It’s essential to have clean and safe drinking water that is free of any contaminant whether biological, chemical or dust particles. As most of the drinking water available is polluted in some way or the other, the only way to access clean and safe drinking water is by making use of water purifiers.

There are many water purifiers available in the market, all having their own USPs based on which they claim to be the best in the market. Here are few of the things that you need to consider before buying a water purifier.

1.    Water Quality: You need to check if you get surface water supplied by the government agency or the groundwater from either bore wells or supplied by tankers. In surface water, the TDS which is actually the dissolved solids in the form of salts is less and hence you only need protection against microbiological impurities for which a well-designed UV purifier is perfect. If the water supplied has TDS of more than 500ppm, which is often in the case of ground water, then choosing an RO purifier will be beneficial. In case you are the lucky one who is getting soft water with permissible TDS limit, just having a purifier with carbon activated filters is enough.
2. Contamination: The most common contaminants found in water are lead, nitrate, bacteria and dissolved pesticides all of which are detrimental to health. Get the water tested and if it is found to be high in both microbes and chemicals, get a UV based RO filter to get safe drinking water.
3.  Water Pressure: To work optimally, both the RO and the UV filters need the water supply at a decent pressure. If you don’t get sufficient water pressure at home, you will have to attach a pump to the filtration unit. Only the activated carbon purifiers work in low pressure but then they don’t filter out chemicals and microbes.
4. Electricity: Advanced filtration techniques like RO and UV, operate using electricity. If you stay in the area with an erratic power supply, then these water purifiers would not be very useful to you unless you have a proper power backup.
5. 5. Budget: This is of paramount importance because the price of RO and UV purifiers varies a lot depending upon the features and the technology. So, depending upon your budget, find the purifier that best aligns with your needs.
6. Service: Whichever purifier you choose, it will definitely require regular servicing and the replacement of some of the critical components. Thus, go for the purifier that has a good network of service centres and ensure, there is one available in your area too.

The seller will obviously rate the product as one of the best water purifiers available but as a buyer, you need to know what exactly your requirement is. Keeping in mind the above discussed factors, you should decide which purifier to go for.

Miguel Gongora