Chlorine Shower Filter

Chlorine shower filter

A chlorine shower filter is just a shower water filter that also removes chlorine from the water. Chlorine does not seem like it would be terribly detrimental to us. After all we use chlorine as a bleach in clothes. Swimming pools are another common usage for chlorine. Since we are around chlorine so much it couldn’t be bad for us, right? Au contraire. First, how does chlorine get in the water in our shower? Chlorine dioxide is added by municipalities to their water system as a disinfectant, purification, and to remove bad tastes and odors. Chlorine has been added to water for literally the last century and does not have an easy and cheap chemical replacement, else it would have been changed by now. But common usage does not mean that chlorine in municipal water supplies is safe.

Chlorine Shower Filter: OSHA Weighs in on Chlorine Dioxide

Let’s see what the US Department of Labor has to say about chlorine dioxide (which is what is being added to municipal water supplies)

Effects on Humans: Chlorine dioxide is a severe respiratory and eye irritant in humans. Inhalation can produce coughing, wheezing, respiratory distress, and congestion in the lungs [Patnaik 1992]. Irritating effects in humans was intense at concentration levels of 5 ppm. Accidental exposure at 19 ppm of the gas inside a bleach tank resulted in the death of one worker (time of exposure is not specified) [ACGIH 1991]. Workers exposed for 5 years to average chlorine dioxide concentrations below 0.1 ppm but with excursions to higher concentrations had symptoms of eye and throat irritation, nasal discharge, cough, and wheezing; on bronchoscopy, bronchitis was observed in seven of the 12 workers [Clayton and Clayton 1982]. Concentrations of 0.25 ppm and less have been reported to worsen mild respiratory ailments [ACGIH 1991]. Two adults who ingested 250 ml of a 40 mg/l solution of chlorine dioxide experienced headache, nausea, abdominal discomfort, and lightheadedness within 5 minutes of ingestion. The symptoms disappeared within another 5 minutes [NLM

Source United States Department of Labor(OSHA) Occupational Safety and Health Guideline for Chlorine Dioxide

Chlorine Shower Filter: How Much Chlorine to Filter Out?

The current OSHA permissible exposure limit for chlorine dioxide is .1 ppm in a eight hour time weighted average. What is an 8-hour time-weighted-average? It’s way too scientific for me to figure out. But to be on the safe side we would want our chlorine shower filter to reduce the chlorine down to .1 ppm since we are not exposed to it for more than a few minutes while we shower.

Now do you see why we want to remove chlorine from our shower water? The list of symptoms above are so common that we could be suffering from the effects of being around chlorine and not even know it. We definitely need to use a chlorine shower filter to remove it from our shower water. Better yet since a chlorine shower filter only filters in the shower we might want to use a whole house water filter to remove chlorine wherever it appears in the house. For example if you only have a chlorine shower filter and don’t have one on your kitchen faucet you are using chlorine-infused water for all your cooking and also drinking it. Chlorine is also known to react poorly with hair, particularly hair that has been colored or died. So certainly you should use a chlorine shower filter to remove chlorine and the other chemicals and particulates that a water filter removes. In addition you should consider a whole house water filter to get rid of chlorine from anywhere in the house.