Water Quality & Treatment

Water clarity is one factor that affects the quality of drinking water. Water that is cloudy often contains extremely fine particles like organic matter and sediment that can come from run-off from heavy rainfall during the fall and winter months. Water turbidity (cloudy water) occurs when sediment is transported into water reservoirs by runoff.

While Metro Vancouver is committed to delivering and maintaining the best drinking water possible. High levels of turbidity are often mitigated by adding additional chlorine to our water supply at both primary and secondary disinfection centers.  Often the extra chlorine in our water has a negative effect the taste of our domestic water.

Point of use domestic water filters have been very successful and removing some of the finer particles from our municipal water supply and the chlorine taste in our water.  There solutions are generally seen as being less expensive and more environmentally friendly than bottled water.

Reid Brothers has access to a number of high quality under-sink filters.  They typically include a carbon filter, to remove chlorine, sediment and unwanted organic compounds, and a Reverse Osmosis Membrane to remove minerals, salts and inorganic compounds.

Carbon filtering is a method of filtering that uses a piece of activated carbon to remove contaminants and impurities, utilizing chemical adsorption.

Each piece of carbon is designed to provide a large section of surface area, in order to allow contaminants the most possible exposure to the filter media. One pound (450 g) of activated carbon contains a surface area of approximately 100 acres (40 Hectares)

This carbon is generally activated with a positive charge and is designed to attract negatively charged water contaminants. Carbon filtering is commonly used for water purification, but is also used in air purifiers.

Carbon filters are most effective at removing chlorine, sediment, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from water. They are not effective at removing minerals, salts, and dissolved inorganic compounds.

Typical particle sizes that can be removed by carbon filters range from 0.5 to 50 micrometers. The particle size will be used as part of the filter description. The efficacy of a carbon filter is also based upon the flow rate regulation. When the water is allowed to flow through the filter at a slower rate, the contaminants are exposed to the filter media for a longer amount of time.

Reverse osmosis(RO) is a membrane-technology filtration method that removes many types of large molecules and ions from solutions by applying pressure to the solution when it is on one side of a selective membrane. The result is that the large molecules and ions are retained on the pressurized side of the membrane and the pure water is allowed to pass to the other side. To be "selective," this membrane should not allow large molecules or ions through the pores (holes), but should allow smaller components of the solution (such as water) to pass freely.