Collection: Ultraviolet Filtration Systems

Ultraviolet Water Filtration Systems

Ultraviolet treatment takes a property of light that is usually discussed as a hazard and puts it to work on water. Inside a UV system, water flows past a lamp emitting ultraviolet light at a wavelength that damages the cellular material of microorganisms carried in the stream, leaving them unable to reproduce. Bacteria, viruses, molds, and other organisms too small to see are the target.

What makes UV appealing to a lot of households is what it does not do. It adds no chemicals to the water, it changes no taste, and it leaves no residue behind, so the water that leaves the chamber is the same water that entered it in every respect except the biological one. Systems in this category range from whole house units plumbed into the main line to smaller assemblies serving a single point.

UV also has a clear limit that shapes how a system should be built. Ultraviolet light does nothing about particulate matter, dissolved minerals, or sediment, and cloudy water actually works against it, because suspended particles shade organisms from the lamp. A UV system suits water that is already clear, and where it is not, a sediment filter ahead of the chamber does the necessary work first.

The components in a system are worth knowing before ordering parts. The lamp sits inside a quartz sleeve that keeps it dry while letting the light through, a ballast or controller drives the lamp, and the chamber itself is sized to hold water in front of the light long enough for the treatment to work. Flow rate matters for that reason, and a system rated below what a house actually draws will move water past the lamp too quickly.

Lamp output falls off gradually with hours of use well before the lamp ever goes dark, so a system that appears to be running can be past its useful output, and a clouded quartz sleeve blocks light the same way suspended sediment does. Both are replaced on the schedule the manufacturer sets, and the sleeve is cleaned in between. A subscribe and save plan keeps a fresh lamp arriving on that schedule.