Local tap is dubious at best and leaded at worst so we fill 5gallon jugs at a filter station the next town over. I’m getting tired of transporting and paying for water, so I’d like to make a filter that won’t just clog up with hard water in a week. Anyone have recommendations on where to start?
Get your water tested. You can throw all sorts of filters and treatments at it, but unless you know what’s in your water, you won’t know what’s important.
Your local government might have people that can test your water. You really want someone who will actually come over and collect the water themselves, it’s really easy to do it wrong and end up contaminating the collected water.
There are companies that can design a good treatment setup for you. Or you can do some research and get your own.
You can also check your utility’s consumer confidence report (CCR). It will show the test results of water leaving the water plant. It won’t reflect lead levels at your home, which are impacted by your own piping. (It may include lead sampling at random locations around the distribution system.)
Collecting your own sample is perfectly fine. There are special instructions if you are specifically testing for lead that your utility should be able to provide to you. Contamination is really only a concern when testing for PFAS, but that test alone may cost more than your treatment system. Look at the PFAS data from your utility if you are concerned and realize you may be getting more exposure to PFAS from other sources than your water (Teflon cookware, food packaging, cosmetics, etc.).
In general, someone in the business of selling home treatment systems is has an incentive to tell you your water is poison and you absolutely need their system.
That’s a good place to start for getting the finer details mapped out. As for that last part, that’s why I’m here really. My household is very neurodivergent and even if the tap water was proven to be the actual fountain of youth we’d still avoid it because we can’t take the taste. Unfortunately, the only refill station that meets our preferences is in a Walmart the town over. Even shoplifting the water does cleanse the ick of setting foot in the store so I’m willing to do more if it means less of that.
If taste is your only concern a carbon filter like a Britta can do a lot. If hard water buildup clogs up the filters very quickly maybe consider a water softener (ion exchange or RO). With an RO softener you probably wouldn’t need the Britta filter.