AFFORDABLE REVERSE OSMOSIS INSTALLATION IN Katy, TX

How Much Does Reverse Osmosis Installation Usually Cost in Katy?

With our access to all the convenience of the greater Houston area, installing a reverse osmosis system here in Katy is usually pretty affordable and runs well below the national average. Simple, straightforward systems could be installed for as little as a few hundred dollars, but there are a few factors that can dramatically affect the price of your installation, depending on your needs from an RO system.

System Size

The size of the reverse osmosis system you need will probably have the biggest effect on the cost of any single factor. Many homeowners will install a point-of-use system under the sink or on the countertop of one faucet. If all you want is one faucet where you know you can get readily purified water, these systems can be simple, easy to maintain, and incredibly effective.

If you are after multiple fixtures in your house dispensing purified water, the cost will increase as you add units. There are larger systems for your entire home, and these will also increase the cost. Instead of point-of-use, these systems work at point-of-access, ensuring that any water that comes into your home is thoroughly purified. These larger systems can be very costly to install, though, and can increase your water usage.

Efficiency

There are a lot of reverse osmosis systems out there, and sometimes you get what you pay for. That’s not to say that there aren’t affordable systems that work great, but lower-end systems tend to be much less efficient than more sophisticated machinery.

At each stage of purification in a reverse osmosis system, the waste is separated from your drinking water and released into wastewater. Every time waste is released, some of your water goes down the drain with it. This is a negligible amount, but for poorly designed systems, this can often increase water usage by as much as four times. If you’re just occasionally grabbing a glass of water from your RO system, that’s not a huge amount. If you’re using that water for anything else though, that could quickly turn into a big increase in your water bill.

It may seem like it’ll come down to weighing whether you want to pay more on your water bill or for your RO system, but more efficient systems with newer technology can be very affordable and well worth the extra costs in what they save you long term.

Customizations and Extras

Like we discussed above, there is a wide variety of reverse osmosis systems out there. Many reverse osmosis systems offer extra customizations and features that you can choose depending on your needs.

Some systems will add extra layers of filtration and purification, such as UV light to prevent contamination by bacteria and viruses through faucets. Many reverse osmosis systems will incorporate pumps to both boost the flow rate from your faucet and the system’s efficiency. Some will even add minerals back into your purified water to customize the taste and ensure ideal pH levels.

Reverse osmosis science has been around for hundreds of years and people have done some interesting things with the technology. If you’re interested in any of these extra features, they could give you some extra utility out of your reverse osmosis system, but usually, they will carry additional costs to purchase, calibrate, and maintain.

What Are the Most Common Water Contaminants in Katy?

Around Katy, we have the common risks of contaminants that most towns in east Texas have. Our water is hard here, usually rating around 120 parts per million or ppm in total hardness. This means that our water always carries trace amounts of harmless minerals like calcium, iron, and sodium. With water as hard as ours, these are substantially concentrated in our drinking water, and cannot be completely removed at the water treatment plant.

Any water from a natural source carries some level of risk of groundwater contamination during its journey to your faucet. While wastewater and wild animals or livestock can occasionally create a source of contamination for water, it often begins with natural processes. Our coarse soils with relatively low organic matter content in Texas can encourage any chemical that is bound to our soil to permeate quickly into the water table. Sometimes, naturally occurring minerals simply break down into chemicals that are poisonous for human consumption. Our water department does a great job of protecting us from these risks and has maintained a superior rating in water quality tests for the last 20 years, but with any water around here, there is the risk of natural groundwater contamination.

While our water is rated as safe for drinking, it does have a high concentration of radioactive particles. Radium 226 and 228 are present in our water in high amounts from erosion of natural deposits. While drinking trace radioactive particles isn’t the most appetizing thought, their levels do fall within the EPA’s guidelines for safe drinking water.

Can Residents in Katy Benefit from Reverse Osmosis Treatment?

Residents of Katy can benefit from reverse osmosis treatment on their drinking water. Our water here in Katy is pretty good compared to a lot of other cities in the Houston area, but it’s not perfect. Reverse osmosis can give you pristinely purified water right out of the faucet, without any of the impurities that are within safe levels but are still in your water.

A reverse osmosis system purifies to a level that water treatment plants simply can’t. All the trace amounts of particles that wind up slipping past the water district’s treatment are easily removed with reverse osmosis. The harmless salts in our drinking water that make it hard are removed as easily as the toxic and radioactive chemicals hiding in small amounts.

Reverse osmosis also gives you an extra layer of protection against contamination after drinking water leaves the treatment plant. While lead contamination is a very serious issue in a water supply, lead in water more often comes from the plumbing inside your house than the drinking water reservoir. As plumbing ages, the protective coating around pipes can break down. As the metal corrodes, chemicals like rust and lead can seep into your water. While keeping your plumbing well-maintained and updated can help prevent this, reverse osmosis can remove the risk of contamination after the point of entry to your home.

How Often Should Residents in Katy Replace Reverse Osmosis Prefilters?

Generally, prefilters in a reverse osmosis system should be replaced at least once a year. They aren’t designed to last forever, and as they separate larger solids from your drinking water before it enters the next stage of purification, sediment can build up on them. If your prefilter is clogged, your system won’t work correctly. If you don’t change them when necessary, your system could function less efficiently or malfunction entirely. You need to be able to rely on your reverse osmosis system to deliver pure water every time, so you need to take care of it.

With our hard water here in east Texas, you may want to think about changing them more often than once a year. We try to encourage folks around here to at least check their filters twice a year, and try to change them just as often. There’s no point in getting a system to ensure you have clean water if you’re just going to let the system itself get dirty. As with any plumbing fixture, proper maintenance is essential to your reverse osmosis system functioning properly for many years.

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

You don’t need a water softener with your reverse osmosis system here in Katy, but we’d certainly recommend that you have one. In areas like this with hard water, a water softener will help preserve the lifespan of your reverse osmosis system. The minerals that constitute water hardness make up a good percentage of the impurities in our water, and a water softener is a perfect partner to share the load with.

Without a water softener, your reverse osmosis system will still soften water, though. Your prefilter will catch the larger mineral content, and any smaller impurities will be separated within the purifier. Our hard water can put a lot of strain on an RO system over time, causing filters to need changing more frequently and eventually causing the system to age more quickly as scale from tiny mineral particles builds up.

Hard water is problematic in many ways, despite not being harmful to drink. Our hard water will build up gritty scale over time on plumbing fixtures and faucets, but it’s not just there. What you can’t see is that same sediment collecting throughout your entire plumbing system. Over time, it will damage plumbing from the inside out, and this includes your reverse osmosis system.

Hard water also changes the chemical characteristics of the water throughout your house. Detergents and soaps can’t break down as easily in hard water, so you’ll find it takes longer to rinse in the shower. This same effect happens in your drains, and soaps can often clog drains due to hard water not allowing them to fully wash down with wastewater.

Hard water is bad for both your home and your reverse osmosis system. There are communities around with harder water than ours where people manage just fine, but our water is classified in the very hard range for a reason. If you want to get the most out of your well-engineered systems, we’d recommend using a water softener as well.