Whole house water filtration
Treat the water where it enters the house, so every shower, tap and appliance gets the same thing.
Municipal water in the valley is disinfected, which is a good thing, and it arrives carrying the chlorine or chloramine that did the disinfecting. That is what you smell in a hot shower and what dries out skin and hair. A whole house filter sits on the main line and takes it out along with sediment and the taste it carries, upstream of every fixture rather than at one of them.
What it does for you
Chlorine gone before the shower
A hot shower turns chlorine into vapour you breathe. Point-of-use filters do nothing about this; a main-line filter does.
Sediment kept out of the plumbing
Grit from the mains scores valve seats and shortens the life of every fixture and appliance it reaches.
Protects the softener downstream
Chlorine degrades softener resin over time. Filtering ahead of it is why some softeners last a decade and others do not.
Nothing to refill
No salt, no brine tank, no drain in most configurations — media is replaced on a multi-year cycle.
Filtration and softening are not the same job
This is the single most common confusion we correct in people's kitchens. A filter removes things suspended or dissolved in water that affect taste, smell and clarity — chlorine, sediment, some organics. A softener removes hardness minerals through ion exchange. A filter will not stop your water heater scaling, and a softener will not stop your shower smelling of chlorine.
Most valley homes that want the whole problem solved end up with a filter on the main, a softener after it, and RO at the kitchen sink. Each handles what the others cannot.
Sizing for flow, not just volume
A whole house filter has to pass the full demand of the house without dropping pressure — two showers and a dishwasher at once. Media type and tank diameter set that ceiling, and an undersized filter announces itself as weak pressure upstairs.
We size against fixture count and the actual static pressure at the house, which in parts of the valley is high enough to need a regulator in its own right.
Common questions
Will a whole house filter soften my water?
No, and be careful with anyone who says it will. Filtration and ion exchange are different processes. If your glasses are spotting and your heater is scaling, that is hardness and you need a softener.
Does it reduce water pressure?
Not when it is sized correctly. Pressure complaints after a filter install are almost always an undersized tank or media chosen for cost rather than flow.
How often does the media need replacing?
Multi-year, depending on the media and how much water the house uses. It is a far longer cycle than an under-sink cartridge.