Try to eliminate the possibility.reason what cause the cartridge warning every 5mth.

Do.you install external filter ?
Are.you bought the cartridge from amway shop ?
Or try show amway staff the evidence when u bought the last cartridge.

I'm sure got.one reason why you need change every 5mth , while most of espring machine can tahan up to 1 year. You can.argue or.ask amway technician go ur hs assist you, is your right as customer

Anyone has any idea how to install water filter for a Condo? The water meter room is too small for installation and the management prohibited that...Thanks

Modify the pipe to your unit on top of your entrance. Ask plumber.

Alright, so back to our subject of filters. I will try to clarify things further. It's long so read it only if you have an interest to have better understanding of the industry. We will study RO system today, but hold on! I'm not saying RO is a must for everyone, but we will use RO as an "golden standard" if you'd like.


Intro

Water and water treatment industry is one of the most corrupt industries in the world. I'm not talking only about filters now, but also about bottled water, soft drinks as well as gimmicks like "ionizers", "live water" etc. It's an extremely profitable industry where interests of many huge corporations, governments, small players and even world organizations intersect...

Now, please get me right. I'm not a bloody communist who doesn't believe in making profit. Any business must make healthy and HONEST profits, so there's nothing wrong with that. What I find unacceptable is when a company or whole industry represents something old and simple as "super-nano-ultra-mega" advancement and is able to make 5000% profits from the lack of knowledge from ordinary people. I stress the words ORDINARY PEOPLE because it doesn't work in industrial applications. Industry is able to hire people like me, who spent years studying water treatment, so when a salesman from another "snake oil" company comes to us, he's immediately kicked out. As an ordinary consumer, you don't have this luxury, so unless you have some basic knowledge, it's easy to become a pray to a salesman. I will try my best to help you, without selling anything, but to quickly teach you how to filter BS from the truth.


Reverse Osmosis

Before you read further, please forget EVERYTHING you heard about "dead water", "we get minerals from the water" and all other crap. This is all BS and politics. At some point, some very powerful companies started losing too much money because of RO systems being implemented everywhere and public started to switch from buying SAME RO water in plastic bottles to reusable bottles, filling these up for free! Internet got flooded with "RO is bad for you" articles. They even influenced WHO, and WHO released few articles based on old Soviet articles from 1980s that were based on older research of industrial distillation systems in USSR (can check it on WHO website, I'm not making it up).

Quality RO system produces the cleanest, best drinking water, period (ok, there is also distillation, but let's ignore it for now, since it's not easily available consumer system).

But RO system does waste a lot of water. It's also very slow (50-100ml per minute), sensitive to water pressure, requires a lot of maintenance and usually has a tank... Now this tank is the weakest point of the system. This is where bacteria grow, this is where your water is sitting inside a plastic bag... no so good. There are tankless systems out there, but unless you're ok with 50-100ml/minute and waiting 15 minutes to fill your kettle, these systems are more expensive. In short, unless your water has way too many dissolved minerals, you were told by doctors to drink RO water, you're paranoid or you have special use for this system (ultrasonic humidifiers for example) - RO is a bit of overkill (my personal opinion).

But why do I even talk about RO then? Because understanding RO will make you understand any other system out there. Because of the nature of RO system, you can not play around with "nano-ultra-super", you play with it, and your RO membrane goes bust in no time. By comparing ANY system to RO, you can understand exactly what are you giving up and whether the system makes sense and whether it is overpriced.

So RO system is always the same - pre-filters, RO membrane and post-filters. Let's start with the queen - the membrane.

RO membrane can filter out pretty much everything, except dissolved gases. You can look it up online, but in short, imagine many many many layers of media, each layer is a mini filter getting rid of impurities that are washed away into the drain, the membrane is usually good for 2 years. I'd like to stress that point IMPURITIES ARE WASHED AWAY. They do not sit inside the membrane. Keep that in mind, it's EXTREMELY important for further discussion. What comes out of membrane is the final pure drinking water.

But, there is one thing membrane is scared of, and it brings us to our next point - pre-filters. Chlorine in our water can destroy our queen membrane in no time. So we need to get rid of chlorine first. This is why pre-filters normally are sediment + carbon block x 2. Sediment doesn't let large size particles to carbon blocks , 2 carbon blocks absorb all the chlorine, the rest goes to the membrane. Very simple and straight forward.

