Home Water Filters Reviewed - Shootout Between The Top Filters
Do you drink tap water or do you drink bottled water? Most people in America drink bottled water - they find that it just tastes better. There is no chlorine smell, and there is no sediment. But bottled water isn't exactly cheap, is it? What if you could make your tap water taste as good as bottled water? Would you switch over?
While not everyone is willing to switch (after all, bottled water is very convenient), many would ... especially if it would also save them money. The solution is simple - use home water filters. There are actually 8 major companies which make home water filtration systems (for the US market):
- PUR
- Brita
- Culligan
- ZeroWater
- Everpure
- General Electric
- Maytag
- Whirlpool
Out of the eight water filter manufacturers above, PUR and Brita are the largest. They make portable water filter jugs, home water filters, and refrigerator water filters (they even make replacement water filter cartridges for selected refrigerators from General Electric, Maytag and Whirlpool).
1. Home Water Filters
When we hear about home water filter systems, two different types of water purifiers come to mind - those units that are mounted over the faucet and those that are mounted under the kitchen sink. The main advantages of home drinking water filters mounted under the sink are that they can be bigger, thus lasting longer and work more effectively (i.e. they produce purer drinking water). The disadvantage is that it can be much harder to replace their water filter cartridges.
Four different manufacturers make drinking water purifiers for this market. They are:
- PUR
- Brita
- Culligan
- Everpure
The best seems to be Everpure. Their many happy customers agree that drinking tap water filtered by their Everpure H-300 is just like drinking high-quality bottled water. Unfortunately, this home water filter has a few little problems:
- Frequent replacement of the water filter cartridge is required because there is no sediment pre-filter
- Apart from the flagship Everpure H-300 home water filter, there don't seem to be any other active products
- New water filter cartridges may not fit older models of the H-300
- It can only be mounted under the kitchen sink, which makes replacing the water filter cartridge difficult
Culligan is a newcomer to the market, unlike the relatively well-established Everpure, PUR and Brita. However, they have quickly gained a reputation for making cheap but effective faucet-mounted home water filters. Their most popular filters cost under $50, compared to the other three which are usually sold at prices ranging from $200 to $500.
Considering their low price, one would think that the Culligan faucet water filter would be a flimsy device. This is not the case. Their drinking water filters are actually a great deal more robust and solid than the new PUR and Brita water filters.
While there is definitely an improvement in taste, customers who have used both Brita and Culligan drinking water filters say that their tap water still can't compare to bottled drinking water.
For this category of drinking water filtration systems, the choice seems to be Everpure for the best quality purification of drinking water, and Culligan for an unbeatable combination of price and effectiveness.
2. Water Filter Pitchers/Jugs
Nothing beats a proper home water filter. However, PUR and Brita water filter jugs do come in useful under certain situations:
- Office workers who do not want to drink soft drinks or bottled water
- Travelers/Campers who do not have access to clean drinking water
- Poor students (and others) who can't afford to install a real drinking water filtration system
PUR makes better water filter pitchers. However, Brita makes cheaper water filter pitchers (based on list prices). Which one produces better tasting drinking water seems to depend on the person being asked ... although PUR seems to have somewhat more fans. It cannot be denied, though, that the top-of-the-line PUR water filter cartridges remove 11 different contaminants including lead and cysts. But most PUR customers buy only their normal range of water filters which is comparable to Brita in quality.
A third company that is making its name in this category of home water filters is ZeroWater. The filtered drinking water is even better-tasting than PUR's best. If only their drinking water filter jugs did not suffer from some serious problems:
- Too expensive - much more expensive than even the best PUR models
- The purification of drinking water is too slow
- Their workmanship is very poor
- Their water filter cartridges need very frequent replacement - as often as two weeks when the tap water is very dirty
So which of these three should you buy? PUR is probably the best choice. Whenever possible, wait for a special offer and buy their top-end water filter cartridges rather than their normal water filter cartridges. If you own their older water filter pitchers, take good care of them. Their new pitchers (Brita's as well) suffer from lower quality control.
3. Fridge Water Filters
Many high-end refrigerators now come with internal filtered water dispensers. The three most easily recognized brands are General Electric, Maytag and Whirlpool. All three companies make their own water filter cartridges, although they also outsource OEM cartridges to PUR or Brita for selected refrigerator models. On the whole, the OEM cartridges are cheaper although the quality seems to be equally high.
The lack of alternate choices in this category means that no meaningful comparison can be made.
In Conclusion
We have looked at the eight most popular home water filters in the market and compared them. All of these home water filtration systems use activated carbon. Some of them also integrate ion exchange units to remove heavy metals like lead. Specialized drinking water filtration systems (reverse osmosis home water filters and whole house water filters) were not covered.
Bottled drinking water is both expensive and bad for the environment. Using a home water filter can make drinking tap water a pleasure, as well as being cheap. Wherever and whenever possible, you should drink purified tap water.