Showing posts with label Versus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Versus. Show all posts

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Whole House Water Filter Versus Kitchen Tap Systems

Whole house water filters may be just as important for your family's health as the one that you use on your kitchen tap. Plus, with a whole house water filter system, kitchen tap and shower filters are no longer necessary.

New studies have shown that fumes from chlorinated water can trigger asthma attacks. Swimming pool experts have known for years. That's one reason that they limit the amount of chlorine used to disinfect indoor pools.

CONSUMER REPORTS WATER SOFTENERS

The surprising thing is that the chlorine content in your tap water may at times be higher than what they use in the pools. No one needs to be able to drink the pool water, but treatment facilities need to kill pretty much everything that can live in the water and get in the pipes.

With a whole house water filter changes will be seen in the number of asthma attacks that you or your loved one suffers from. Conditions like dry skin will improve. You will not run the risk of chloroform gas build up, which has been found in many houses and is caused by showering in chlorinated water.

Actually with a whole house water filter whole lots of changes will be seen. Even your clothes will smell better and last longer. Whether you add bleach or not, you are still bleaching your clothes, as long as you use unfiltered tap water in the laundry.

Chlorine is not the only dangerous chemical in tap water. Lead, a toxic metal, has been found in the tap water of some major cities around the country. Whole house water filters can protect you from lead, but if you live in an older home, you may want to test your water after you install the system.

You see, the reason there is lead in some tap water is because lead was used at one time to line copper pipes. It was also used to solder joints. There are a number of reputable labs around the country that can test your water before and/or after you install whole house water filters.

There are more than 2000 cancer causing agents in public water supplies, according to consumer activists like Ralph Nader. A high quality whole house water filter will prevent and trap these chemical agents, thereby protecting you and your family from their harmful effects.

While whole house water filters may at first seem expensive, compare it to the money that you'll save by not having to purchase tap filters or bottled water. If you frequently use bottled water for outdoor activities, you can bottle your own for pennies per day. Just about every department store sells plastic water bottles, and many of the companies that provide whole house water filters also provide glass water bottles. You can even get travel bottles which contain their own activated carbon filters.

You won't need shower head filters and won't have the expense of replacing cartridges for those units. A good quality whole house water filter only needs to be replaced every 3 years or so, unless your water is highly contaminated.

With a whole house water filter blocks of time can be saved, as well. Instead of running around buying filters and bottled water, you can sit in the comfort of your own home and enjoy the cleanest tasting water that you've ever had.

Your shower will begin to feel more like a spa. Your skin and hair and even the clothes you wear will be softer. The best whole house water filters contain multiple stages to remove up to 99.99% of the contaminants in your water, while balancing the mineral content and the pH levels. Once you have one, you won't be able to live without it.

Whole House Water Filter Versus Kitchen Tap Systems

CONSUMER REPORTS WATER SOFTENERS

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Car Quality - Consumer Reports' Reliability Versus JD Power's Dependability

This article examines the contrast between Consumer Reports' reliability ranking and J. D. Power and Associates' "dependability" ranking of car brands. To make the comparison, the Hummer, Jaguar, and Land Rover brands are eliminated from the J. D. Power ranking, as they do not appear in the Consumer Reports ranking.

consumer reports best baby products

The contrast between Consumer Reports' 2010 reliability ranking of auto brands, based on serious problems reported in 2009 for model years 2007 through 2009, and J. D. Power and Associates' 2010 "dependability" ranking of auto brands, based on complaints reported for 3-year-old automobiles, is quite stark. A couple of examples demonstrate the point.

Consumer Reports

By infrequency of serious problems reported by Consumer Reports' subscribers, the Scion line is the most reliable brand available on the North American market. However, by infrequency of complaints, the Scion brand is ranked 28, or 5 from the bottom, by J. D. Power.

And by infrequency of complaints, Buick is ranked number 3 by J. D. Power, but by infrequency of serious problems, the Buick line is ranked 19, or 15 from the bottom, by Consumer Reports.

Below is a list of the 33 lines appearing in both studies and the absolute value of the difference in their ranks.

