What are the most common sources of water for Calgary homes?

Homes in Calgary have two basic choices of water source:

1. Municipally treated water
2. Private well water

City Water

The vast majority of residents in Calgary use municipally treated water (city water) and pay a monthly charge for this privilege.

The City has the responsibility to supply residents with a safe water supply. So, our water undergoes a series of treatment processes before reaching your home.

The water in Calgary comes from the Rockies, with the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant (supplied by the Bow River) accounting for around 60 percent of the supply.

Water will typically go through the following treatment processes before being stored and distributed to your home:

• Screening to remove large particles
• Coagulation/flocculation to help bind residual particles into larger particles
• Sediment filtration to filter out remaining particles
• Filtration to remove contaminants, bad taste, odour, etc.
• Disinfection with chlorine and chloramines to kill microorganisms

Bear in mind that the water may be sparklingly clean when it enters storage but between storage and entering your taps it could pick up contaminants within the pipeline system.

So, for drinking and cooking, in particular, a water filtration system might still be an important asset for your home.

Private Well Water

Some properties in Calgary use private well water instead of municipal water. This might be because they are unable to access the city’s water supply.

Well water comes directly from the ground and it is often more polluted than city water. It may also contain iron, which can damage electrical appliances.

This water should be tested regularly for the presence of microorganisms and harmful toxins.

For households using well water, a water filtration system is essential to remove the most common contaminants and unwanted odours and tastes.

You may also need a water softener because natural groundwater is generally full of minerals and considered “hard”.

There are many different ways to filter water at home. Here are the top 10 types in no particular order…

• Reverse Osmosis - this is a very effective, high-intensity water cleaning system that uses a semipermeable membrane to separate 99 percent of the inorganic contaminants it contains.
• Sediment Filtration - probably the most basic water filtration system available, used around the world to remove large particles from the water as a whole-house filtration solution or together with other filters.
• UV Disinfection - ultraviolet technology can be used to kill 99.99% of microorganisms like viruses and bacteria, including chlorine-resistant ones in municipally treated water.
• Ultrafiltration – this system utilizes hydrostatic pressure to force water through a submicron semipermeable membrane that filters most of the contaminants from the water.
• Ion-Exchange – a cost-effective system that removes unwanted dissolved ions from the water and replaces them with other ions of the same electrical charge using a special resin.
• Ionization – an ionizer uses water electrolysis to change the molecular structure of the water, resulting in antioxidant-rich ionized alkaline drinking water and acidic water for general usage.
• Activated Carbon Block (ACB) Filtration – this utilizes fine carbon powder held together with a binding agent to remove lead, chlorine and other chemicals, as well as unwanted tastes and odours from the water.
• Granular Activated Carbon Filtration – this one uses loose carbon granules so it filters fewer contaminants than the ACB method but can be used as an initial filter before ACB if necessary.
• Activated Alumina Filtration – this one uses porous aluminum oxide (bauxite) to remove fluoride, arsenic, selenium, and thallium in water.
• Distillation – a traditional water filtration process that is very effective at removing contaminants but is not as widely used now as many of the other newer methods outlined here.

Alpha Plumbing’s installation services cover the most common types of water filtration systems used in Calgary homes.

We’ll visit any residence in the southeast, southwest, and northwest of Calgary to install, service or repair your system.