Water Filtration System vs. Shower Head / Faucet Filters

Whole House Filter vs. Shower / Sink Water Filters

By Rachel on December 16th, 2008

When you live in an apartment, you have relatively few options regarding your hard / chlorinated water filtration needs. Pretty much, unless you can get your landlord to purchase a water filtration system for you, you’re limited to using a shower head water filter for your bathroom, and a faucet / pitcher water filter for your kitchen to meet your cooking and drinking needs. However, when you own or rent a home — the option for a whole-house water filtration system comes into the mix. In these cases — which option is better, and more cost-effective, in the long run?

Shower water filters and kitchen faucet / pitcher filters

There are a couple of reasons that you might choose shower water filters and the various kitchen-based filters for your home over a complete water filtration system. First and foremost — the ease of setup and use.

Installing a shower head water filter can be achieved by anybody, really, so long as they have a little bit of strength and the limited tools needed to remove, and replace, the shower’s head. The same can be said about a faucet water filter — except in many cases, all you need to do is add the filter to your faucet head, and you’re good to go. Pitcher water filters — well, it can’t get much easier.

Setting up a whole-house water filter system is, in most cases, much more complex. Not only do you need to attach the filters to your home’s existing water supply, but you need significantly more in terms of skills, and time, to get things working. If simplicity is important to you, you’re going to want to choose individual filters for your shower and kitchen as opposed to picking up a whole-home water treatment / filtration system.

Pricing comparison – one time vs. ongoing costs

When you look at the one-time costs vs. ongoing costs, depending on what you’re planning on purchasing, the “individual” approach to acquiring a water filter system is cheaper in the “now” than buying a whole-house water filter system. For instance, you can pickup a sprite shower filter for less than $50, and a pitcher water filter for around $20. Compare that to a whole-house water filter system that can cost you anywhere from $50 – $2,000 easily — there’s more than a significant difference in the initial out-of-pocket expense for the majority of the whole-house water filter systems.

Now, when you’re looking at costs for a water filtration system, you also have to weigh out the long-term costs, not just how much money a particular option is going to cost you today. And, we’re not just talking about water filter replacement costs, even though these costs can vary significantly, because you should expect these types of ongoing costs regardless of whether you choose a portable water filter system, or one that will stay in your home for years to come.

For instance, while pricey, the Pelican PSE1800 whole-house water filter and softener includes a whopping 10 year warranty. You’ll find that, more times than not, the higher you go up in the cost-scale, the better the warranty is for your water filtration system of choice. You can compare that to the Aquasana all-in-one sink and shower filter combo package, which includes replacement filters and a less-than-exciting one-year warranty, but the costs for the Aquasana system are about 10x less than the Pelican system.

If you’re thinking about staying in your home for a while, and you have the money to make a decent-sized purchase, you would be better off purchasing the all-in-one water filter and water softener system simply because the company will stand behind their product for a solid 10 years after purchase. This isn’t to say that the $250 Aquasana system would be a bad choice, and it would certainly be a decent choice for somebody on a budget who needs cleaner water, but in terms of ongoing costs — the product offering the biggest warranty is generally the most cost-effective. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but this generalization mostly rings true.

Choosing a whole-house filtration system vs. portable water filter options

Really, there are no clear-cut winners here — whether you choose to pursue the whole-house water filtration and water softer option, the whole-house filter without the water softer or to go with the portable, and instantly affordable, shower head water filter / faucet and/or pitcher water filter option is up to you. However, here are our suggestions based on a couple of scenarios:

Whole-house water filter systems

Buy a whole-home water filter system if you plan on living in your house for a while, and you have a real and ongoing need for a water softener and/or water filtration system. Examples of a real need would be well-water homes, chlorine sensitivities, etc.

Do not buy a whole house system if you have to buy something that is less-than-ideal because you cannot immediately afford what you ultimately are looking for.

Shower head filters and faucet / pitcher filters

Buy a portable water filtration system if you plan on moving in the near future or have no foreseeable way of coming up with the money for a whole-house filtration system.

Do not buy the individual water filter products if you have a problem with regular maintenance. Because you will likely have two-to-three different water filtration systems, you will likely be replacing filters / cartridges several times per year.

Do not buy an expensive, yet portable, water filter system if you plan on upgrading to a whole-house system in the near future. For less than $100, you can have excellent in-home water filtration for your kitchen and bathroom.

Final thoughts

Whatever you decide, I want to leave you with something that my grandfather instilled into me a long time ago, and I think that it’s very relevant in this situation. If you’re going to buy something, either buy what you want, or buy something very cheap that will get you by until you can afford what you really want to have. If you want a water filtration system that includes a water softener, yet costs $1,500 to $2,000 — don’t buy a middle-of-the-line filtration system that will set you back $600. Instead, pickup a temporary solution, such as a shower head water filter and a kitchen pitcher filter for around $100-$250, and save your money.

This advice is applicable to all things in life, not just purchasing water filtration systems.

Good luck with your search, and please visit our shower head filter reviews page for our thoughts on today’s portable water filter system options.