It’s easy to make a homemade water filter. This is just a container with gravel, then charcoal and sand.
You pour muddy water in at the top and get water without “clouding” particulates at the bottom.
It seems a simple solution, but is it? In this article you’ll discover the pro’s and con’s of making and using your own water filter.
I am not saying that it is bad, but if you’re really serious about clean water, then you might want to look at proven effective systems, such as Aquasana.
However, if you’re very good at building your own systems, then a homemade water filter might be a good option for you!
Pros:
- It’s cheap if you have the materials handy.
- It’s available if you can’t buy one easily.
- You can make one in an emergency.
- It’s a fun project if you are handy.
Cons:
- It’s not so cheap if you don’t have free materials available.
- Some materials may be difficult to procure or cost more than you save.
- You can only make small amounts of filtered water.
- Dispensing water may be difficult.
- If you’re not mechanical, making the filter and frame may be difficult.
- You have to renew and clean materials to avoid algae or stale water.
- It does not kill microorganisms or protect against water-borne diseases.
There are other methods of water purification, but they may be undesirable. Distillation removes essential minerals, and reverse osmosis wastes a great deal of water. Your best bet may be a modern home filtration system.
Let’s compare a homemade water filter with a more modern method, such as the Aquasana system:
- You aren’t refilling a gallon jug every few hours.
Whether you use a whole-house system near your water inlet, or a faucet-mount system with a switchover valve, you have fresh, pure water all the time. - You don’t have to worry about water-borne diseases.
Since your water comes from the public system, which must, by law, remove microorganisms, that’s no worry. Aquasana then removes the harsh chlorine used to kill these organisms, leaving pure water. A home-built system may have spotty results in chlorine removal, and then only if you buy charcoal pellets. - You don’t have to figure what to clean and when.
It’s hard to judge when you need to change charcoal pellets or clean the sand to avoid algae, in a home-built system. If you make a mistake, you’re drinking dirty water. - Life is busy and there are already a thousand things to do
Do you really want to spend a lot of time cleaning, filling, emptying and fussing with a homemade system? - Exotic Chemicals
Increasingly, our water is filled with industrial runoff and chemicals whose damaging effects are known, or worse yet, unknown. A homemade water filter does not remove these chemicals, but an Aquasana filter does.
If you’re interested in learning more about the best water filter available today, there is a 20% special discount going on at Aquasana, you can click here to learn more.
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