uranium in waterUranium in Water

So, you just found out the not-so-great news that your family’s drinking water has Uranium. I’m guessing you learned it’s higher than the recommended safety limit of 30 ug/L (parts per billion).

My 2nd guess is, you’re probably not incredibly happy about this discovery. Especially if you’ve determined that you want “whole house” Uranium treatment and you’ve started looking at the costs.

Is there a way to remove Uranium in water without having to sacrifice the kids college education to afford it? 

Discovering you have Uranium in Water

Let me paint a picture of a typical homeowner “Uranium in Water” scenario.

Let’s say you have just found a house for sale that is the perfect home. You and your uranium in water family have fallen in love with the place. You decide to put in an offer. To your surprise the sellers accept. You’re now under contract and on your way to your dreams coming true! This is great.

Among other first steps in the purchase, you have a home inspection performed. All goes well with the actual inspection. Per standard procedure, your home inspector performs a water safety test for Radon, Arsenic, Uranium, bacteria etc. You’ll get the results back in a couple of days.

Now comes the big “speed bump”…you get a call from your Realtor a couple days later explaining that the water test results came back high in Uranium…very high.

Now what do you do? If you’re like most people, you start scouring the web for education. You also start looking for water treatment professionals.

Options for Whole House Uranium Removal 

As of this moment, there are really only 2 reliable types of treatment systems available for the removal of Uranium in water.

  1. Reverse Osmosis
  2. Ion Exchange

 

Reverse Osmosis

 

The Benefits of RO Systems

RO systems are remarkable pieces of equipment.

ROs are extremely good at what they do when it comes to removing the many harmful things in your water that you don’t want. They’re also very versatile – they can remove multiple kinds of contaminants.  Uranium is one of those contaminants.

We install a great deal of point of use (single spout) RO systems for the customers we work with. They’re an incredibly important part of professional water treatment.

Over the years we’ve also installed many whole house RO systems for customers as well. When the situation is right and a home’s well water requires this type of system, they are remarkably effective pieces of equipment.

If the situation isn’t right (in our experience 9 times out of 10 or greater) they become extreme overkill.

Why NOT to Install a Whole House RO System?

Now, before you start getting the idea I’m putting down RO systems, let me assure you, I’m not. Let me explain.

As a treatment company, it’s very rare that we install a whole house RO system for a customer who’s primary concern is to remove Uranium from their water.

Why? The main reason: cost.


reverse osmosis costPoint of entry RO systems will usually run a customer anywhere between $10,000 and $12,000 once they’re installed, and all needed equipment is in place.

They’re also, not what you might call low in upkeep or in ongoing maintenance costs, either.

In most cases homeowners will need to change out multiple cartridge units on these systems every 2 months or so. This can be costly and time consuming. A lot of times homeowners also find it a hassle to do the change-outs. The only option then becomes hiring your treatment professional to come out and perform this service.

Although their bottom line might love performing this service for you, your personal checking account, however, might not share those same exact feelings.

The second reason: space.reverse osmosis size

Whole house RO systems are BIG, with a capital B.

These systems are usually comprised of multiple pieces of large equipment – over sized water storage tanks, filter tanks, cartridge filters, pumps and so on. In many cases a homeowner will need an entire room (or at least a good section of basement) just to store the system.

Taking these things into consideration, whole house RO systems can be extreme overkill for a great deal of homeowners.

So, what other options do you have?

Check out Part 2 and we’ll show you a Uranium system that The EPA considers the best way to treat Uranium in water.

*And it comes with a pleasant surprise too…it costs about 80% less than a whole house RO system does!

 

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