Does anyone know the best way to filter your home water at point of entry?

A salesman convinced me to get our water softener back up running and to add an activated carbon filter to that system. It'll only cost $850 for everything. The system will have 3 tanks. I'm hesitant because I don't want cracks in my plumbing from the water softener and he wouldn't give me a list of everything the carbon would remove.

Do you have city water or do you have your own well? In most cases city water is pretty good with the exception of the chlorine and fluoride. Thus a water softener is probably not needed nor can it remove the chlorine and fluoride.

An activated carbon filter will get rid of the chlorine but if used as a whole house filter will not last all that long (maybe about a month) and cost about $10 to replace.

To get rid of the fluoride you will need a reverse osmosis filter. They are probably going to be in a $250 range, haven’t looked recently. A typical home RO filter is used for drinking water only. That combined with a carbon filter would give decent drinking water.

If you have you own well, as I do, you would most likely want to start out with a sediment filter followed by a water softener which would supply water to the whole house.
Water softener’s use salt to recharge their filter media and some of that salt may remain in the final product. If this is a concern then a RO filer should be used for drinking water.

Are you talking about a little one underneath? The amount of carbon they want to use is 40 lbs. and they said it will last about 5 years. Your well water is softened only?

We do have a RO in the kitchen and a chlorine filter on the shower but I want to soak in the tub without the thought there are cancer-causing compounds like pharmaceutical, pesticides and metals.

I recommend that you look into photonic water or another name is utopian water. Do a tag search here. I have posted videos on the topic

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Yes these are the typical small replacement filters about 2 inch in diameter and 10 inch long.
I use a sediment filter as a pre-filter for the water softener and then that water is what is used for the majority of the house. My well water is quite hard and has a rotten egg smell, other then that it not too bad. The (cheep) sediment filter gets rid of small rocks, boulders and dead bugs and the water softener gets rid of the hardness and most of the smell.

Once I tried using a carbon filter in place of the sediment filter, it lasted about two weeks. Obviously a 40 lb filter will last longer but my gut feeling is the 5 year life that the salesman quoted is how shall we put it, a bit optimistic.
Also what is the cost of replacing this 40lb filter?

A typical filter can only remove solid material that is dispersed in the water it will not remove something that is dissolved in it like fluoride.

Thanks Arrowwind09, I looked at the system but want to learn more because the idea of no filter seems radical.

lPeople will pay a lot of money to soak in sulfur springs but they smell like egg. You could be filtering out some good stuff.

The replacement carbon is $250.00. I'm going to watch the install and see how it's done. It may be easy to exchange the media myself.

I know it won't remove everything and this has caused me to drag my feet on making a decision. It's time to take action and do something. Something is better than nothing.

I found these nice shower filters that I'm getting too. http://livesuperfoods.com/hydration/...held-wand.html