Whole-house water filtration for west Broward homes
One filter at the main line, so the chloramine taste is gone from every tap, shower and ice maker in the house. In Broward that filter needs to be catalytic carbon, and most quotes you'll get don't say which carbon they're using.
Chloramine and the right filter media
Most utilities in our area disinfect with chloramine, at roughly 3 parts per million on average. Chloramine is chlorine bonded to ammonia. Utilities like it because it's stable: it survives the long trip through the distribution system and keeps protecting the water on the way to your house.
That same stability is what makes it hard to filter out. Standard activated carbon, the kind in pitcher filters and most basic whole-house cartridges, was designed around free chlorine. Against chloramine it works slowly and gives up early.
Catalytic carbon is processed differently. The surface is treated so it breaks the chlorine-ammonia bond instead of only adsorbing what floats past. It's the correct media for this county. If a competing quote says "carbon filter" without naming the type, ask which one.
What a whole-house filter changes
The taste goes first, and people notice it in coffee and ice before they notice it anywhere else. Showers stop smelling faintly of a swimming pool.
What it won't do is soften the water. Carbon doesn't remove calcium or magnesium, so if your glasses come out of the dishwasher spotted and your kettle has a crust, that's a hardness problem and it needs a softener instead. Plenty of Broward homes end up with both, in series.
Sizing a whole-house filter
A whole-house filter is sized on flow rate and household demand. Undersize it and you get a pressure drop every time two showers run at once. Oversize it and you've paid for capacity you'll never use, and water can channel through the media unevenly.
A four-bathroom house in Weston Hills needs a bigger tank than a two-bathroom in Sunrise, and both need a bypass valve fitted so a media change doesn't mean shutting off water to the whole house.
Where we install it
We cover west Broward. Each city sits on a different supply, so the same equipment gets sized differently depending on where you are.
Related guides
Sources EPA · USGS
- EPA: Chloramines in Drinking Water Chloramine disinfection, why utilities use it, and how it differs from free chlorine.
- USGS: Groundwater Quality in the Biscayne Aquifer, Florida Biscayne Aquifer is shallow, highly permeable limestone; source of most Broward County groundwater.
Questions about whole-house filtration
How long does catalytic carbon media last?
Several years. How long depends on the chloramine level and how much water the household uses, so the media should be checked rather than replaced on a fixed schedule.
Will a whole-house filter fix my hard water?
No. Carbon removes taste, odor and chloramine, and it leaves calcium and magnesium untouched. Hardness needs a softener. Most homes here on city water want the two together.
Does it remove PFAS?
Partially, and not reliably enough to count on. For PFAS the right tool is reverse osmosis at the kitchen tap. A whole-house carbon filter handles the taste and odor across the house, and an under-sink RO handles what you drink.
Will I lose water pressure?
Not if it's sized correctly. Pressure drop is a sizing failure, and it shows up when a tank is too small for the number of fixtures running at once. A correctly sized system accounts for how many fixtures can run at once.
Find out what's in your water
A free, no-obligation water test at your home, so any recommendation is based on your water.