When it comes to getting healthy drinking water straight out of the kitchen tap, there simply are no guarantees. From hard water along the coast to urban scares over lead and other heavy metals, virtually everyone needs some sort of home filtration for their municipal water supply. That can be as simple as a faucet- or refrigerator-mounted filter, or an elaborate and expensive water-softening system mounted in another room of the house. But there is a happy medium for getting professionally purified water that doesn’t require a physical plant in your garage and won’t cost more than a year’s car payments to achieve. Here are three great options to choose from.
Whole-house water treatment systems can cost many thousands of dollars. But if you are simply after healthy drinking water in the kitchen, a freestanding cooler that connects directly to your cold-water supply is a great option. It’s not a water softener, but these units will produce an abundance of cold or hot filtered water to meet all of your daily hydration and cooking needs.
For a more discrete filtering system, consider a unit that mounts out of the way underneath a counter. They don’t take up much room, are less expensive than cooler-style filters, and will serve all the purified water you can drink right from a dedicated faucet atop the kitchen sink or wet bar.
A countertop filter operates on much the same principle as a free-standing cooler, but they take up no floor space and are a little less expensive. Look for a model that features both chilled and hot water for drinking straight from the tap, brewing that perfect cup of tea, or cooking with clean, pure water.
