Do you think your water is not secure at home?
Staying hydrated is the best way to keep your body cool and healthy, especially during the hot seasons. There are times, though, that the water your drinking isn’t safe enough for you to drink.
Water is essential to life, which is why securing safe drinking water is important. Tap water normally goes through treatment to make it potable for the community. However, there will be times when the treatment doesn’t work.
If you find yourself with contaminated water, you need to know how to treat it. These are the seven things you can do to make sure water is safe to drink in your home. Read what we have below and learn more.
1. Boiling the Water
Boiling water is the most common way of making water potable. It’s cheap, safe, and everyone can do it. According to CDC, it’s the surest way of making water safe for everyone to drink if you don’t have any special means of treating water.
To make safe drinking water with boiled water, you need to boil it for one to three minutes. If you live in an area with a higher altitude, you need to boil the water for a longer period of time. After boiling, make sure that it’s cooled then you can store it in a container of choice.
2. Water Filtration
One way of making water safe for drinking is through filtration. Filtration is also one of the oldest ways known to make water safe for drinking. With the right tools and materials, you can create healthy drinking water.
This method removes both large and small contaminants that can cause harm to the body. It’s effective if your goal is removing molecular compounds like chlorine and pesticides. Filtration does not remove all the mineral content in the water, so comparing to another process this is still healthier.
You can do the filtration yourself with the use of materials like cloth and paper. These are the basic filtration units that can get rid of large particles. However, it is not enough to get rid of a disease-causing organism like parasites.
Other forms of filtration units available in the market are ceramic filters. They are durable and manufactured in a way that the spores can catch many contaminants. There’s even a GE refrigerator water filter installed in our appliances to do this for us.
3. Water Distillation
An enhanced version of boiling water is through distilling water to make it potable. By turning water into vapor, you collect pure water that’s free from disease-causing elements. This process removes every harmful substance possible, including mercury and arsenic.
Distillation though can take a long time before you can collect drinkable water. This is because you’re subjecting the water to a boiling point until it vaporizes. Once it vaporizes, it’s directed to a condenser to cool, then it’s reversed so you can collect it.
Regardless of the long process to make potable water. What your assured of is that it’s clean and safe for drinking. Whatever harmful sediments are in the container and separated from the clean water.
4. Purifying Water With UV Light
Using UV light to make drinking water is a process that you may have not heard of. By using UV light, you can purify water and kill bacteria, protozoa, and potential viruses. The process is simple, just turn on the light and move the device around the water for a few minutes.
Although we mention UV light, some may associate this with radiation. Using UV light does not involve radiation, so it’s assured you’re not radiating the water.
How this works is with the use of UV-C light. You use a specific wavelength that makes viruses and bacteria inactive.
This makes them inactive and disables them from doing vital functions. With the neutralized harmful substances, the water is now safe for drinking.
5. Use Activated Charcoal
Another way of making water safe for drinking is using activated charcoal. Using charcoal as a type of filter that purifies the water through called adsorption. The process binds harmful substances to the charcoal, removing toxins without removing important minerals.
Removing harmful substances is not the only feature of a charcoal filter. With charcoal, you will not need the use of chlorine as a disinfectant. This is because it removes any nasty taste and odor in the water so the water tastes better instead. You can even make the charcoal filter yourself so long as you don’t forget to replace it every so often.
6. Reverse Osmosis System
Reverse osmosis is a filtration system that removes harmful substances in the water using a semipermeable filter. The water passes through a filter through a pressurized force. This removes sediments and harmful substances and you’re left with clean, drinkable water.
This system, assures that water is safe for you to drink. This is because reverse osmosis has three to five stages of filtration. Unlike other methods though, reverse osmosis does not remove bacteria, toxins, and viruses.
7. Iodine Water Treatment
Iodine crystals or table is a treatment you can use to get rid of bacteria and toxins in the water. This is a sure way of removing any organism too small for the eye to see. Make sure that the iodine stays in the water for about 50 minutes before you can use it for drinking.
A disadvantage of iodine treatment is it’s not for everyone. Pregnant women, children, and people with thyroid problems are people who should not drink this. This makes iodine treatment is only used as a last resort for making safe drinking water.
Know-How to Make Safe Drinking Water Today
The human body needs water to function, depriving yourself of safe drinking water will cause complications. Know how to make safe drinking water to keep your body healthy today!
Do you want to know other ways of making safe drinking water? Check out our other guides and learn more today!