How Often Should I Change My Whole-Home Water System Filters?

If you had a whole-home water filtration system installed in your residence, most likely your water treatment company went over maintenance details, including how often to change the water filters and system components. If you moved into a home with an active water filtering system, you may not know about this important maintenance activity. Tri-Florida Water Treatment of Auburndale, FL, would like to go over when the various filters and parts in these systems need to be changed.

What a whole-home water filtration system does

Whole-home filtering systems (also called “whole-house” systems) treat all the water that enters a home through the water main. They filter out a wide range of contaminants, pollutants, bacteria and other contents, giving you clean, pure, safe and great-tasting water. In order to do its job, a water filter system must have filters – thus the name. The efficiency of the system is directly tied to the cleanliness of the filters.

How to know when filters need to be looked at and probably replaced

There are four signals that tell you when filters in the system need to be replaced

When to change the filters

Here are the types of filters in a typical whole-home water filtration system and when to change them.

Sediment pre-filter – change every 3 to 6 months
This filter treats water as it leaves the main source before moving into the home. A part of all whole-home systems, the sediment pre-filter keeps dirt and debris out of your water.

Post-filter – change every 6 to 12 months
An optional filter in a system, the post-filter traps sediments that may have passed through the first filter.

Filtration tanks – replace every 5 to 10 years
As a dual-tank system, the upper tank filters heavy metals, chloramine and chlorine, while the lower tank works on herbicides, pesticides and VOCs. Tanks generally will filter a half million to a million gallons before replacement is needed.

UV filter lamp – replace when no longer working
This important component uses light to destroy nearly all viruses and bacteria, including E. coli, cryptosporidium and giardia. The lamp’s bulb should last for about a year.

Salt-free water softener filtration tank – replace every 6 years
Another optional feature in some whole-home water filter systems, the tank filters out hard minerals responsible for spots on dishes and buildups on household faucets.

Call Florida’s water treatment experts for safe, clean and great-tasting water

For more than 30 years, Tri-Florida Water Treatment has been helping our neighbors throughout the Auburndale, Lakeland and Winter Haven regions secure the very best water for their homes and families. We install quality whole-home water filtration systems, water purification systems and water softener systems. We also provide all maintenance and repairs for these systems. Call (863) 965-1439 and learn more about how a water treatment system can improve your life. You can also get in touch with our handy contact form.