Filter Fridges

Should Your Next Fridge Be A Filter Fridge? Yes!

Kitchen appliances are one of the periodic investments people make in their homes. It's the room in the home that's most likely to be used continuously. It's something that costs a few hundred dollars to a few grand, and makes your home pleasanter to live in, and adds to the resale value. One clear place to do this is with a filter fridge in the kitchen.

While lots of refrigerators have the ability to generate ice cubes, a filter fridge has a cold water filtration system, like those used by Pur or Britta, to remove impurities from the water before it's turned into ice, or cold drinks.

A lot of material has been written (and a lot of electrons inconvenienced on the Internet) about doing kitchen or bathroom remodels as a way to boost home value in a declining market. These focus largely on making the room more attractive – putting in new counters, but often overlook things that would improve your family's health, like putting in a water filtration system.

Water filtration systems
Water filtration systems vary in their capabilities; the ones that attach to water faucets are usually activated charcoal filters with one level of ultrafiltration as a precursor layer; this is because they need to allow fast flow in the sink. Pitcher filtration systems usually have these, plus two other filtration mechanisms to screen out metals and certain varieties of chemicals.

Aftermarket conversions of some refrigerators can put a one or two layer (usually activated charcoal or filter resin) filter into the water tap, but new filtration systems use the fact that the fridge doesn't always dispense water to let it fill a reservoir, and thus, use as rigorous a filter mechanism as possible, hence the term 'filter fridge'.

One drawback of filter fridges (or any fridge with a dispenser in the door) is that putting the dispenser there means that there's no insulation, which means the fridge will be using more electricity to regulate temperatures.

Other Benefits
However, the minor cost of electricity is nothing compared to the convenience of tasty, filtered water, free of that awful chlorine taste that's so pervasive in city and urban water supplies. Even better, a lot of filter fridges can use that filtered water for other purposes, like making ice for the ice dispenser. Imagine, having ice made of pure water coming right out of your fridge, without having to juggle ice trays!

The benefits of filter fridges are removing just about every sort of metal impurity from water, including iron, lead, and mercury – all of which have health effects. They can also remove the harsh chemical taste of chlorine in water. These filter fridges are usually tied to both the cold water tap and the ice maker, allowing your ice to be filtered properly as well.

Most filter fridges are quite reasonably priced for the health benefits gained; they're usually less expensive than buying a fridge solely for its looks. Many bargains can be found in filter fridges, especially if you shop online.