How to filter Waxahachie area water so it tastes awesome

How to filter Waxahachie municipal water

If you live within Waxahachie’s city limits, you can clean up the water coming out of your faucet and make it taste crisp and clean with a simple activated carbon filter. The city treats the water for bacteria and filters it so that it’s free of larger impurities, so all that you need to do is polish it off with a higher density filter and activated carbon, which removes the chemical and fishy flavors and smells.

One of the most cost-effective filters for the task is the APEC Water Systems CS-2500P Ultra High Capacity Undersink Water Filtration System PLUS Scale Inhibitor Premium. It’s made in the U.S., filters out heavy metals, taste and smell, and it has a scale inhibitor that saves your faucet from corroding or your dishes from becoming spotty.

Moreover, because it comes ready to fit onto your existing water valve under your sink and hook up directly to the cold water connection on your faucet, you don’t need a plumber to install it. If you can tighten a bolt with a Crescent wrench, you’ve got all the skills you need to install this filter in less than 20 minutes.

I tested a similar filter in town and was impressed by the flavor of the cup of coffee that the filtered water made. Because the filter does not remove calcium or magnesium, two minerals essential for good health, the water it produced brewed a perfect cup of coffee as a little mineral content is important for extracting just the right flavors from ground coffee beans. Iced tea was also brisk and delicious, and the water alone was thirst-quenching and a pleasure to drink.

The filter is rated to treat about six months of water, but whether it lasts longer is a matter of how much water you use. You may get away with an annual change out, but if you have an extra replacement filter on hand, you can change it out whenever you notice the bad flavors returning or spots on your dishes. All you have to do to replace the filter is turn off the water valve, twist off the old filter and twist on the new — a task that should take less than two minutes.

The Apec filter is far superior to the carbon filters that I’ve bought at home improvement centers. The Apec filter holds up throughout its lifespan and filters efficiently right up until it’s spent, whereas the filters that I’ve bought in town tend to do well in the first few months but quickly deteriorate and leak carbon particles into the water. The locally-available filter systems also tend to spill when you replace the filters and make what should be a simple task into a mopping and cleaning chore.

I prefer an undersink filter to a faucet-mounted filter or the pitcher-filter combinations because of the simple economy of an undersink filter: what you’ll spend on replacement faucet-mounted or pitcher cartridges in a year would pay several times over for an undersink model, and the water quality from an undersink model is far better than what a little cartridge can yield.

If I lived in town, I would be perfectly content with the water that this Apec filter produced. But, I do not live in town, so I have to resort to a more complex filtration system.

How to filter Waxahachie area well water

For anyone who lives outside of the Waxahachie city limits and is connected to one of the water districts tapping the underground aquifer, you can either arrange for costly bottled water to be delivered if you want water you can enjoy, or you can install a reverse osmosis system under your kitchen sink and enjoy near-distilled quality water for pennies per gallon.

Reverse osmosis filters can remove not only bad tastes and odors but also all the total dissolved solids that contaminate the water that passed through limestone on its way to the aquifers we have available.

A reverse osmosis filtration system usually includes a series of sediment and activated carbon filters to remove particulate impurities and taste and odor from the water, and a reverse osmosis element that does the heavy lifting of dissolved solids removal. RO systems also have a storage tank to store purified water so that it’s ready to use when you need it. Otherwise, because RO systems filter water very slowly, you’d only have a trickle when you try to fill a glass or a coffee pot.

RO systems also have dedicated faucets, which you can add to your countertop or pipe up through the hole in the countertop where a spraying wand usually sits (if you want to keep your spraying wand, there are kitchen faucets that can accommodate the wand or integrate the wand into the main part of the faucet).

The reverse osmosis element is a little like dental floss tightly wrapped and woven into a cylinder about the size of a cardboard paper towel core. Because the floss-like material is so tightly wound, it only allows water molecules to pass between the strands. Thus the water can get through the element, but larger molecules of calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, fluorine compounds and all the other impurities are too big to pass through.

When I first tried out a reverse osmosis filtration system, I bought a Whirlpool model from Lowe’s for about $175. It worked very well and reduced the readings on my TDS meter from over 900 to about 15 ppm — which is close to the quality of distilled water.

The system lasted for about a year and developed leaks, so I had to replace the entire system — not just the filter cartridges.

About one and a half years later, my second unit also leaked, but in a totally different area (the housing formed a hairline crack), so I concluded that the home improvement store options just weren’t durable enough to stay with, and I invested in an Apec model: the ROES-50 Essence Series Top Tier 5-Stage Certified Ultra Safe Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water Filter System

The Apec ROES-50 was just about the same price as the Whirlpool units I had bought, but the quality was at least three times better. Like the former units, the Apec model reduced my TDS from more than 900 ppm to around 34 – 59 ppm, but the storage tank was about double the capacity and never left me waiting for it to refill after filling a big pot or using the water for watering houseplants.

