For nearly nine years, one company has been serving Polk County with the latest and greatest water filtration products the market has to offer. A national company with opportunities for local growth, Kinetico has a firm foundation in knowledge, ethics and customer service.

In 1970, two engineers had an idea to develop a non-electric fully automatic water treatment system. Bill Prior and Jim Kewley’s ideas began to take shape quickly before their eyes, leading to an international company, servicing residential, commercial, industrial and municipal companies all over the world.

Tim Babich is the owner of Polk County’s branch of Kinetico. He brought the company to Winter Haven after seeing an open opportunity for introducing quality water to the area, with a strong desire to provide the people here with high-quality drinking water to fuel their busy lives.

“We really don’t have a target customer,” Babich commented. “Everyone uses water! If you get right down to it, you could call it a housewife’s power tool, because she’s normally the one who does the dishes and the laundry. It’s obviously very helpful for her. But it’s really for anyone.”

The benefits of a Kinetico Water Treatment System are astounding:

• Twin non-electric tanks, cutting back in a major way on service appointments and/or any kind of maintenance

• Able to clean themselves economically, again, cutting back on service appointments and maintenance

• No frustrations with regard to timer motors or circuit switches, cutting replacement costs to nothing

These qualities are what set Kinetico apart in the world of water purity. This is as top-of-the-line as a person can get for a product that is being placed outdoors in Florida. So for an outside product, how does it hold up to Florida’s harsh weather? “We did a few repairs last year due to the hurricanes...as far as trees falling on units, so I guess we did do some replacement services because of the hurricanes. As far as winds, rain and humidity, those issues have no affect on any of our products,” said Babich.

The Winter Haven location of Kinetico keeps a steady inventory and business all year long. Servicing all of Polk County, the five employees run several hundred miles per day doing mainly installations, and very little maintenance.

“It’s really a family-type atmosphere,” said Babich. “We’re not really out to be the biggest. We would like to be the best...but we’re more of a smaller independent company, not looking to be a giant.”

Babich is obviously a believer in the products he sells. “We really have a unique product that no one else can claim. We offer a 10-year warranty on everything. No one else can do that, because similar products on the market have warranty exclusions on their electrical equipment. We’ve taken all the guesswork out of our warranty, and we can do that because our product is not electric. There’s no fine print. We’ve replaced these products after 18 years of service...that’s pretty impressive, and that’s why people buy them. They work. They’ve been proven.”

The company is constantly changing and improving its product base in order to be of better value to their customers.

One of the newer products available is the Kinetico 2” commercial valve, Hydrus. Featuring a non-corrosive body, hydraulic operation, leadfree equipment, counter-current regeneration and boasting freedom from motors, limit-switches and cams, weighing only 15 pounds, any consumer wins when selecting this new creation.

Despite all the recent changes in the company, Kinetico’s global and local goals remain the same: providing a proven product with high-rating customer service and installation advice that can be trusted. In a world where so many consumers lose trust in the companies they offer their valuable business to, it’s goodto know this company still has the consumer’s best interests at heart.

Kinetico Quality Water of Polk County is located at 3006 Hwy 17 North. Their phone number is 43-WATER (439-2837), and business hours are Monday through Friday from 8a.m. to 4:30p.m