FollowText.com » Health » Home Made Water Purifier: Good Idea?

Home Made Water Purifier: Good Idea?

by: TrentBarrett
Total views: 7 | Word Count: 493

A home made water purifier can be as simple as cloth tied around a water faucet, or as complex as a series of chemical filters put together for a large quantity of water to be run through them. Historically, the cloth was a typical solution, and even today in Africa, some tribeswomen are taught to pour fresh-drawn water through layers of cloth before using it to remove contaminants. The water at the end looks cleaner, and it does prevent some water-borne contaminants, like amoeba, it is very far from a good solution.

You'll find many types of home made water purifier instructions online, from simple filters to systems that involve distillation of water. The truth is, there are some serious problems with the do-it-yourself approach when it comes to purification of water. That's not good; improperly purified drinking water can harm your health and even kill you. While it's laudable to want to save a little money by creating your own filters, you could be putting yourself and your family at risk by doing it.

First, home made water purifiers generally don't tell you when they can no longer remove contaminants. Most professional grade water purifiers have some system whereby they will tell you to change filters or clean the purifier. Except for distilled water, you should assume that your home made water filter will need to be replaced, so you have to determine what the maximum safe use time for it is yourself. If you don't change the filter when it's saturated with contaminants, the result could be worse than if you used no filter, as fresh water running through will dissolve some of the contaminants already in the filter and give you a double dose.

Even with distilled water, you have a problem: you're removing everything from the water that is good as well as bad, like iron, copper, and calcium, which actually promote good health even in trace amounts. Distilled water also tastes flat, and you may get added contaminants you did not anticipate from your distillation system. More than that, you may not be removing chlorine; it evaporates with water and may well condense right down with it as well. Commercial filters eliminate this contaminant, while few do-it-yourself systems do.

If you're determined to do it yourself,a home made water purifier needs to have several layers of filtration in order to work effectively: sand or diatomatious earth, activated carbon, and layers of gauze or mesh to hold the filters in place. Water needs to be put through this filter at pressure. Then, at the end, you need to test the water yourself; the best way is to allow a glass of water to sit for a day or two and see what settles at the bottom or whether the water gets cloudy, and also test the water at biological laboratories for microbes and other things that can sicken you. It is likely to be cheaper and easier to just purchase a commercial system.

About the Author

This article was written by Trent Barrett, a writer for Best-Home-Water-Purifiers.com. You can visit their homepage to learn more about Home Water Purifiers.

Home Made Water Purifier: Good Idea?

About the Author

More Articles from: Health