PUR Ultimate Water Filter: Why Bother?
Written: Feb 09 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It does remove some potentially harmful sediments.
Cons: Bulky, ugly, damages your faucet, limited benefit, expensive.
The Bottom Line: If you want to filter your water, go for the whole house water filter system.
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| shoehorny's Full Review: Pur Ultimate Faucet Mount Water Filter Fm4010l |
Review of PUR Ultimate Water Filter (February 8, 2005)
Every now and then we experience heavy rains for long periods of time in our area. Normally it does not cause a major problem, except for one rather disgusting side effect. On occasion, it turns our tap water brown! Yep. Turn on the faucet to get a drink of water and out pours brownish guck. Yuck! It reminds me of something out of a horror flick. Whenever this happens I call our town’s water utility to report it. Each time I get the same response: “The drinking water is not polluted. The excess water in the reservoir stirred up sediment. Allow the water to run for a while until it is clear and you may drink it.”
Well, we experienced some heavy rains once again several months ago and once again the brown water returned. Ugh! This time, I was not going to rely on the word of the water utility. I collected some of the water in a clean jar. I then brought the water sample to Sears for a free water analysis. (Sears offers this free service in the hopes that you will buy one of their water filtration systems. Here is the web site for details: http://www.kenmorewater.com/water-facts-and-testing/water-testing/test-my-water.html). Sure enough, the city water department had their facts straight according to Sears and the water was deemed acceptable (although Sears’ test only tests for water hardness, acidity, and iron content and not bacteria).
Nevertheless, my wife sensed my frustration with the water quality and went out to WalMart and purchased a PUR Ultimate Water Filter and installed it herself. When I got home I asked her where that thing came from? I told her: “I thought I threw that thing out a couple of years ago?” She proudly replied: “I don’t want to take any chances. I installed it myself.” We now own and use this filter in our home (Dawn).
I can never get mad or upset with my beautiful wife. If it makes her happy, it does not bother me as much. We had one of these PUR water filters years ago due to scares about pollutants in the water caused by past hurricanes. The thing worked for a while but got to be annoying. If she was going to insist on having one of these things on the kitchen sink, I was going to put this thing to the test and write another Epinions review. Especially taking advantage of enlisting free water tests from Sears!
The style has not changed much over the years. It looks exactly the same as the old one we once had. I first removed it from the sink to look it over. While the device was off, I examined it. It seemed to be identical to the old unit we had in every detail. They still make the mounting coupling out of plastic, something I would have thought they might have improved upon over the years.
The system attaches to most standard kitchen faucets using a plastic coupling. It has a rubber washer in place to prevent leaking. On past models, the coupling cracked and eventually leaked along the sides. Also in the past, the coupling would loosen due to the weight of the unit and movement of the spicket – something I kept a watchful eye on for this newer unit. Surprisingly, after 5 months of use this unit has not leaked along the side nor has it loosened from the faucet.
The unit uses a hard carbon filter with some sort of mysterious element that is supposed to trap lead. One other test I pre-planned is that I would let my wife take full care of the unit – since she initially installed it. She had happily agreed to this. I wanted to see if she would follow the instructions and change the filter at the proper interval. After 5 months, the PUR filter is still on our kitchen sink and it still has the original filter in it. My wife has neglected to change the filter! This just makes me wonder how many other people who buy this product neglect to change the filter? Anyway, I collected a sample of “filtered” water from the 5 month old filter along with a separate sample of unfiltered water in glass jars and brought it to Sears for testing. I also asked my wife to change the filter (just to amuse myself!) which she cheerfully agreed to do. I took a sample of water using the new filter as well.
I love this Sears test! Of course, it is not a very scientific test, but it serves to partially confirm my suspicions. The results from Sears showed both samples of water using the old filter and unfiltered water to contain exactly the same amount of hardness, acidity, and iron. The water filtered through the new filter had the same hardness and acidity, but slightly less iron. So, the filter did not apparently do anything to change hardness or acidity, but did filter some of the iron out.
