How To Purify Water At Home Our access to clean drinking water is being threatened by pollution more and more every day. That's why it's important to learn how to purify water at home. We'll discuss how to purify water at home for quick emergencies, but will also talk about long-term ways that will automatically make your water safe to drink. Making sure that you have safe and clean drinking water for your home is becoming more of a challenge, even if you get your water from a treatment plant. Although treatment plants will kill harmful parasites, such as bacteria, cysts, and viruses, most plants are not equipped to deal with many chemical pollutants. If your water comes from your own well, you need to make sure that it's safe to drink and cook with. There are number of ways to do this. You can use incoming water as-is for daily tasks like washing clothes, flushing toilets. You can then boil water that you'll be drinking and cooking with. For this, you'll need to boil it for at least a one-minute rolling boil. If you live at high altitude, boil for an additional three-minutes. This is an energy-intensive job, and it takes time, but it will kill off parasites without adding harmful chemicals. You can purchase an electric counter-top water distiller. A typical one will only produce about 4-gallons a day. This also is an energy-intensive process. It'll purify water by eliminating parasites and many chemicals, but not necessarily all chemicals. It will also strip out all minerals, even those that make the water taste good, like calcium and magnesium. If you are in an emergency situation and you don't have the time, or the means to boil, you can quickly ensure that your water is bacteria free by disinfecting it with common, unscented, chlorine-based household bleach. An effective ratio is about 8-drops to each gallon of water. Shake it well and let it set for at least 30-minutes before using. The apparent drawback to this is that you'll be adding a harmful, bad tasting chemical to your water. It'll ensure that dangerous parasites are killed, but it's not something you will want to do for prolonged periods. In emergencies or survival circumstances, you can also disinfect your water with iodine. It's not as effective as chlorine, but it's still better than not treating it at all. For every gallon of water, add 20-drops of iodine. Again, mix it well and let it set for at least 30 minutes before using. Counter-top, or inline carbon filters dedicated for drinking water can filter out many chemicals, but different models have varying degrees of effectiveness against parasites and pollutants. They're generally used to make water taste better, but not necessarily to completely eliminate harmful substances. In learning how to purify water at home, a better, more-permanent solution would be an under-the-counter, reverse osmosis system. Reverse osmosis systems use only your water pressure, and effectively filter out chemicals, pollutants and parasites. Typical reverse osmosis systems use at least two activated-carbon filters, and one reverse osmosis (RO) filter membrane. Together, they're capable of virtually eliminating all of these pollutants and parasites, and will easily provide you with safe, clean drinking water.