Now five years old, the ROES-50 has yet to spring a leak or require replacement parts, though I see some rust forming on the outside of the storage tank and will likely replace it in the coming year.

The filters are not as easy to replace as some of the twist-off cartridges that home improvement store models will have, but then again what good is the convenience if I must replace the locally-available systems because they fail after a year or two?

Each year, I replace two carbon filters and one sediment filter. Every two years I replace the reverse osmosis element, and a final polishing off filter that’s only available in a full ROES-50 filter replacement set.

I also run bleach through the system while its RO element is out to purify it for another two years. I’ve also installed a quarter-inch shut off valve on the water supply line that runs to the system so that I can more easily replace the filters. Because the local water wrecks copper pipes and valves, I try not to bother them, hence the durable polypropylene quarter-inch inline shut off valve.

As for installation of a reverse osmosis system, it’s completely DIY-friendly, but if the idea of replacing a kitchen faucet seems daunting, you’ll need a plumber to do the initial installation. Though, anyone who can open a jar of peanut butter has all the skills needed to replace the filters a year later.

With a roll of quarter-inch PEX and a T-connector, I could easily route the purified water over to the automatic ice maker in my refrigerator also.

One drawback to a reverse osmosis system of any brand is that it produces waste water. All the minerals that build up on the RO element must be continuously washed away as the water is filling up your storage tank. So, the unit must be connected to your sink drain. I’ve run mine out the wall to keep my foundation a little more stable. The waste water to filtered water ratio is about 3:1, which means that for every one gallon of filtered water you make, three gallons go down the drain, which is why you’ll use this water for drinking and cooking only.

Before I installed an RO system, I filled water bottles up at the water kiosks at Ann’s Health Food Center and stored my 20 gallons for the week under my stove. Needless to say, the weekly task of making a trip to fill the water bottles was a major inconvenience, and since I now have unlimited supplies of clean, pure drinking water, I would never want to be without an RO system again.

My parents live on the north end of town and get their water from Rockett Special Utility District. I bought them an Apec ROES-50 for a combined Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gift one year. I installed it and now they don’t have to lift heavy bottled water onto a dispenser, which means they also have less to stand in their way from staying hydrated.

To make sure that my RO system is still operating at its peak and not in need of a filter replacement, I bought an inexpensive TDS meter and test the water every other month. So far, I’ve never seen the readings reach more than the 90s by the time the filters are needing to be replaced at the expected replacement dates, so I find that the ROES-50 is more than capable of handling the worst of the Waxahachie area water with ease.

Update: October 11, 2024:

Since this article was initially posted, I received information from Waxahachie resident Mark Martinez who works for a company that manufactures pump stations used in H.V.A.C. systems and in rainwater recovery. He says that when choosing a water filter for potable water, he looks for N.S.F.-53 certification of the filter to ensure a third party has tested the filter and verified that it not only reduces contaminants but that it also reduces those contaminants to a level deemed safe by current scientific consensus.

N.S.F. certification is conducted by the National Sanitation Foundation, a private testing organization established in 1944 within the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The organization is a nonprofit corporation that tests and certifies various products including drinking water filtration systems. Certification by the organization is designated by the N.S.F. initials followed by a number that conveys the testing standard that the filter has passed.

Mark’s concern about filtering tap water treated with chlorine, as the City of Waxahachie periodically uses, is that chlorine combines with organic matter in pipes to form a substance that is associated with cancer and impaired reproduction [source: N.I.H. Tap Water and Trihalomethanes: Flow of Concerns Continues].

“Chlorine plus organics tend to form trihalomethanes, which are carcinogens,” Marks says. “A filter that removes T.H.M.s is recommended.”

Mark explains that many water filters sold via retail outlets only attain N.S.F.- 42 standards, which ensure that the water’s taste and appearance are improved.

“The performance specifications that covers water filters are N.S.F.-42 and N.S.F.-53. The former covers aesthetic performance — taste, color, turbidity — the latter covers the ability of the filter to remove harmful chemicals,” Mark says.

Mark says the filters that I reviewed should indeed remove some T.H.M.s as they use activated carbon, but he prefers filters that are certified to reduce the contaminants down to a verified maximum level. Thus, Mark prefers an undersink filter that carries both the N.S.F.-42 and 53 certification, such as the Frizzlife SW10 Under Sink Water Filter System.

However, as the Frizzlife filter does not remove dissolved solids like the calcium carbonate in the well water where I live, I must use the reverse osmosis filter that I reviewed. But, I am considering adding the Frizzlife option inline as the final stage of filtration that runs from my R.O. system to the dedicated drinking water faucet that sits on my countertop beside the unfiltered tap water faucet.

In any case, tap water is generally safe for drinking, with or without a filter, and all the filters explored in this article should improve the taste of the water that enters your home.