In reviewing the instructions for the replacement filter it claims that the filter does not do anything to hardness or acidity, so no problem there. It also claims that it filters out a bunch of minerals and stuff. Here is a list: MTBE, TTHM, Alaclor, Atrazine, Benzene, Carbofuran, Carbon Tetrachloride, Chlordane, Endrin, Ethylbenzene, Heptachlor, Lindane, Methoxyclor, Monochlorobenzene, O-Dicholorobenzene, Simazine, Styrene, Tetrocloroethene, Toluene, Toxaphene, Trichloroethene, 2,4-D, 2,4,5-TP, Abestos, Cycts, Turbidity. Wow! I gave the Engineer at our town’s water works a good laugh when I asked him about these chemicals. He explained that some of these are insecticides or by-products of chemicals used by farmers. Other of these chemicals is rarely found in water supplies anyway. The water utility already filters most of these chemicals out of the water. Some of the chemicals are additives used to kill bacteria in the water and are harmless. I had asked him several years ago if he recommended home filtering systems, such as this PUR filter, and he told me no. Once again he confirmed it is unnecessary, unless you want to remove micro particles of sediment that may come from the piping system.
As far as bacteria and water born viruses are concerned, this unit does not claim to protect against them. It states in the instructions: “Do not use these products with water that is microbiologically unsafe or of unknown quality without adequate disinfection before or after the system.” So, it would not have helped us against hurricane bacteria after all. One other side note, the Ultimate filter cartridge removes a lot more minerals than the PUR Plus model (which we had previously).
Regarding using this product, it is installed on our kitchen faucet. Most of the time, the filter is set in the “pass-through” setting to allow the water to come out full blast. When in the filter setting, the water pressure is greatly diminished and it takes a while to fill a glass of water. When my wife is getting a glass of water, she will usually switch the PUR water filter on. However, I noticed that while she cooks, she seldom uses the filter. Once she was making a pot of coffee for me and I noticed she did not filter the water.
As with the past PUR water filter we had, I find this unit to be annoying. It is big, bulky, and obtrusive. It is easy to flip the unit from filter mode to pass through – you simply rotate the filter perpendicular to the faucet. Although this filter has not leaked (yet), I noticed that the faucet is a bit loose on the sink. This could be due to the weight of the unit.
Changing the filter is rather easy to do. Simply unscrew the filter chamber cover, pull the old filter out, and put a new one in and twist the cover back on. It only takes a minute or so to do and it is not a messy process and it does not require any tools. After changing a filter, the instructions recommend running the water for a few minutes to clear out the filter. The filter system has a window on it with a red marker. As the filter goes bad, the red marker moves to the right. When it has moved to the far right, it is time to change the filter. According to the instructions, the filter should be changed within 2-3 months under normal usage. This time may vary if you do not allow water to pass through the filter or if your water has varying amounts of trappable particles.
Although I consider this unit to still be rather expensive at $35 at WalMart, it has come down in price considerably over the years. The filter cartridges are also rather expensive at $12, despite the company’s claim that you will save money over buying bottled water in the long run. Furthermore, the unit should only be used with cold water. Running hot water through the filter will prematurely destroy the filter and render it useless. So, you must exert more discipline.
Weighing all the results of my testing and experience with this filter, and my knowledge from having used a similar product in the past, I would not recommend buying this product. The number one reason is it looks like a glob at the end of the faucet and it is often in the way. It also takes forever to fill a glass of filtered water. Furthermore, for my situation, it does not appear to be necessary based on the recommendation of out water utility Engineer. Of course, if I lived in another area that did not have a water utility cleansing the water, I would want a water filter system. But then I would most likely go for a whole house system. Thank you for reading my review and best wishes for a nice day!
Mike
Recommended:
No
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shoehorny
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