Whole-house filtration
One tank on the line where water enters the house, treating every fixture behind it. Chlorine out before the shower head, before the washing machine, before the water heater — not just before the drinking glass. On a chlorinated municipal supply this is the single piece of equipment that changes how the house feels day to day.
- Where
- Main, after meter
- Media
- Catalytic GAC
- Flow
- 7–12 gpm
- Media life
- 5–8 years
- Installed
- $1,600–$2,700
- On site
- Half day
You absorb more chlorine in a ten-minute shower than from a day of drinking.
Hot water off-gasses volatile compounds into a small enclosed room, and warm skin is a far more permeable surface than most people assume. That is why the complaints we hear most are about hair and skin rather than taste — and why a pitcher filter never fixes them.
ECUA chlorinates every well, and the dose is not constant. It gets bumped after line work, after a main break, and through the warm months when the distribution system needs more residual to hold across a long run. If you live at the end of a run you notice the swing.
Chlorine also has a second cost you never see: it oxidizes the rubber in your washing machine, degrades water heater components, and shortens the life of any ion-exchange resin sitting downstream of it. Carbon on the main is partly a comfort purchase and partly maintenance on everything behind it.
Cartridge housings or a backwashing tank.
Everything else about a whole-house install is plumbing. This is the choice that determines what owning it feels like.
Big-blue cartridge housings
$400–$900 installed
- Cheap up front and easy to plumb into a tight space.
- 10-inch cartridges every three to six months, forever. Someone has to remember, and someone has to get the housing open.
- Pressure drop climbs as the cartridge loads. The last month before a change is noticeably worse than the first.
- Sensible for a one-bath house, a condo, or a rental.
Backwashing catalytic carbon tank
$1,600–$2,700 installed
- 1–2 cubic feet of catalytic carbon — a grade specifically better than standard GAC at chloramine, which matters in systems that switch disinfectant.
- Self-cleans on a meter or timer, re-bedding the media so it does not channel or compact.
- No cartridges, no monthly errand, no creeping pressure drop. Media change at five to eight years, $400–$700.
- For a three-bath house in this area it is the better buy inside about two years.
What carbon handles — and what it will not.
Carbon works by adsorption. It is superb at organic chemistry and disinfectants, and completely blind to dissolved minerals and salts. Being clear about the second half is how you avoid buying the wrong tank.
| Contaminant | Typical reduction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free chlorine | 97%+ | 97%+ reductionThe reason most people buy one. Taste, smell, and the shower complaint all resolve here. |
| Chloramine | 90%+ | 90%+ reductionStandard GAC is mediocre at chloramine; catalytic carbon is not. Worth specifying, since utilities do change disinfectant. |
| Trihalomethanes & HAAs | 85%+ | 85%+ reductionDisinfection byproducts — chlorine reacting with organic matter in the source water. Both groups appeared on the published detection list for this system. |
| VOCs & solvents | 90%+ | 90%+ reductionBenzene, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride. The legacy industrial chemistry a region with this history carries in its groundwater. |
| Hydrogen sulfide | 85%+ | 85%+ reductionThe rotten-egg smell. More often a private-well complaint than an ECUA one, and heavy sulfur needs oxidation ahead of the carbon. |
| Iron & manganese | 60%+ | 60%+ reductionPartial, and only at modest levels. Real iron needs a dedicated oxidizing filter, not carbon. |
| Hardness | 0%+ | 0%+ reductionZero. None. Carbon does not remove calcium or magnesium. If you have scale on the shower glass, you need a softener and no carbon tank will change that. |
On a slab house, this lives outside.
Almost every home in this market is slab-on-grade with no basement and no utility closet. The exterior loop is not a compromise here — it is the standard.
- 01
Size to peak simultaneous demand
Not to house square footage and not to the price sheet. A three-bath home peaks around 7–12 gpm. Undersize the tank or the valve and you feel it every time somebody flushes while you are in the shower.
- 02
Know your starting pressure
A lot of older Pensacola housing stock sits at 45–55 psi at the hose bib. If you are already at the low end we measure before we add anything restrictive to the main, and sometimes the honest answer is that pressure is the problem, not filtration.
- 03
Downstream of the meter, upstream of the house
On a small pad near where the main enters, with the irrigation teed off ahead of it. Short pipe runs, accessible valve head, drain within reach for the backwash cycle.
- 04
UV-stable jacket, always
Gulf Coast sun destroys unprotected fiberglass and control heads. An outdoor install without a jacket is a five-year system pretending to be a fifteen-year system.
- 05
A real bypass, not a promise
Three-valve bypass so a failure, a service call, or a media change never means the house is without water. We have removed too many systems that were plumbed with no way around them.
- 06
Backwash scheduling
Set to run overnight, on a meter rather than a clock where the household size justifies it. A backwash cycle discharges to the drain and you should not be sharing that with your morning shower.
Three configurations that cover most houses.
Cartridge system
$400–$900
Big-blue housing on the main. Right for a condo, a small house, or a rental where you want the option to walk away.
- 20-inch housing, carbon block
- Bracket, bypass and shutoffs
- Pressure gauge on the outlet
- First cartridge included
Catalytic carbon tank
$1,600–$2,700
The default recommendation for a family home on ECUA water. Set and forget for five to eight years.
- 1–1.5 cu ft catalytic carbon
- Metered backwashing valve
- UV-stable jacket
- Three-valve bypass and pad
Carbon + softener pair
$3,100–$4,400
Both tanks on one exterior pad, plumbed in the right order, sharing a drain and a bypass.
- Carbon tank as specified
- Metered softener by grain load
- Shared drain with air gap
- Permit pulled and inspection
A backwashing tank costs nothing annually until the media change. If you also want treated drinking water at the kitchen tap, pair it with an under-sink RO — carbon handles the house, the membrane handles the glass.
Ready to price a point-of-entry system?
Send us your neighborhood, the number of bathrooms, and where your main comes in. That is usually enough to give you a real range before anyone drives out.