anyone got a water filter? noob needs help pls :)

[hotmetal]

Looks and sounds impressive, does the unit itself require much maintenence?

No, not so far. I bought mine February last year just before lockdown, (which was a stroke of luck given my coffee machine's needs and the difficulty of getting delivery slots from supermarkets) and I haven't yet had to change the filters. All you have to do is make sure you empty the last litre out before refilling the tank (avoid the temptation to top up the tank). I think you're supposed to change the filters every year or when it tells you to (flashing lights), but I'm now 6m over that and it hasn't complained, or beeped or flashed. You can do some sort of deep clean on it before you put the new filters in, which I will probably do. I need to remind myself how to do that. There's a thread on it on the coffee forum somewhere, I'll have to have a look to see what you're supposed to do, but so far I've just used mine for 18 months without anything other than washing out the tank and refilling it. I think the only other thing is if you're going on holiday, to empty the tank and also use up the already filtered water, because once the chlorine has been removed the water has a 'shelf life'.

Edit
Just found the thread where they're discussing how to sterilise it with Milton. (What doesn't get explicitly mentioned is that you can buy a kit which has 'blank filters' which I think lets you put Milton in the supply tank and run it through). DavecUK mentions a way to get round it without these blank filters.

Osmio zero sterilising

@DavecUK Any thoughts / recommendations on frequency of sterilising the water container on the Osmio. The instructions say every 6 months when changing the filters. I have been using it since December and followed the empty / fill sequence religiously . The water from the Osmio has started tastin...

coffeeforums.co.uk

 

[Kingfish]

In the early 80's I acquired a reverse osmotic filter. It was kind of pricey, but I traded a guy who sold them for one for some work on his house. It was a countertop model that had a hose that hooked up to a "dishwasher" adapter you installed on the faucet of the kitchen sink. As I recall, you set it (by adjusting the water flow) to 5 or so drips per 10 seconds (not sure at all about the numbers here). Every so often, you had to purge it by turning the water on full blast for a minute or two. Great tasting water, and no filter cost! Used it for about 8 years, no problems. Alas, it was damaged while I was overseas.

After that came a WaterPik filter that attached to the kitchen faucet again, but remained there. You could flip a lever to get unfiltered water for normal kitchen operations. This one had filters, but they lasted a reasonable amount of time. Brought this one back with me when I returned to The Hermit Kingdom, and did it match the fittings on the sink and continued to work very well. We were renting at the time and moved into a place that had the flexible hose type kitchen wand, so the WP went down the road.

For the last very many moons, a Brita countertop model has assumed the mantle. It's the large capacity, uses the classic filters, and works great, but it is a little cumbersome to move it to the place where you can fill it. The filters aren't too dear and last a reasonable length of time. Bad point, there are many square nooks and crannies that require regular cleaning which can get a bit tedious.

A note on the filters: the model I have has a device on the filler lid to tell you when to change the filter. Interestingly, it does not measure the flow of water, but rather relies on a timer. My wife and I are a two person household, but the time goes by regardless of the amount of water filtered. Lacking a chemistry set, mine gets changed when I notice a difference in the taste of the water.