One of the most expensive ways to filter the water coming in to your home is by purchasing and installing a reverse osmosis water filter system. However, in this case the most expensive does not necessarily mean the best. Set out below are some of the disadvantages of reverse osmosis water purifiers.

These outdated systems are still being promoted by water marketing companies that realize the profits to be made from these very expensive units that start at $10,000 each.

This is largely due to a lot of marketing dollars spent by the larger water companies selling the units, and the fact that they do a very good job for certain applications such as removing the salt from sea water leaving it suitable for use in irrigation and industry. They do remove many of the harmful contaminants present in drinking water; however this is where the plus points start to run a little thin.

One of the major disadvantages of reverse osmosis systems is the huge amount of waste-water that is flushed down the drain in order to produce a small amount of purified water.

As an example, in order to produce 5 gallons of treated water, units discharge between 40 to 90 gallons of water as waste! This is bad enough, but if you are one of the thousands of people using a septic system to collect waste water from your home, then the chances are you will need to upgrade the size of your tank.

This particular system needs plenty of power in order to turn waste water in to that which is drinkable. Certainly when you take into consideration the ratio of waste water to make drinking water a lot of electricity is required and this is not only bad for your home electricity bills but for the environment as well.

So Does Reverse Osmosis Make Water Safe To Drink?

The big question! With all this power usage and waste-water sloshing around the system, does reverse osmosis make water safe to drink?

There is certainly no doubt that such systems will make the water safer for one to drink than if you were to leave it untreated, but the simple answer to the question posed above is no.

This is because one of the major disadvantages of reverse osmosis systems is that it does not eradicate all the cysts or chemical contaminants that are found in water.

In fact one manufacturer freely admits as much with a warning that these units are designed only to clean up aesthetic properties and don't act as a barrier to waterborne microbiological and toxic chemicals.

One other very small but very important disadvantages of reverse osmosis filters is that they can also remove some or all of the minerals found in water. So knowing this you would be far better off using a much more inexpensive and efficient way to provide pure clean water for you and your family.