Your city’s water system can have chlorine, Chloramines, Heavy metals, Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), Pharmaceuticals, Pesticides & insecticides. And in search of safe and smell-free water, you waste your money on bottled water. Am I right? Plus, every time you pour up a reusable bottle from your refrigerator, this one is an additional plastic added to the environment’s destruction.
Then why not consider the refrigerator water filters that remove chlorine? Some of the other best fridge filters also filter out pharmaceutical agents like ibuprofen, cysts, heavy metals, and pesticides and improve the taste.
So, In this article, I will guide you; what are refrigerator filters working, and what do they remove? Say bye to bottled water and save your drinking water from foul smells and bad tastes.
- What Is A Refrigerator Water Filter?
- How Do Refrigerator Water Filters Work?
- What Contaminants Do Refrigerator Water Filters Filter Out?
- Advanced Refrigerator Filters
- What Contaminants can not be Removed by Refrigerator Water Filters?
- Dangers of Not Changing Refrigerator Water Filter
- When Should We Replace Our Refrigerator Water Filters?
- Refrigerator filtered water vs Bottled water
What Is A Refrigerator Water Filter?
“A refrigerator water filter is a tool that dispenses clean water and removes unwanted contaminants from the drinking water.”
The refrigerator filters listed on the most trusted market Amazon.com are certified to NSF/ANSI 42. This certification can remove and improve the foul odor and taste of water present due to chlorine.
How Do Refrigerator Water Filters Work?
Most refrigerator filters work using a combination of sediment and carbon filtration.
Filtration takes place in three filtration processes.
- Particle filtration trap sand and slit
- Micro-filtration blocks mediums size particles like sugar and cysts.
- Adsorption filtration help absorbs contaminants like atoms, molecules, or ions from gas.
First, the large internal surface area traps suspended particles, sediments, and contaminants.
Then, an activated carbon core wrapped around a material as propylene acts like a magnet for compounds like lead and volatile organic compounds. Finally, the carbon filter removes chlorine to produce clean water.
What Contaminants Do Refrigerator Water Filters Filter Out?
Activated charcoal filter in refrigerators removes chlorine, volatile organic chemicals, radon, benzene, many other chemicals, and bad tastes and odors in larger systems. Activated carbon filters alone are not enough to filter all these contaminants.
Carbon or charcoal filters offer little to no protection against a wide range of inorganic substances and heavy metals, including threats such as Arsenic, Chromium, Copper, Fluoride, Mercury, Nickel, and Sulfates.
Minerals, lead, and other heavy metals can be removed more perfectly by reverse osmosis filters.
Advanced Refrigerator Filters
The ADVANCED refrigerator filters, just like Everydrop by Whirlpool refrigerator water filters, are certified to reduce 99% of lead and other Reduces 73 contaminants, including lead, pesticides, and waterborne parasites, which are certified by NSF 401, 53, and 42 standards.
New technologies are introduced in the latest fridge filter models that effectively remove lead, pharmaceuticals, chlorine, chloramine, debris, iron, manganese, and many more.
What Contaminants can not be Removed by Refrigerator Water Filters?
Refrigerator water filters can’t remove heavy metals like
- Arsenic
- Lead
- Chromium 6
- Bacteria
- Selenium
- Radium
- Mercury
- Benzene
If you want a better system to remove all the contaminants, as an expert, I will suggest the under-sink or countertop reverse osmosis systems that are very convenient.
If you can afford a perfect system for your home, you can opt for a whole house reverse osmosis system that will bring mind-blowing change in your drinking water.
Dangers of Not Changing Refrigerator Water Filter
Refrigerator filters are necessary because they provide clean water, eliminate contaminants, and prevent bacteria from getting into your water. However, the carbon filters have limited capacity and duration. If you don’t change your filter, the worse your water gets.
Your refrigerator filter clogs. A point reaches where it will no longer filter because it’s fully packed with dirt and debris. Water stops flowing out.
Water-activated Carbon filter reaches its maximum capacity: Water continues to flow through the water filter even if the surface area is complete, but saturation causes at a limited point. The water starts to Carry contaminants along with it.
Promotes the growth of bacteria: When a high amount of particles is clogged into a carbon filter, living organisms such as bacteria fulfill their nutritional requirement and grow in number.
When Should We Replace Our Refrigerator Water Filters?
The water filter in your refrigerator is a valuable opportunity to remove your drinking water from impurities. It makes sure that water is clean and dispensed to make ice or not. So caring is better than crying because water filters have a limited life span. Their expiry causes coagulation, and these of the following signs.
- Black specks appear. If you start seeing many black specks, you should change the filter. Because your water filter has decayed, and water wouldn’t be filtered until you change it.
