Under-sink water filter installation in Belfast
Getting an under-sink drinking water filter fitted in Belfast — what it costs, whether you could do it yourself, and where the job stops being DIY.
Soft
NI Water
Water in Belfast
- Belfast is supplied by NI Water with generally soft water, much of it drawn from Lough Neagh and upland reservoirs in the Mourne Mountains.
- Northern Ireland has its own water regulations and its own regulator, and domestic water charges work differently from Great Britain — households are not separately metered and billed in the same way.
- Soft water means softeners are rarely appropriate, and demand is concentrated on drinking water filtration.
- The Silent Valley Reservoir in the Mournes has supplied Belfast since the 1930s and remains a major source.
- Installer accreditation routes differ from those in England and Wales, so the WaterSafe and WIAPS schemes do not map across identically.
You have soft water — there is no limescale problem to fix.
A water softener would be money spent on a problem you do not have, and anyone trying to sell you one here is worth questioning. If you want to improve your water it will be about taste, chlorine or older pipework, not hardness. Soft water is also slightly more inclined to dissolve metals from old plumbing, which is a different reason to filter drinking water.
Who supplies Belfast
Water company boundaries do not follow council boundaries. Check your postcode for the supplier at your address.