AFFORDABLE REVERSE OSMOSIS INSTALLATION IN Gilbert, AZ

How Much Does Reverse Osmosis Installation Usually Cost in Gilbert?

Reverse osmosis is a popular solution to multiple problems with our drinking water and is pretty affordable. Despite our town’s history helping to develop the unique water infrastructure of Arizona, our water here, just as in many places around the state, can pose unique challenges.

It can be tough to pinpoint an exact cost on a reverse osmosis system here in Gilbert without knowing more about your drinking water usage and needs. The simplest single tap reverse osmosis installations may be only a few hundred dollars, but the most complex whole-home systems can sometimes run more than $15,000. The cost of reverse osmosis installations in Gilbert is usually right in line with the national average, but prices for labor and materials can vary greatly according to a few factors.

System Size

The size of the reverse osmosis system you’re after will have one of the biggest effects on the price of your installation. Under sink and countertop RO units are typical for most homes, but these only treat one specific faucet. Multiple units or whole-home systems can be substantially more expensive as they’ll involve a lot more materials and work to get working in your home. While full home RO systems can give you sparkling pure and safe water throughout your house, much of your water usage is not drinking water, so getting the infrastructure in place to treat your entire house’s water usage may cause costs to run higher.

Filtration Process and Features

Even though reverse osmosis is a specific type of filtration and purification system, there are still many ways that RO systems can be customized to fit your purification and water treatment needs. Some folks will want to opt for a reverse osmosis system with a built-in pump to increase efficiency and flow rate, and some RO systems offer extras like remineralization stages to balance out pH levels in your drinking water. Extra features are readily available to accommodate your needs in a purification system, but extra features will increase the cost of your system.

System Efficiency

RO systems deliver you purified water, free of any contaminants. What’s removed from your drinking water, though, goes straight into wastewater in most systems. With inefficient RO systems, this can amount to as much as four parts of wastewater produced for each one part of drinking water. Even with a single sink installation, it’s easy to see how this could increase your water bill, let alone with a whole home reverse osmosis system.

There are a lot of highly advanced RO systems out there that use sophisticated methods to decrease the waste of reverse osmosis purification. While many of these added features can increase the safety and quality of your water as well as increasing system efficiency, often the increased cost of the highest quality models will have to be balanced versus the cost of increased water bills from less efficient models. While a relatively efficient RO system won’t cost you an arm and a leg, the most sophisticated of these systems could be more expensive than more basic models.

What Are the Most Common Water Contaminants in Gilbert?

Here in Gilbert, our water can come from a few different sources. Like much of Arizona, keeping our town supplied with what it needs can be a tall order, and most of our water is supplied via a series of canals from the Salt River or the Colorado River. The Salt River Project managed reservoirs and canals along the path of the Salt River and Verde River’s watersheds, which are then released into canals that can supply our city’s needs. The Central Arizona Project also maintains more than 336 miles of canals running from Lake Havasu to bring water down to communities like ours in the southern part of the state.

River water typically has its share of contaminants to start with, let alone when it runs through multiple reservoirs and hundreds of miles of canal to get to you. This long journey to get to Gilbert can leave our water with quite a few small mineral particles in it. This concentration of minerals is referred to as hardness, and our water is in the very hard range, with a hardness rating of around 190 parts per million or ppm.

While most mineral contents are harmless to humans, some minerals, like lead, can have devastating effects on the health of anyone exposed to it. In addition, our water is occasionally vulnerable to harmful bacterial contaminants. Though our water is treated thoroughly at either the North Water Treatment Plant or the Santan Vista Water Treatment Plant, some contaminants can be a challenge to remove at such a large volume as our water treatment plants see.

Though our water has met the EPA’s guidelines for drinking water standards every year, some contaminants tend to be above normal levels, within the safe range around here.

• Lead: 15 out of 56 homes tested by the town of Gilbert showed detectable levels of lead, though below the EPA threshold for emergency measures. Lead levels within Gilbert vary a lot, and most homes won’t have extreme levels. Any lead is bad in drinking water, though.
• Arsenic: This poisonous chemical averaged 6.36 parts mer mi in taps within the city, with some getting as close to the EPA limit of 10 parts per billion or ppb as 9.6 ppb.
• Bromate: 4.9 parts per billion or ppb is within the EPA and state of Arizona’s acceptable range, but just barely. Continued exposure to bromate may raise risks of certain cancers.

Can Residents in Gilbert Benefit from Reverse Osmosis Treatment?

Absolutely. Reverse osmosis treatment can be a huge benefit for anyone in Gilbert. Our water is well-treated by the town of Gilbert, but at the levels of water the treatment plants see, some contaminants are bound to slip through the cracks. Our water always tests as safe here in Gilbert, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t trace amounts of harmful contaminants. Reverse osmosis can treat your water thoroughly on a small enough scale to ensure that the water you drink is pure.

Even less harmful contaminants that are contained within our water can be harmful over time. Continued exposure to the small levels of sodium, chlorine, and barium in our water can potentially have ill effects over time, and reverse osmosis can eliminate that. Reverse osmosis also keeps your water safe. If contamination should occur within the Gilbert water supply, you are carrying an extra layer of protection to keep your household safe and healthy.

How Often Should Residents in Gilbert Replace Reverse Osmosis Prefilters?

A good rule of thumb in any reverse osmosis system is to change your prefilter once a year. Here in Gilbert, with the high mineral content of our water, you may need to change yours out more often, though. Any significant mineral particles in your water will wind up getting caught by your prefilter rather than getting lodged in your RO purifier. Gradually, as the RO system is used, the minerals will clog up the prefilter, resulting in decreased flow, lessened efficiency, and potentially, damage to your RO system.

Do You Need a Water Softener with Your Reverse Osmosis System in Gilbert?

Our water is pretty hard here in Gilbert, so a water softener is something to consider for your home. Your reverse osmosis system can soften your water for you, but it works a little differently than a traditional water softening system. Before you choose between them, it’s important to understand the differences to decide if a water softening system, a reverse osmosis system, or both may be right for you in Gilbert.

How Water Softeners Work

Water softeners typically use ion exchange to replace minerals in your water with sodium or potassium, which results in softer water. Though these systems won’t filter out everything that reverse osmosis will, they are much more durable and can soften all the water in your house from one central unit.

How Reverse Osmosis Works

RO systems rely on filtration through a permeable membrane to remove sedimentary minerals and possible contaminants. First, your water runs through a prefilter, which is a cylinder that usually includes a five-micron rotation filter, that acts as the first stage in removing larger and more significant impurities in your water. After that, your RO water purifier will complete the treatment of the water. This will leave you with incredibly pure water that’s soft and filtered of any impurities that a water softener may miss. Reverse osmosis systems are less efficient with large volumes of water than water softeners, however, and are usually applied to only a single tap or faucet.

Water softening and reverse osmosis systems can work quite well together. With our hard water here in Gilbert, a reverse osmosis system can get bogged down by the constant assault of mineral particles, leading the filter to get clogged and need more frequent replacing.

Having a water softening system for your home can help prolong the life and cost of your RO system, while also giving you softer water throughout your whole house- even where the RO system isn’t. This can alleviate some of the hassles of hard water, like damage over time to your plumbing systems, stubborn soap scum in the shower, or that annoying and persistent film on clean dishes.