Aquasana AQ-4000 Drinking Water System

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I''ve been using the Aquasana 4000 countertop filter for about 5 months. Prior to my purchase I spent alot of money on bottled water. I would typically spend about 3-5 dollars a week on water at the supermarket and while on the go. I decided that buying a filtration system would be more convienent and cheaper for me. Now about the system itself.

Pro''s

+Convienent. You can get clean water whenever you want.

+Tastes better then tap water.

+Better filtration system compared to other brands.

+Installation not too difficult.

+Saves money after intial investment.

+Replacement filts reasonably priced and easy to find (Amazon has them).

Con''s

-Intial investment is costly compared to cheaper systems.

-Requires water pressure to be low.

-Slow output, because of low water pressure takes several minutes to fill items from the faucet.

-Cannot be used with hot/warm water.

-The switch from tap to the filter system will sometimes activate by itself (explained in detail down further).

-Will begin leaking if too much water pressure is used.

Skip to the summary if you don''t care to read my personal comments.

Some things I experienced.

1. I had trouble installing the product even though its not hard to do. I attribute most of that to user error, the instructions were fairly straightfoward though I kept thinking that the system didn''t seem correctly installed. The company has a video on their website of how to install the system. I had trouble tightening the filter ring onto my faucet, perhaps becuase I was using a cheap wrench. Hopefully most people will do better then I did.

2. I have a high water pressure faucet, so I had to learn early to be very careful with how much water pressure I allowed to be used. I have to be very careful when I''m going to switch to the filter. If I allow too much water pressure to be used I end up making the system overflow and leak on the countertop. I got used to this after a couple of weeks and haven''t had any incidents since.

3. Because of the low pressure of the system it takes a very long time to fill anything up. I have issues standing there and letting a class of water fill, as it takes around a minute. Instead I prefer to fill 1 gallon jugs. I let the jugs fill unattended over a few minutes and then return when they are full to turn off the water. So if your like me and don''t have all day to stand and let things fill all the time you''ll do like I did and buy several jugs or bottles that you can fill in your sink. I bought 3 1 gallon bottles, and two smaller sport bottles. I typically wait till all the 1 gallon bottles are empty before taking the time to fill them. Whenever I use the filter system I just fill all my bottles at the same time, switching them out as they fill unattended. Consider the extra cost you will need to pay if you plan on buying extra re-useable water bottles. It cost me approx. $20.00

4. As stated in the warrenty you cannot use warm/hot water with the system. You have to turn on your tap water and make sure you run it cold and then switch to the filter system.

5. As mentioned earlier the filter to tap knob is sometimes problematic. Basically whenever you wish to switch to the filter system you pull a little knob on your faucet towards you. The filtration system activates and you use it as normal. When your done you push the knob back in towards the faucet to switch back to tap water. However occasionally the knob will push itself back out on its own from the water pressure, activating your filter by itself. ***This has only happened to me shortly after using the filter system because of the pressure still in the hose.*** This is important to note, because if you switch to your filter to tap and then up the pressure on your tap it will often turn back on the filter automatically and the higher pressure you switched to can potentially ruin the filter system (as stated in the warranty). There is an easy fix for this however, if you simply hold the knob in after using your filter system with one hand, and increasing the pressure of your tap water faucet with the other. This de-pressures the hose and the knob won''t go out automatically, I do this every time after I use the filter just to be safe.

6. The water chambers of the filter fill up with water each time the system is used. That water that stays in the chambers after you use the filter will be room temperature. On your next use of the filter system you need to let it run for about 30 seconds before the fresh water will be in the system and the older water from its last use completely expelled.

----Summary----

The filtration system is at a reasonable price compared to others. Manual states about 6 months of use before a replacement filter is needed (they cost around 40-50 dollars, you can buy them from amazon). I will probably use mine about 9 months since I live alone. If you replace your filter every 6 months after the intial purchase it should cost you around 8 dollar a months, better then the 3-5 a week I was spending. There is a stated gallon usage for the filter, though I can''t remember exactly I think its between 500-600 gallons for the life of the filter.

