O₃), used by itself is 5,000 times more reactive in water than chlorine in killing bacteria.  Ozone also breaks down other organic contaminants.  New, state-of-the-art water treatment facilities are now employing ozone to treat the drinking water, and much of the bottled water is ozonated (read it on the label!) in the purification process.    Ultraviolet light also is highly effective at killing micro-organisms and, when combined with ozone, provides a synergistic effect that is deadly to bacteria.

Thus, the water flowing through a Living Water System is subjected at different intervals to ozone and ultraviolet light, creating a lethal environment to bacteria.  With the Living Water DWS not only is carbon filtration removing micro-organisms such as cryptosporidium and giardia as well as other particles such as asbestos fibers, rust, etc. down to 1 micron in size; but, the ozone and ultraviolet light are destroying bacteria.  Purposely, a Living Water DWS uses a polycarbonate (clear) container that enables the user to view the process and the inside of the filter assembly.  A traditional DWS filter becomes almost gooey with all the gunk and bacteria that colonizes inside the DWS; a Living Water System; however, remains clear and clean as a result of the scrubbing effect of the ozone!!

EcoQuest, like Everpure, makes above-the-counter DWS, under-the-counter DWS and whole-house water filtration systems.  Please "click" here to connect to our webpage on EcoQuest Living Water systems.