Short answer: yes. Well water can and often does have the same contaminants as city water. City water should be treated by the local municipality but they often fall short. OptimH2O is great for lead, cysts, and PFOA/PFOS, but it also tackles chlorine and chloramines which you shouldn’t find in well water.

Typically, folks on well water need to soften water and remove contaminants for drinking water. So the most typical combo is a softener + drinking water filter. Since most whole home filters primarily target chlorine, and won’t always reduce the other contaminants (like lead, forever chemicals like PFOA, PFAS, PFOS, cysts) to safe-to-drink levels (although that’s getting better with the newer models), most well water users tend to get a drinking water filter in addition to whatever whole home water treatment solution they go for.

Hope that helps.

Stay hydrated,
Mr Water Geek

Hi Lisa

Yes it is possible to get my recommended well water treatment option without the softener involved. Here is the single well water filter machine that treats water through oxidation.

Stay hydrated,
Luke

Hi Tom

Salt based softeners should not be a problem for people with a salt restricted diet unless you’re getting all your drinking water directly from the tap.

If it’s a concern and you drink directly from the tap, you should probably consider an undersink reverse osmosis filter along with your salt based softener.

Stay hydrated,
Luke

Hi John

I’m not sure I understood your question.

Chlorine and bacteria can not live in the same place. So if chlorine is present you don’t have to worry about bacteria.

Stay hydrated,
Luke

Hey I’ve heard removing chlorine with a whole house filter can cause bacteria to grow in your lines. Is there truth to this?

Hi Lisa

Fluoride removal is most effectively done with RO (reverse osmosis) so you will need a filter that is based on RO like the OptimH2O.

However, any of the filters listed in this article will treat fluoride to different degrees.

Best wishes,
Luke

Hi Gayla

If you’re specifically only interested in arsenic removal (and don’t have hard water issues that cause limescale etc) then you should look into getting a reverse osmosis filter.

Otherwise the Aquasana OptimH2O is the most powerful whole house filter I’ve seen so far. Although they don’t specifically mention arsenic it’s tested on even more powerful things like heavy metals and removes lead by over 99%. You can also add a salt-free softener to stop limescale and UV filter to remove 99% of bacteria related contaminants.

Hope this helps,
Luke