Buying a water purification system: A guide on how to estimate cost
When you want to select the best water purification system for your home, you are inevitably faced with the issue of cost. You need to investigate not only the initial purchase price, but also how expensive it is to maintain it.
Below, I give you a list of the elements that should go into your cost equation. In my analysis, I make references to the most popular water purifier technologies now available, which are: Filters, Reverse Osmosis (RO) units, distillers and Ultraviolet (UV) units.
Purchase price
This varies greatly, according to the type and complexity of water purifier you choose. The determining factor for your choice of system should be the range of contaminants you need to get rid of from your water. You should collect this information beforehand, either through the annual water quality report provided to you by your utility, or through a private test that you can get from a water testing laboratory.
In general, the higher the number of pollutants you want to remove, the higher the number of filtration stages you want to pass the input water through. This makes the price go higher.
In order to give you a flavor of the prices you should expect, let me say that a simple one stage carbon filter can start from $25, while more complex water purification systems consisting of redox, UV and carbon filters can have a tag price starting from $400 up to $800.
How much to install it
What is common practice among water purification system manufacturers is to exclude any installation cost from the initial price. This is attributed to the fact that many models in a given technology do not require any complicated set up whatsoever. More often than not, these are counter top models or just need to readily connect with a faucet.
If the installation of your system is a bit more involved, more often than not you can seek help from a person with minimum technical know how. In the case, however, that more technical skills are required, then a hired professional might cost anywhere from $100 up to around $200. The final cost depends on the modifications you need to make in your existing set up in your house as well as on the complexity of the water purification system itself.
To conclude on this issue, I have a suggestion to make: Always make sure with the company that is selling the purifier system you want to buy, whether the purchase price they publish includes installation cost or not.
Cost per gallon
Last but not least in my list of the cost parameters you should consider, comes the running cost of operating the water purification system. Typically, its unit of measure is cost per gallon of water produced (usually in the range of 6 to 25 dollar cents) and for its calculation it takes into account the money spent on replaceable parts plus any operating cost (electricity and water bill etc.).
To give you a rough indication of what this cost actually means for each technology, consider that, as for parts replacement, filters need to be changed roughly once every six months, RO membranes once every two years and UV lamps once a year. Distillers have no parts to replace; therefore their cost is totally based on operating cost that is utility bills. I should also mention here that RO units have exceptionally low efficiency (in other words they waste a lot of water), so expect a high water bill for this type of purifier.
To illustrate my point that you shouldn't base your decision to buy a water purifier on initial price alone, I will give you an example. While pour through pitcher filters are the cheapest in terms of tag price, they have the highest ongoing cost per gallon. This is due to the fact that their filters need frequent replacement. As a rule of thumb, the larger the filter the more expensive it is to buy, but the cheaper it is to maintain.
Having said the above, what's very important to be clear about before you start considering the cost implications, is the level of effectiveness and efficiency that you want from your water purification system, based on your own set of circumstances. In other words, you want the system to be effective at removing the contaminants your water has and to do that efficiently, i.e. remove them as much as possible.
Therefore, it goes without saying that, as I said earlier, it is quite important that you should have a clear picture of what your water contains (in terms of pollutants), before you start your research on water purifiers.
Once you establish that all of the systems you consider buying are capable of eliminating the pollutants that exist in your water, then you can proceed to select the one that has the least cost of ownership. - 17268
Below, I give you a list of the elements that should go into your cost equation. In my analysis, I make references to the most popular water purifier technologies now available, which are: Filters, Reverse Osmosis (RO) units, distillers and Ultraviolet (UV) units.
Purchase price
This varies greatly, according to the type and complexity of water purifier you choose. The determining factor for your choice of system should be the range of contaminants you need to get rid of from your water. You should collect this information beforehand, either through the annual water quality report provided to you by your utility, or through a private test that you can get from a water testing laboratory.
In general, the higher the number of pollutants you want to remove, the higher the number of filtration stages you want to pass the input water through. This makes the price go higher.
In order to give you a flavor of the prices you should expect, let me say that a simple one stage carbon filter can start from $25, while more complex water purification systems consisting of redox, UV and carbon filters can have a tag price starting from $400 up to $800.
How much to install it
What is common practice among water purification system manufacturers is to exclude any installation cost from the initial price. This is attributed to the fact that many models in a given technology do not require any complicated set up whatsoever. More often than not, these are counter top models or just need to readily connect with a faucet.
If the installation of your system is a bit more involved, more often than not you can seek help from a person with minimum technical know how. In the case, however, that more technical skills are required, then a hired professional might cost anywhere from $100 up to around $200. The final cost depends on the modifications you need to make in your existing set up in your house as well as on the complexity of the water purification system itself.
To conclude on this issue, I have a suggestion to make: Always make sure with the company that is selling the purifier system you want to buy, whether the purchase price they publish includes installation cost or not.
Cost per gallon
Last but not least in my list of the cost parameters you should consider, comes the running cost of operating the water purification system. Typically, its unit of measure is cost per gallon of water produced (usually in the range of 6 to 25 dollar cents) and for its calculation it takes into account the money spent on replaceable parts plus any operating cost (electricity and water bill etc.).
To give you a rough indication of what this cost actually means for each technology, consider that, as for parts replacement, filters need to be changed roughly once every six months, RO membranes once every two years and UV lamps once a year. Distillers have no parts to replace; therefore their cost is totally based on operating cost that is utility bills. I should also mention here that RO units have exceptionally low efficiency (in other words they waste a lot of water), so expect a high water bill for this type of purifier.
To illustrate my point that you shouldn't base your decision to buy a water purifier on initial price alone, I will give you an example. While pour through pitcher filters are the cheapest in terms of tag price, they have the highest ongoing cost per gallon. This is due to the fact that their filters need frequent replacement. As a rule of thumb, the larger the filter the more expensive it is to buy, but the cheaper it is to maintain.
Having said the above, what's very important to be clear about before you start considering the cost implications, is the level of effectiveness and efficiency that you want from your water purification system, based on your own set of circumstances. In other words, you want the system to be effective at removing the contaminants your water has and to do that efficiently, i.e. remove them as much as possible.
Therefore, it goes without saying that, as I said earlier, it is quite important that you should have a clear picture of what your water contains (in terms of pollutants), before you start your research on water purifiers.
Once you establish that all of the systems you consider buying are capable of eliminating the pollutants that exist in your water, then you can proceed to select the one that has the least cost of ownership. - 17268
About the Author:
Nicos Stylianou deeply believes that drinking purified water is crucial to better health. Visit his nutrition guide website now to become better informed and find out what he recommends.
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1:49 AM
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