Best Shower Filter for Copper and Chlorine

by Heather
(Gastonia, NC)

Thank you for this site! I am recently aware of the adverse effects of copper in my chronic health issues and am wanting to filter my water accordingly. We have copper pipes in the house. What is your recommended filter for shower and bath? Thank you,
Heather

RESPONSE:

You can get a high degree of filtration of chorine from our recommended shower filters and bath water filters. You can check them out here if interested.

Shower Filter Reviews and Recommendations.

Bath Water Filter Reviews and Recommendations

However, copper is not as easy to remove. I previously did research with some water quality organizations and water filtration companies and found out that activated carbon will remove some copper through adsorption.

Thus, I believe our recommended shower filters (such as Aquasana) and bath filters (especially the Crystal Quest bath ball) will remove some copper but probably not much. The companies do not provide any certification of copper removal.

According to the NSF website: "NSF International certifies treatment systems that reduce copper under NSF/ANSI 53: Drinking Water Treatment Systems – Health Effects and under NSF/ANSI 58: Reverse Osmosis Treatment Systems."

So you could look for specific systems that have these certifications. You might want to check out the NSF page on Copper in Drinking Water.

The most effective way to remove copper in your water for bathing is by way of a whole house reverse osmosis system (high-quality systems will remove up to 95% of copper).

Even though I am not a big fan of reverse osmosis water because it removes the minerals, if the copper pipes are a real concern for you, then perhaps a whole house R.O. system is your best solution. I am not aware of any R.O shower filters.

These days you can get R.O. drinking water systems that have a remineralization cartridge (that is positioned after the R.O. membrane), which puts minerals back into the water. Thus, these systems (such as this Aquasana one) produce a more balanced type of clean water.

Aquasana Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System + Remineralization


You can get an additional remineralizer unit that is installed after a reverse osmosis whole house system, but it is more involved. I am not aware of any R.O. whole house systems that include a remineralizer tank. (If anyone knows of one, please let me know.)

I guess it kind of depends on if you are just looking for a shower filter or whole house and/or drinking water system. . .

You can find high-quality drinking water systems that are not reverse osmosis, which are also NSF certified to remove copper.

Just one example: Aquasana Drinking Water System NSF/ANSI 42,53,401, P473


However, I am not aware of any whole house systems that have the NSF/ANSI 58 certification which are not reverse osmosis.

That is not to say that other whole house systems with activated carbon do not remove fair levels of copper, but I have been told that getting the NSF certification is cost-prohibitive for most companies with multi-stage filtration media for whole house systems.

I know the Berkey water filter systems also filter copper, but those are only for drinking water, not bathing.



I hope this gives you a little more direction to find a solution.