Point-of-entry (whole-home) systems
Installed on the main line where water enters the house, so every fixture and appliance is fed treated water. The right place for sediment and chlorine-taste treatment that you want everywhere.
Water Softeners · Northern Virginia
Treat the right thing, in the right place, with the right certification.
Quick answer
Whole-home water filtration treats water where it enters the house, so every tap and appliance gets it; point-of-use filtration treats one fixture, usually the kitchen sink. LeMaster Plumber installs both across Northern Virginia. Which one is right depends on what you are actually trying to address — taste and chlorine, sediment, hardness, or a specific contaminant — and on what a system is certified to reduce, which is not the same as what its marketing implies.
Water treatment is the part of plumbing with the most marketing and the least straight talk. The useful version is boring: decide what you want to change about your water, check what the system is independently certified to do about it, and put it where it will actually help. We will not tell you your water is dangerous in order to sell you a system.
Installed on the main line where water enters the house, so every fixture and appliance is fed treated water. The right place for sediment and chlorine-taste treatment that you want everywhere.
Under-sink and dedicated-tap filtration for drinking and cooking water. Often the more sensible choice when the goal is drinking-water quality rather than whole-house protection.
Hardness is a mineral problem and filtration is not a substitute for softening. Where both matter, we set them up in the right order so each does its job.
Bypass valves, accessible cartridge changes, correct orientation and drain connections — the parts that decide whether the system is still being maintained in three years.
A filter past its service life is not neutral; it is a filter that has stopped doing what you bought it for. We tell you the interval and make changing it easy.
Being clear about the edges of a job is how you avoid a surprise halfway through it:
Taste, sediment, hardness or a specific contaminant are four different problems with four different answers. Guessing at this stage is what leads to systems that disappoint.
Your utility publishes an annual water quality report and monitoring data. That is a far better starting point than a free in-home “test” run by whoever is selling the system.
If the goal is reducing a named contaminant, the system has to be certified to reduce that contaminant. We work from the certification, not the brochure.
Point-of-entry for whole-house needs, point-of-use for drinking water. Sometimes both; often only one is warranted.
We leave you with the cartridge specification, the interval, and an installation you can actually service.
Why LeMaster Plumber
You approve the price before we start — no surprises and no pressure. You’ll always know the cost before any work begins.
Every job is backed by proper training, the right permits, and a workmanship guarantee.
We show up on time, protect your space, and leave the job cleaner than we found it.
We quote every job upfront and you approve the price before any work begins. What we cannot do honestly is put a number on this page without seeing your situation — so here is what actually moves it:
A whole-home system on the main line is a different scale of job from an under-sink installation.
Sediment and taste-and-odour treatment, softening, and certified reduction of a specific contaminant use different media and different equipment.
How accessible the main line is, and whether the space allows a serviceable installation with a bypass, drives the labour.
Some systems need a drain connection or power; providing them where they do not exist adds work.
The purchase price is not the lifetime cost. We are upfront about the service interval before you buy.
On what is in the water locally: Fairfax Water publishes its PFAS monitoring data and an annual water quality report, and states that finished water from its Potomac River sources consistently shows PFAS levels below the EPA’s maximum contaminant level of 4.0 parts per trillion, often at non-detectable levels, while some samples from its Occoquan Reservoir source have slightly exceeded the MCL for PFOA and PFOS, with all other regulated PFAS within limits (Fairfax Water, Facts About PFAS). The EPA finalised drinking-water regulations for six PFAS in April 2024, with a compliance date of 2029, and Fairfax Water states it is committed to meeting them.
Fairfax Water’s own advice to customers who want to reduce exposure is direct: use only filters certified to reduce PFAS, and maintain them as recommended. That is the standard we work to. We do not claim a system reduces a contaminant unless its certification says so for that contaminant, and we will point you to the certification rather than ask you to take our word for it.
Further reading from the agencies themselves: EPA on PFAS and the Virginia Department of Health on PFAS in drinking water.
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Or call (703) 832-9090 — we answer 24/7.
We cover all of Fairfax County — Fairfax, Centreville, Chantilly, Vienna, Reston, Herndon, Burke, Springfield, McLean, Annandale and every community in between — plus Ashburn, Sterling and South Riding in Loudoun, and neighboring Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church and Manassas.
It depends what you are solving. If the goal is better drinking and cooking water, a point-of-use system at the kitchen sink is usually the more proportionate answer. Whole-home treatment makes sense when the issue affects every fixture and appliance — sediment, chlorine taste throughout the house, or hardness that is scaling your water heater.
Only if it is certified to. Fairfax Water’s guidance to customers is to use only filters certified to reduce PFAS and to maintain them as recommended. Certification is specific to the contaminant, so a filter certified for chlorine taste and odour tells you nothing about PFAS. We match the certification to the claim and will show you the documentation.
No. Softening addresses hardness — the dissolved calcium and magnesium that leave scale on fixtures and inside your water heater. Filtration addresses particles, taste and odour, or specific contaminants. Much of Northern Virginia has moderately hard water, so plenty of homes want both, and they do different jobs.
It holds it. As Fairfax Water puts it, treatment systems can capture PFAS in filters but do not destroy the chemicals, and those filters have to be disposed of properly. That is one practical reason cartridge changes matter and one reason the utility describes stopping such contaminants at their source as the more effective answer.
It varies by system and by how much water the household uses, and the manufacturer sets the interval. What matters is that it happens — a cartridge left in past its service life has stopped delivering what you installed it for. We give you the specification and the interval in writing.
Start with the source data. Your utility publishes an annual water quality report and, in Fairfax Water’s case, its PFAS monitoring results. That is free, independent of anyone selling you equipment, and usually answers the question. A free in-home test offered by a company that sells softeners is not the same thing.
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