Scion: |1 - 28| = 27
Honda: |2 - 7| = 5
Toyota: |3 - 6| = 3
Infiniti: |4 - 13| = 9
Acura: |5 - 10| = 5
Mitsubishi: |6 - 29| = 23
Lexus: |7 - 4| = 3
Hyundai: |8 - 11| = 3
Porsche: |9 - 1| = 8
Mercury: |10 - 5| = 5
Saab: |11 - 15| = 4
Subaru: |12 - 14| = 2
Suzuki: |13 - 33| = 20
Kia: |14 - 20| = 6
Mazda: |15 - 27| = 12
Ford: |16 - 8| = 8
Nissan: |17 - 23| = 6
Volvo: |18 - 21| = 3
Buick: |19 - 3| = 16
Lincoln: |20 - 2| = 18
Volkswagen: |21 - 32| = 11
Pontiac: |22 - 26| = 4
Mercedes-Benz: |23 - 9| = 14
Audi: |24 - 24| = 0
Chevrolet: |25 - 22| = 3
BMW: |26 - 17| = 9
Mini: |27 - 30| = 3
GMC: |28 - 18| = 10
Saturn: |29 - 16| = 13
Jeep: |30 - 31| = 1
Dodge: |31 - 25| = 6
Cadillac: |32 - 12| = 20
Chrysler: |33 - 19| = 14

Twelve (more than one-third) of the above differences are in the double digits.

The very sizable differences in the rankings of many brands likely arise from what the two studies measure - serious problems versus complaints. The complaints may be secondary, tertiary, or even trivial in nature, such as color, size, shape, location, or ease of use of visors, knobs, buttons, levers, or latches, although how J. D. Power screens complaints, if at all, is not set forth in its press releases.

This is not to say that the color, size, shape, location, or ease of use of visors, knobs, buttons, levers, or latches is insignificant; however, most consumers would likely not consider such to be of equal importance to an infrequency of serious problems and would not term such a measure of dependability.

Another difference between the two studies that might account for some part of the difference in car brand ranking is that Consumer Reports' brand ranking is based on automobile performance for the first 3 years while J. D. Power's brand ranking is based on automobile satisfaction in the 3rd year. However, the age difference is likely not the reason for any sizable difference between the rankings, as CR's 0-to-3-year ranking has only modest differences with the brand ranking given by the 2010 Auto Reliability GPA for 2-to-6-year-old vehicles from model years 2004 to 2007, as the absolute values of the differences in rank between the two shown below indicate.

Scion: |1 - 2| = 1
Honda: |2 - 1| = 1
Toyota: |3 - 3| = 0
Infiniti: |4 - 6| = 2
Acura: |5 - 4| = 1
Mitsubishi: |6 - 8| = 2
Lexus: |7 - 5| = 2
Hyundai: |8 - 13| = 5
Porsche: |9 - 9| = 0
Mercury: |10 - 10| = 0
Saab: |11 - 26| = 17
Subaru: |12 - 7| = 5
Suzuki: |13 - 19| = 6
Kia: |14 - 20| = 6
Mazda: |15 - 11| = 4
Ford: |16 - 18| = 2
Nissan: |17 - 16| = 1
Volvo: |18 - 15| = 3
Buick: |19 - 12| = 7
Lincoln: |20 - 14| = 6
Volkswagen: |21 - 22| = 1
Pontiac: |22 - 24| = 2
Mercedes-Benz: |23 - 21| = 2
Audi: |24 - 30| = 6
Chevrolet: |25 - 28| = 3
BMW: |26 - 17| = 9
Mini: |27 - 33| = 6
GMC: |28 - 29| = 1
Saturn: |29 - 25| = 4
Jeep: |30 - 31| = 1
Dodge: |31 - 32| = 1
Cadillac: |32 - 23| = 9
Chrysler: |33 - 27| = 6

All of these differences are in the single digits, save for Saab's sizable 17, a difference that suggests that the Saab line may offer too little data for a stable reliability rating or ranking.

One useful way for the consumer to utilize both the Consumer Reports survey and the J. D. Power survey is to identify those brands that appear in the Top Ten of both rankings. The Top Ten brands that are common to the two studies offer both a low frequency of serious problems and a low frequency of complaints.

Within the Top Ten of both lists are the brands:

Honda
Toyota
Honda Motor Company's Acura
Toyota Motor Corporation's Lexus
Porsche
Ford Motor Company's Mercury, soon to be retired.

These five marques appear as well in the Top Ten by the 2010 Auto Reliability GPA for the vehicular age range 2-to-6 years.

Car Quality - Consumer Reports' Reliability Versus JD Power's Dependability

Consumer Reports