Are shower filters actually useful? (for softening)

wywywywy

Hi all,

Basically we live in a pretty hard water area (NW England), and it has triggered eczema for all of my parents & parents-in-law, probably because they have never been to a hard water area until they came over a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, the drinking water is already filtered with Brita and we want to soften the shower water too. Using a whole-house softener seems to be a really big job because the kitchen plumbing is very much linked to the bathrooms, and as far as I know softened water (with brine) is not suitable for drinking. So we are thinking of buying a shower filter, which seems rather inexpensive and easy.

But, is it like many of the other products in this area on the market where they are scams laden with some pseudo science? Or do they actually work for softening?

I don't mind having to spend money replacing cartridges, as long as it works.

Thanks.

yangptangkipperbang

wywywywy wrote: »

and as far as I know softened water (with brine) is not suitable for drinking.

Softened water is perfectly suitable for drinking - the only proviso is not to use it for mixing Baby formula milk. It doesn't taste salty .............:D

The level of sodium in very hard water which has been softened is less than one third the legal limit for natural sodium in fresh cow's milk. (You shouldn't give a baby cow's milk either !)

southcoastrgi

i'm not sure what you mean by a shower filter ? the only thing that will give you softened water is a softener or move to an area of the country with natural soft water

wywywywy

It's filters like this I am talking about -



It's like a Brita filter that fits inline with the shower head. But to maintain high flow rate and pressure, I'd imagine the material inside is quite different.

southcoastrgi

first time i've seen them (every day is a school day), they don't soften the water but filter the chemicals in it, they look good on paper but wether they work as well as they say i don't know, anyway there is a link here that tells you abit about them, if you get one & it does what it says on the tin, please come back & let us know i would be very interested in finding out if they work, don't block up or reduce the water flow.

yangptangkipperbang

I can see a number of disadvantages/failings in this type of thing.

1. It will reduce the water flow to the actual shower head - OK it may reduce your water bill, but there are cheaper ways of doing that.
2. With the volume of water that will pass through this I should imagine that filter replacement would be required quite often.
3. There are lots of this type of thing around - they do not SOFTEN the water - only a proper water softener will do that.

It will do wonders if you get a proper softener. You will need to buy only a fraction of the soap powder/bath cleaner etc, etc with soft water. Your taps won't scale up, your draining board will just need a wipe down - well worth the cost of having one installed.

wywywywy

Yes I got some info from PureShowers, but after all they SELL the products and is not an independent source so I can't trust it at all.

According to the Wikipedia page, it says that the filter material removes calcium as well. But to be honest this Wiki page sounds like one giant advertisement with no sources, and it doesn't say how effective it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kdf-55

Right now I am leaning towards that a "shower filter" is too good to be true...

[Deleted User]

we have a filter on each shower, they are heavy and we taped velcro around to help support them. They are very effective for what we want in our house ie soft, chlorine free showers

http://www.sensitiveskincareco.com/index.php?browse=195&view=1283

devondiver

"they are scams laden with some pseudo science" - got it in one! IMHO.