What Do Commercial Water Filters Remove?
From restaurants and bars to hotels and cafeterias, water filtration is crucial in any commercial kitchen. Filters are used in a wide variety of equipment, including sinks, ice machines, beverage dispensers and coffee makers. But what do commercial water filters remove? This guide will break down how filters work and what their benefits are to the lifespan and quality of your commercial kitchen equipment.
What Do Commercial Water Filters Remove?
Even when it’s treated before arriving in your facility, water still contains a wide variety of physical and chemical particles. While they might not remove every single contaminant, commercial water filters help purify water by removing elements like:
- Bacteria
- Calcium
- Carcinogens
- Chlorine
- Copper
- Dirt
- Fluoride
- Iron
- Lead
- Mercury
- Minerals
- Pesticide
- Salt
- Sand
- Sulfur
Does Your Facility Need Commercial Water Filters?
Most of the United States, Europe and Canada have advanced water treatment facilities that make local water clean and suitable to drink. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t need proper filtration. Some areas might have hard water. While most hard water is safe to drink, it contains a high mineral count that creates unpleasant taste and causes a buildup in plumbing and commercial kitchen equipment. This mineral buildup can eventually corrode the pipes and parts of the equipment.
Treating water also is crucial for old facilities. As 3M’s Mark Laucella noted in our PartsCast episode Getting the Lead Out, many older infrastructures like schools and municipal water facilities have older feeding pipes that bring small traces of these particles into drinking water.
For example, some schools in the United States still use pipes with lead soldering. While lead-based soldering has been outlawed in the United States since 1986, many of these institutions still contain their original plumbing.
“The average age of most of the public schools in the United States is in excess of over 50 years old,” Laucella said. “Legislation [prohibiting lead soldering] was done after those schools were built, so most of those schools with copper pipes and… lead pipes have lead-based solder. Lead is leaching out of those pipes into the drinking water.
“You also have sinks, faucets and drinking fountains that are also the same age as the buildings, and they may have lead-based materials that were used in the manufacturing of those products. Water is just passing through, and no one even thinks about these things.”
What Types of Commercial Water Filters are Available?
To ensure that ice, drinking water and steam are as clean and healthy as possible, installing proper filters are important. Below are three popular types of water filters found on commercial kitchen equipment and what they specialize in:
To ensure that ice, drinking water and steam are as clean and healthy as possible, installing proper filters are important. Below are three popular types of water filters found on commercial kitchen equipment and what they specialize in:
- Activated carbon filters – These have a small, charcoal powder that use a chemical reaction that causes water and airborne particles, such as dust and mold, to stick to the filter.
- Carbonless water filters – These allow chlorine and monochloramine from your local water system to pass through, preserving the sterilization of incoming water and protect equipment from scale damage. They’re good for purifying hard water.
- Reverse osmosis (RO) filters – RO systems use a semipermeable membrane that remove bad sediments, allowing only the most-pure water molecules to pass through the filter.
Manufacturers like 3M and Everpure make a wide variety of these filters for foodservice equipment that go on sinks, ice machines, dishwashers, beverage and coffee machines, combi ovens and steamers.
Check out our Commercial Water Filter Guide for a full breakdown.