Submitted by pretendtotime t3_117y57g in BuyItForLife
Hi r/BuyItForLife,
I'm in an area with awful tap water. Specifically, water with dangerous levels of arsenic, among other things. I'd love to get an undersink water filter, but I live in an apartment that doesn't allow them. So I'm sort of left looking at water filter pitchers. I tried Brita's brand but was a bit disappointed in the quality of the filter...anyone have success with other brands? Thanks!
This is just what I was going to say, including the YT video.
Thank you for recommending this. I bought a pitcher from them and wow, what a difference.
glad I could help
Get an under the sink filter and don’t tell your land lord. If they protest it, sue them for arsenic exposure.
Even if I didn’t tell them, they blocked off access to the cold water line- can’t get to it without a special tool only maintenance has. They did the same with the toilets because they didn’t want folks installing bidet attachments.
That special tool can probably be bought for pennies on Amazon.
Alexapure pro. Filters more contaminates than berky
I also use an alexapure. But the filters are near impossible to find for me, and the cost of buying a new pitcher is like $2 cheaper
Berkey filter! Big metal drum thing, they’ve got all kinds of sizes. Used it for camp Lejeune water and I don’t have AIDS, 10/10 system
y0re use of hyperbole is great, barvo!
I'm going to say some words you don't want to hear. You are gonna call me a fucker and wish me dead, but this is the truth as we've discussed this topic here 93,485 times and I've been down the rabbit hole.
We, as common humans, have no metric of comparison for water filtration that is worth a damn, so pick the one that matches your budget.
And if someone has data to show I'm wrong, this is your chance to prove someone wrong on the internet. Please prove me wrong! Make me cry and wish I was never born.
Can you explain what you mean? I'm not sure I understand. I'm asking this in good faith.
Most things in life a comparison metric we can rely on. On a near equal footing, if you wanted an air filter, we have metrics for those so one might compare functionality. HEPA is the gold standard and its also known as PM 2.5. Want something better? There are PM 1 filters which remove even more from the air. And I'm sure there's something in-between or maybe even better than PM 1.
There is nothing like the above with water filters. There is no standard. You can buy a water filter at Dollar General, one from Brita at Walmart or an under sink system from your cousin Terry who is hawking the latest Multi Level Marketing water purifier and you have no way of knowing which is doing a better job. Why? There's no rating system like air cleaners. Air cleaners are rated on Particulate Matter (PM) containment. Water cleaners are based on nothing.
Now here is where, again, I'm going to say: If what I have said is wrong, please someone prove me wrong. I'm hoping someone comes off the top rope and puts me in my place with a knowledge drop.
Has no one (I'm thinking Consumer Reports or something like that) done a independent study comparing different filters? Do the better quality filters not publish any data to demonstrate their effectiveness? I gotta get into the water purifier business.
The industry standard tests are ANSI standards 42, 53, and 401. 42 addresses contaminants that aren't health related (chlorine, particulates, etc), 53 addresses contaminants that affect health (lead, VOCs, asbestos, etc), and 401 addresses "emerging compounds" which are things like prescription drugs, pesticides, and other incidental things whose effects are still being discovered.
Most good filters will be certified for several of the more common contaminants from these standards, Brita Elite and Longlast+ filters are certified for 13 of the contaminants in Standard 53. You can find this on Brita's performance data sheet, and Pur has similar info available
The difficulty is because there are so many different contaminants that testing and certification becomes really expensive and convoluted. Just because a filter has an NSF certification doesn't mean that it's certified to filter the specific contaminant you're looking for.
Then you get into sketchy stuff like Berkey and other rando filters where getting certified for all the containments they claim would cost over a million dollars, so there isn't really a way to verify their performance figures except running an independent test for hundreds of chemicals.
I haven't seen any data is the problem. I hope someone has data that we consumers can use.
The best thing we have right now is ANSI standards 42, 53, and 401, NSF will issue certifications for individual contaminants listed in these standards. The issue is there are so many things to filter out of water that it's extremely expensive to test for all of them, so most companies pick several that are common and certify for those. If you know what you need to filter then you can look for filters that are certified for that thing, but if it's something uncommon then you might not find anyone who's tested for it
We have a pur to filter out the obscene amount of chlorine in our water. It works for that purpose, we bought the heavy duty lead filters. Our tap water is undrinkable, makes me gag.
AquaTru
I did some research and unfortunately no one's really certified their filters for arsenic, but I would go with Pur Plus filters.
Pur Plus and Zerowater seem to outperform Brita with heavy metals, although Lead and Mercury are really the only contaminants that overlap between the three. Zerowater isn't certified for as many heavy metals as Pur, although they say they've tested for arsenic reduction and achieved >99% filtration.
It's also good to know that Pur's faucet mounted filters are certified for a lot more contaminants than their pitcher filters
We have had very good luck with these: Berkey filters. You have to replace the filters periodically. In our case it was about a decade. Everything else is good to go. You can take it with you when you move, too. Good luck!
I’m sorry to report that Berkey is pretty much a complete sham and they refuse to submit to any legitimate standards testing to prove their filtration claims. Unfortunately you’re paying for branding.
Yeah, Wirecutter had some tests run and found that they outperformed other filters in lead reduction but they weren't able to support any of Berkey's other claims.
It's just such a strange red flag how Berkey is like "we outperform all the NSF and ANSI tests for water filtration" but won't actually get a certification that verifies it.
Seconded on the berkey. We replace our filters more frequently but it’s still economical once you get over the initial sticker shock. The taste difference is so noticeable that guests comment on it and I don’t like drinking water not from the berkey
feedmefoodorhugs t1_j9fl3b9 wrote
zero water filters
there's a YouTube video from Project Farm that demonstrates how effective they are compared to competitors