apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

While I hate using them, my mother has insisted that I use Brita filters, since I only drink tap water (forget the bottled stuff-- it has less strict regulations than tap !). It hasn't been too bad-- I have a constant, ready supply of clean water to fill my Sigg with, but my only gripe is that the filter is made to only last about 2 months. I wish they'd either extend the life of the filter (much like the product you're talking about), or have some sort of exchange or send back program, because it can't be that difficult for them to swap out the carbon filter and keep the original plastic intact... even sanitizing it would take less energy than recycling it. Ugh ! Perhaps its time to write some letters to Brita...

ah, you forgot the other really expensive but fantastic filter: Doulton. I'd never heard of it but they were selling them at my food coop just as we were looking for a water filtration system. The water is super clean and- get this- you can clean the filter. Since it's ceramic, you just pull it out every few months and wipe the grime off.

I think you're supposed to replace it sometimes too. WE just have't gotten that far... :)

We drink tap too, and we do filter it, even though we know, as lostinprojection mentioned that it's far better than bottled either way, I still like the reassurance. Our filter's last around two months, while wasteful, I always factor in that it's miles better than how many water bottles I would have stacked up in the mean time.

I agree, refills sometimes end up costing more than buying a whole new product. Razor blades are like this. In my experience Refill packs of blades cost almost as much and sometimes more than buying a brand new razor "starter" pack with the same amount of refill razors inside! When I was younger, and not thinking of green, my mother alerted me to this and told me to makes sure I always get the brand new razor then if I am going to be paying the same price away.

I live in a coop. In order to install this type of filter I would first have to go to the Board for approval, shop for a qualifing plumber to install the dedicated line for the filter and pay for the filter. Sorry. I am not going to put the money out for that. I do use the Brita filter attached to the faucet and while it may not be wonderful design in terms of the enviroment, but given all of the particulate matter I see on the screen of the faucet, I think the Brita is a better bet for my health. To have a healthy enviroment or a heathy me...I win on that one.

I refuse to buy Brita because this commercial got me pretty cheesed, for the reasons stated here. I don't use any filter because we have awesome tap water in the east bay area, but if I did it wouldn't be Brita.

Dancingspring, I hate that ad as well!

What a blatant play on people's fear of drinking water!

So what if your toilet water comes from the same source!

Actually, all water comes from the same source- the earth!

My brother yacked about the glories of his RO system for years before getting my household one for Chritsmas.

Best gift EVER. Endless supply for our Kleen Kanteens and no more trips to Sears for the fridge filters @ $35/pop.

I use matrixx filters in my over-the-counter filtration system. It was easy to install (attaches to end of faucet) and even with my small counter it fits nicely. I use 2 filters - one for metals/chlorine and the other for flouride since my city adds flouride to the water. They last about 6 months and I can tell it's time to change them because the filter itself becomes a rusty color after accumulating so much gunk in it.

A canister filter is much better, whether on top of the counter or under depending on your needs. There are many reputable brands out and they're not hard to install yourself at all, I did. Unfortunate to say pitcher filters are nowhere near as good as a under or over the counter canister filter. The main reason is that the water needs to have more contact with a larger surface area of filtration in order to remove heavy metals such as lead, mercury, aluminum, iron, barium, cadmium, chromium. Along with neutralizing the chlorine and removing bad taste and odors, many pesticides, Trihalomethanes THMs and MTBE are removed through the canister filtration.

Since home water filtration is quickly becoming a craze care should be taken in choosing the right unit. California is the *only* states that has standards and regulations on it's water. So many manufacturers get certification from California. You should also ensure that the filter is labeled as meeting NSF/ANSI standard 53.

Also, be careful of high profile companies running major ad campaigns. A few years back Brita got slapped for lying about the claims they were making about their product. Some of these high profile companies conveniently exclude vital information.

There is also the option of getting your water tested (many tests are cheap) and then hopefully not having to filter the water at all. That's what we did.

I filter for the taste. I'm just not a big fan of the metallic taste of some tap water. I was never concerned about the cleanliness of it, and prefer to have the flouride in my water...better for the teeth.

When I looked into this issue years ago, I concluded that Aquasana is best for the water issues that are possible in the city (I'm in NYC), while Multi-pure was best for the country.

At the time, I read a ton of official documents from the water department (there are more contamination incidents than you think, but they're usually temporary and relatively contained) and filter brands. I forget the exact set of city micro-organisms or toxins that made the case for each filter system, so if someone out there who has done the research more recently, let me know what it is! Anyway, I went for the Aquasana.