AquaTru water purifiers are independently tested and certified to NSF standards by IAPMO to remove contaminants. The world of water standard regulations can often be confusing, but we’re here to help break it down for you. Many people think that products must be “NSF certified” or have “NSF certification.” However, this is not correct. It comes down to standards vs. certification. NSF is one of five organizations that can certify water filtration products to NSF standards.
NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) International is a third-party organization that createsnational standards for drinking water, food and other consumer products. They also do in-house testing and certification. However, once these standards are created by NSF, a select group of five organizations are accredited by ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and allowed to independently test and certify products to NSF standards. ANSI oversees standards and conformity assessment activities in the United States.
U.S. states accept certified testing from 5 different labs: NSF International, IAPMO (International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials), WQA (Water Quality Association), UL (Underwriters’ Listing), and CSA Group. These 5 labs have been accredited by ANSI to be certified to NSF standards. All of these organizations also require regular audit and inspection of the products to ensure they continue to meet NSF standards. They also test a product’s ability to remove contaminants for the claimed filter life. For example, a company could claim a filter life of 3,000 gallons for their product, but if it is not certified to NSF standards, there’s no way to guarantee that the product will effectively remove contaminants at safe levels (determined by NSF standards) for the full 3,000 gallons.
AquaTru chooses to get our products certified to NSF standards by IAPMO, which is not only the biggest certifier of plumbing products, but since they focus solely on plumbing products, we also find them an excellent partner to work with as they have more dedicated resources for testing water filtration products. AquaTru’s warehouses and factories are inspected annually by an IAPMO auditor to ensure that we continue to meet the NSF/ANSI standards.
TL;DR
You want to look for certification to NSF standards when shopping for water filtration products, but they can be certified by one of the following organizations: NSF International, IAPMO, WQA, UL, or CSA Group. “NSF certified” means it was specifically tested and certified by the organization NSF International, but certification to NSF standards by any of those five organizations all carry equal weight because they are all accredited and held to the same NSF standards, rigorous testing and auditing to keep consumers safe.
Note: Be wary of products that only claim that they have been internally tested, independently tested, or even “independently tested to NSF standards”, but are not certified to NSF standards. This means that they have not received certification by one of the 5 aforementioned labs that test, enforce and audit NSF standards.
AquaTru is one of the only companies that goes the extra mile to certify our products to remove over 80 contaminants. Many companies can claim high contaminant removal (over 200 contaminants), but do not have certification. AquaTru could actually make a higher contaminant removal claim based on our reverse osmosis technology and independent testing, but we choose to only make claims on the contaminants we are certified to remove to give our customers peace of mind that the contaminants we claim to remove will in fact be removed for the full life of the filters and are backed by certification from an ANSI-accredited laboratory.
How to check if a product is actually certified?
If a product claims it is certified to remove contaminants, you can verify this by searching the product on the website of the organization that provided certification (NSF, IAPMO, WQA, UL or CSA Group). For example, since AquaTru is certified by IAPMO, you can visit IAPMO’s product listing directory to search for AquaTru products. Make sure to search “AquaTru” without a space. Each certified product will also have a performance data sheet listing the certifying organization, NSF/ANSI standards to which the product was tested and certified and minimum reduction of the contaminants tested. You can find AquaTru’s data sheets on our website or in this article.
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