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Free delivery to homes and businesses throughout greater sydney & southern highlands. Learn more
Free delivery to homes and businesses throughout greater sydney & southern highlands. Learn more
Thinking about cancelling your spring water delivery and putting in a filter instead? Before you do, one question is worth asking: what does that filter actually take out?
It isn't a trick question, and the answer isn't always printed on the box. Plenty of people assume "filtered" and "PFAS-free" describe the same thing. They don't. Both options have their place, and NovoH2o supplies both, so we've got no barrow to push either way. But they start in different places and they're proven in different ways, and the difference is worth ten minutes of your time.
PFAS are man-made chemicals used to make things resist heat, grease, stains and water: non-stick pans, waterproof jackets, some firefighting foams. They're often called "forever chemicals" because they break down very slowly.
You can't see them, taste them or smell them. The only way to know either way is to send a sample to a lab, which is exactly what we do.
So when we say our spring water is PFAS-free, we mean it has been independently tested with no PFAS found, down to the smallest amount the lab can measure. That's a document we can email you, and we're always happy to. Any supplier making the same claim should be able to do the same.
In June 2025 the National Health and Medical Research Council updated the PFAS limits in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. For PFOS, one of the most closely watched of these chemicals, the limit dropped from 70 nanograms per litre to 8. These are tiny amounts, measured in parts per trillion, which tells you something about how carefully the issue is being looked at.
The reassuring part: the NSW Government has confirmed that every public drinking water supply in the state meets the new limits, including Sydney Water and all 83 regional water utilities. Sydney Water publishes its results online plant by plant, which is worth a look if you're curious about your own suburb. Sydney tap water is safe to drink, and we've never suggested otherwise.
What's changed is how closely everyone is watching. Testing across the Sydney catchment continues, and the NSW Government released a further investigation update for the Upper Blue Mountains catchment in March 2026. That scrutiny is a good thing. It's also why our customers ask sharper questions now than they did a few years ago, and the sharpest one is about where their water begins.
This is the bit most comparisons skip. The two aren't versions of the same product. They're two separate supply chains.
Spring water starts underground at a source, arrives already carrying natural minerals, and is tested as a finished product. What the lab report describes is the water you drink.
Home filtration starts with treated town water arriving through your mains. What comes out the tap depends on the system installed, the cartridge inside it, and whether that cartridge is changed on schedule.
Neither wins on principle. But notice where the promise sits in each case. With spring water, the test result belongs to the water itself. With filtration, it belongs to the equipment, so what that equipment has been proven to do becomes the whole ball game.
If you've shopped for filters, you've seen micron ratings. A micron rating is a sieve measurement, describing the size of physical bits a filter can strain out: sediment, rust, grit. Useful information, just for a different job.
PFAS aren't bits. They're dissolved, mixed all the way through the water like sugar in tea. A finer sieve won't catch sugar, and it won't catch PFAS either.
Reducing PFAS takes a different mechanism altogether: a specialised carbon that the chemicals cling to as water passes through, or a membrane fine enough to hold them back. A "0.5 micron" figure on the packaging is telling you something real. It just isn't telling you about PFAS.
Every filter plumbed into an Australian home carries the WaterMark logo, and it's easy to read that as proof the thing cleans your water.
WaterMark is doing a different job. It confirms the product is soundly built, that its materials are safe in contact with drinking water, and that it's fit to install. A plumbing tick rather than a purity tick. Both matter, they just answer different questions.
Performance has its own answer. Australia's standard for drinking water treatment systems was updated in 2021 so that performance claims now rest on independent testing, usually under the NSF standards you'll sometimes see quoted on a spec sheet. Which brings us to the only question you really need.
Weighing up a move from spring water to filtration? Lead with this:
Has this exact model been independently certified to reduce PFAS, and can you show me?
Then three quick follow-ups:
Which PFAS? Some systems are certified for one or two of these chemicals, others for a whole group. Worth knowing which you're getting.
For how long? Certified performance runs to a set number of litres. Past that, the cartridge has to be replaced for the claim to hold.
Who changes the cartridge, and when? An overdue cartridge is the most common reason a good system quietly stops performing.
Any supplier worth buying from will have all three answers ready.
Which raises the fair question: what does our claim attach to?
One spring, in the Peats Ridge area north of Sydney. Rain soaks down through sandstone bedrock and takes its time getting to the bottom, picking up minerals and trace elements from the rock along the way. Nature does the filtering, slowly, over a very long period.
From there we keep it simple. The water is filtered at the source to remove sand and sediment, carried in food-grade stainless steel tankers to our Homebush facility, filtered once more, then bottled and capped. No additives. No preservatives. Nothing added to change the taste, because the taste is the point.
Plenty of suppliers blend water from several sources. We don't, and that matters more than it sounds. A single source keeps the mineral profile consistent, and it means our test results describe the exact water going into your bottle rather than an average of a few. The bottles are BPA-free and recyclable, our 15L bottles run on a closed-loop return system, we're carbon neutral certified, and delivery across Greater Sydney and the Southern Highlands is free.
We're genuinely not anti-filter. NovoH2o supplies benchtop, under bench and freestanding filtration systems in classic and contemporary styles, and you can hire one or buy it outright. Hire starts at $54.50 a month with installation, six-monthly servicing and annual cartridge changes included. Prefer to own it? We'll install it and keep looking after the servicing.
Filtration suits high-volume sites, tight kitchens, and anyone who wants water on tap with no bottles to lift. Spring water suits people who want a known single source, natural minerals, that crisp clean taste, and a PFAS-free test result they can read for themselves.
Plenty of our customers land on both: a filter at the kitchen sink, spring water for drinking and for the office cooler. That's a conversation rather than a sales pitch, and it's one we have most weeks.
Both options can give you excellent water. They just answer to different things: one to a source, one to a service schedule. Knowing which you're relying on is the whole point of this article.
So if you're mid-decision, two things are worth doing this week. Look up your filter's model number and check what it's actually certified to reduce. Then ask your water supplier for their most recent independent test results. Neither takes long, and both tell you more than any label will.
Water is something you drink every single day. Knowing what's in it should be part of the deal.
Want a hand working it out? Call the NovoH2o team on 02 8311 5946 or get in touch online. We'll talk you through our source, our latest test results, and whether spring water, filtration, or a bit of both suits you best. Free delivery across Greater Sydney and the Southern Highlands, no lock-in contracts, and 450+ five-star reviews from people who started with the same questions you're asking now.
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