My kids drink a lot of water, which is good for them, but you can never be really sure how safe your tap water is. Here in Oklahoma, we get our water from a man-made lake and although there have never been any problems with the safety of our drinking water, the lake does turn over at least once a year. When the lake turns over it causes the water to smell and sometimes the water gets cloudy, they say it's still safe to drink because it goes through the filtration system for our water, but it sure doesn't look or smell like water you would want to drink when this happens. We broke down and purchased the BRITA Classic Pitcher and we haven't looked back since.

The BRITA Classic Pitcher comes in four parts that are very easy to put together. First you have have prepare the filter. You will need to soak the filter in cold water for 15 minutes to prepare it, while the filter is soaking, you need to wash the picture, lid and reservoir by hand. Unfortunately you have to wash this by hand, it is not recommended to wash any of the parts in the dishwasher, but they are easy to clean.

Once clean, you put the reservoir in the pitcher and slide the filter into it's slot. There is only one way to correctly install the filter and if you try and put it in the wrong way, it will not go all the way down, so it's easy to tell when it's installed correctly. You then fill the reservoir with tap water and it will slowly start to filter the water into the pitcher, this takes only a few minutes. Keep doing this until the pitcher is full and then dump this water out, or use it for your house plants. The reason they say this is because you may have some carbon dust, making the water a little cloudy when the filter is first used. Go through the filling process again and the water is ready to drink. You may see some carbon particles float up into the reservoir, this is nothing to be concerned about, none of it can get into the pitcher itself.

They recommend that you replace your filter after about 40 gallons or every two months. They have a handy little calendar sticker for you to use if you need help remembering. I find that with the amount of water my kids drink, I don't count the gallons, that two months is pretty accurate for replacing the filter. We haven't had it during the summer months, when the lake turns over, but I'm sure the filter will probably have to be replaced sooner during that time, even though it only affects the water for a few days.

The results from the BRITA Classic Pitcher are great. Even my kids say the water taste better and will wait for the pitcher to be filled, if it's empty, instead of drinking the water straight from the tap now. The water does taste a lot better than from the tap and the water is crystal clear, you can look and look and you won't find anything floating in there, just crystal clear water. Even my 5 year old (6 in a week) will actually drink water every once in a while now, although he still prefers milk over anything.

Contaminants that the BRITA Classic Pitcher claims to reduce (their words) are : Lead, Mercury, Copper, Cadmium, Benzene, Toluene and Tetrachloroethylene. It also claims to reduce (again their words) Chlorine taste and odor.

Now, I don't know about all the contaminants it claims to reduce, but I do know it does reduce the smell of chlorine in the water and the water tastes good. They also recommend that you filter no more than 2 gallons of water daily to keep the filter working at maximum efficiency.

It's easy to clean, even though you can't put it in the dishwasher and it is very sturdy. It has been dropped on the floor a couple of times by the kids and although it spilled water everywhere, there was not a scratch or crack on it, so it even stands up to clumsy kids.

The bad side to the BRITA Classic Pitcher is that you have to replace the filters, at about $7 a piece when bought individually, you can buy larger packs of three or more and save money though. The other bad thing is the size, the pitcher is larger than an average filter and if you want to keep it in the fridge, you may have to make room for it.

My kids enjoy drinking water even more now that we use the BRITA Classic Pitcher. They only have a couple of problems with it. They are impatient, so even though it only takes a few minutes for the water to filter, they complain that it takes too long. The other problem is that they don't always wait until the water from the reservoir is completely filtered into the pitcher, when there is still water in the reservoir, you have to be very careful when pouring the water or the lid may come off and get water everywhere, again this has to do mostly with them being impatient. My problem with the whole thing, and it's not really with the pitcher itself, it's that the kids *forget* to fill the pitcher when they drain it and then I get complaints because there's no water.

I definitely recommend the BRITA Classic Pitcher to anyone looking for better drinking water or those of you that drink bottled water, it will save you tons of money over the bottled water and it tastes great.

© 2005 Kittyokc


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