If you typically buy your water this filter system will end up saving you money. Some drawbacks would be that you may need to invest in safe plastic bottles to store your water. The filter system is too slow to use frequently, I recommend filling several bottles of water every few days to limit the number of times you need to use the system. Because you can only use cold water and a low water pressure with the system some people may find it unconvienent. It will certainly take awhile to get used to using it. Overalll though the water tastes fresh and clean, much better then my tap water. Its more useful then a brita or similar brand filter and has a much better filtration system that catches more contaminents. If your like me and want to live healthier and save some money the Aquasana 4000 isn''t a bad choice. I certainly wasn''t able to find a better sub-$500.00 system on the market. Even with all the drawbacks I listed, this is still very useful for me. I hope you found this review helpful in making your decision.

Buy Aquasana AQ-4000 Drinking Water System Now

I used one of these for about 3 years. Every 6 months the housing cracked and started leaking after I changed the filters. They will replace it for free if you join their "water for life" program, but you still have to pay $10 shipping every time and go through the hassle of water spills and waiting for delivery.

I got fed up and bought the Multipure. The water is as good or better and the housing quality is much better. The Multipure''s flow is also about twice as fast, which is nice.

Read Best Reviews of Aquasana AQ-4000 Drinking Water System Here

I''ve used several in-store filters (Pur, Brita, etc.) and never has the difference in taste been so apparent with this Aquasana filter. If you can''t taste the chlorine in your water, you will taste it (and Lord knows what else) in a taste test between municipal water and water filtered with this particular filter.

Installation was simple. Remove the aerator attach the collar to the faucet (no adapter needed though they were included) and a 3 minute filter process and I had clean water. I had to turn the entire hose outlet (not just the swivel collar) to tighten it completely so it wouldn''t leak, and that put the line in an awkward position on the countertop. This limits where I could put the filter housing. A small gripe but if you''re picky about your countertop space, it''s worth mentioning.

This unit is reported to filter all contaminants. It even filters 40-60% of fluoride levels, an amazing claim considering it doesn''t use reverse osmosis. I will be testing that claim in the future, but several reports on the web convinced me this claim is likely true.

Operation is simple. Pull the activator plug out for filtered water. When you shut the water off the plug returns to its off position.

I emailed the company (before I ordered this unit) about claims of leakage and I got a email reply from a real person in less than five minutes. No company has ever responded through email that quickly.

Noting the taste of the water, I wish I had optioned for the under counter unit. But no worries I''ll stick with this unit, get some tests of my own performed and option to upgrade in the future. But bottom line, the water tastes amazing.

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As everyone else has pointed out, the filtering is superior, the unit is junk, I am sad to say. Ours is completely shot after 1.5 years...and its out of warranty too. We have been VERY careful to only filter cold water and we try to be very careful to only run it at low pressure, which is tricky with the activator valve acting up after we had it about a year, and sometimes you have guests that don''t read the reminder notes you have to have tacked up.

After the activator button problems, the inlet O-ring started to leak. With some fiddling I seemed to have fixed that. Then another "mystery" leak started happening. Turns out the MIDDLE section of threads on the "A" cap are shearing right off the unit.

At the price of the Aquasana I can get a couple of instapure or some other unit and put up with the pricier "per gallon" cost of the CARTRIDGES. But of course I JUST bought a new set of the pricey Aquasana cartridges which last about as long as the unit, I NOW know.

They need to dump some of their slick Marketing money into some BASIC engineering. I design stuff like this for a living. There is no excuse for the poor design of the threads that sheared.

This filter might be good if you have almost no water pressure at your home.

When it isn''t breaking and cracking, it does a great job filtering the water, but I''ve just gone through my second housing in about 1 year''s time. The inferior plastic they use on the housing just gives way under normal pressure.

I was very, very disappointed that, first, they don''t back up their products better (yes, they should replace it for free!), and, secondly, they should have corrected these defects long ago. When I contacted the company for the first replacement, they seemed so blasé about my concerns.

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