- Unpleasant taste in water: clean and pure water has no color or taste. If your water tastes nasty or funky, acrid or bitter, so trust your taste buds and change your filter.
Discoloration or murkiness appears. The ambiguity is another sign which needs changing the filter. Swirls on your water mean it’s impure, and it indicates the presence of an excess concentration of water contaminants. Don’t drink water because your refrigerator filter needs changing. - The smell of water: Your nose also knows when water can be a drink or not by smelling it. The smelling sense plays a vital role in taste and chemical detection. You can feel the smell of Rotten eggs in water if your filter has expired. It is due to sulfur or sulfites that make water acrid or bitter, indicating bleach. While drinking your water, if your nose sends warning signals to your brain while drinking your water, it means it’s time to change the filter.
- Using a filter for more than one year: Everything has a limited duration. Changing the refrigerator water filter after 6 to 9 months is recommended.
- Water Filter Light appears: some refrigerators with the newer model have a water and ice dispenser that may induce a water filter light. When this light comes on, it indicates that your filter needs changing.
Refrigerator filtered water vs Bottled water
| Bottled Water | Refrigerator Filtered Water |
| Convenience and easy available | It is needed to be installed at home. |
| Provide safe water than tap water | Provide safe & healthier water even more than bottled water and tap water |
| Provides mineral taste | Removes chlorine and other foul smells from the drinking water |
| Plastic bottle harms the environment | It doesn’t harm the environment, so its better than bottled water |
| Expensive | It’s an expensive but good investment that will benefit you long-term. |
Conclusion
In the end, I would like to conclude that we should take pure, safe, and filtered water. Refrigerator water filters are an excellent solution to water clarity issues. They help remove some of the unwanted pollutants and improve the odor of the drinking water. However, they can’t remove plenty of material, but drinking filtered water from your fridge is better than tap water.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Some other questions, and answers for our readers that might be helpful for reading.
What do Samsung refrigerator water filters remove?
The Samsung refrigerator or carbon filter improves the odor and chlorine taste. It removes over 99% of the contaminants from the refrigerator’s water and ice, herbicides, pesticides, lead, mercury, and even pharmaceuticals like ibuprofen carbamazepine, heavy metals like lead, chemicals, and microbial cysts.
How good are GE refrigerator water filters? What do they remove?
GE is an excellent and quality product. It is one of the best water filters that provide you with the purest, safest and clean water after filtering it. It is reliable and friendly.
The GE Water Filter is NSF Certified, thus removing 99% of lead from water, 15 contaminants, such as lead, mercury, cysts, and more than 94% of five trace pharmaceuticals, including Ibuprofen and Fluoxetine, atenolol, Trimethoprim, etc.
What do Kenmore refrigerator water filters filter out?
Kenmore water filter reduces parasites, lead, chlorine taste and odor, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and some pesticides and pharmaceutical agents.
What does a frigidaire refrigerator water filter remove out?
The Frigidaire filter removes sediments in its first stage. It has an activated carbon filter that removes lead, pesticides, and herbicides. In the end, the filter removes chlorine to give a pleasant taste.
Do refrigerator water filters remove lead?
No, all the Fridge filters can’t remove lead, chromium-6, and other heavy metals from the drinking water. You will need a perfect system for lead water issues; search for the reverse osmosis systems that effectively reduce most contaminants.
Do refrigerator filters remove manganese?
No, fridge filters don’t remove manganese or iron. Iron and manganese issues in the water are treated with the best iron filters. Or you can opt for whole-home water softeners that reduce the hardness of the water.
Do refrigerator water filters remove minerals?
Minerals, lead, and reverse osmosis filters can remove other heavy metals. But are not by typical fridge refrigerator filter.
RO filter system can locate in the kitchen only.
Do refrigerator water filters remove arsenic?
No, it doesn’t remove. Arsenic is most effectively removed by distillation, anion exchange, and reverse osmosis. So a typical refrigerator water filter has limitations that are not fulfilling for arsenic.
Do refrigerator water filters remove PFAS?
No, refrigerator water filters don’t filter out PFAS. Water filtration units that use granular activated carbon or reverse osmosis (RO) process effectively remove the PFAS compounds.
Do refrigerator filters remove bacteria?
Refrigerator water filters cannot be relied on to remove the microorganisms like Bacteria. Bacteria is a risk in drinking water because the refrigerator water filter fails to remove all the contaminants in the water. Waterborne bacteria such as Salmonella and Coliform need fungus and moisture to live, and your refrigerator water filter is the perfect place for them to bloom. So drinking water can cause serious illness.