But then why post-filters? Membrane produces clean drinking water, what else is there to post-filter? Remember the tank that most RO systems has. Water sitting in the tank starts smelling and tasting bad. Tank also has bacteria inside, the bladder leaches plastic into the water, so post-filters are designed to get rid of all that. If there is no tank, there is no need for any post filters.

For 2500RM you can get quality tankless RO system with descent flow and it will outperform any non-RO system ever created. At 2000RM or so you can have quality RO with tank (though maintenance cost will be higher than tankless because of post-filters).


So now you know how a system and a price range that can get you purest drinking water, compare it to your current system or the one you want to buy. Start from the left to right. For example:

Does your system have sediment filter that you can easily wash or change? Yes - great. No - all the large, elephant size particles flow to your next filter and may either damage or block it. Does your system have a carbon block to get rid of smell, taste and chlorine? Yes - great. No - hmmm, what do you have, just a glorified sediment filter?. The simplest system would be just these 2. And it must be relatively cheap even if it contains premium cartridges and other premium components made in USA/UK, we're looking at roughly 700RM for the system and 150RM worth of cartridges per year. Also, carbon block can be modified to filter out lead and some other heavy metals, but even after heavy modifications, carbon remains carbon. It cannot suddenly become RO membrane.

But then it gets a bit tricky. Bacteria, viruses, other heavy metals, plastics etc. How are these filtered? It MUST be a filter able to remove sub-micron particles. In other words, light version of RO membrane. There are few ways to achieve that, but filter manufacturers must clearly say how they do that. You don't have to understand it, but explanation must be available. Electroadhision, ion exchange, ultra-filtration through hollow fiber etc. Not just "hey bro, magic happens inside and you get pure water". Cost of these advanced systems should be 1000-1400RM MAX!, cartridges for a year are about 350-400RM. If you're paying over it, you're getting robbed. Remember that 2000RM is a price for RO with tank, so why would you pay more for less clean water? Even if you're still, for some reason believe that "must have minerals bro", just buy a mineralization cartridge for RO. Do not ever, ever pay over 1500RM (ok, let's put it 350USD, who knows where RM will be tomorrow) for non-RO point of use system. And this is only for the one that is actually able to remove all bacteria etc, not just simple carbon+sediment.


One last, but very important thing to keep in mind is lifetime of the filter. Remember that with RO membranes, impurities get washed away constantly and yet it can last only 2 years? Any other filter that doesn't get washed can only last 1 year, no more. And sediment needs to be changed or washed few times per year. There is no way any filter directly exposed to the incoming water can last even 1 year without any kind of wash. So you know that all these "black box" filter systems get dirty quickly and stop performing.

This is it for today, hope at least few people will read it.

This post has been edited by hestati: Feb 22 2018, 04:56 PM

thank you for the detailed explanation. im keen in getting a system myself once my place is ready. is there any system with tank (hot/room temp water function is preferred) to recommend?

Thanks for the very transparent and informative write up about house hold water filter. MLM agents is going to hate you though for the revelation of max price point for clean pure water.
I have one Elken RO system. Counter top with plastic tank. Is there a way to avoid the bacteria and plastic leach from the tank ?

Used it before, maintenance fee not cheap...need change 4 filters sequencially...

This post has been edited by Ch33r: Feb 23 2018, 03:12 PM

How easy is it to clean the tank? Regular RO tank cannot be cleaned inside, but looks like your's can be cleaned? Then you have less of an issue, just clean it regularly. Also if you don't use your system for 2 days or more, empty the tank and make the system refill it. Plastic leaching doesn't happen quickly, if you regularly use your system and if the plastic is not of extremely bad quality, then you should be ok, may drop some pure silver pieces inside the tank too.

The problem with stupid plastic is that you never know.... Few years ago, there was new "big thing", Microban. Microban, based on triclosan, was promoted by salesman as another snake oil - you cover any surface with it and boom, no bacteria growth. So first, all food companies started to use it more and more, then it went silly, even pens and pencils were covered in Microban. Now, it seems that triclosan is toxic and FDA started banning it here and there.

Keep your tank clean and don't let water sit in it for too long, and you should be probably ok.

The top cover can be easily opened to access the entire tank. I usually clean the tank with paper tower without any disinfection solution. Do you think if it is ok to spray some pharmacy grade Hydrogen peroxide 6% (couldn't find the food grade h2o2) for disinfection during the cleaning ?
The plastic material looks good quality, I hope. Pure silver pieces is for disinfection right ?


Btw, it's time to replace the cartridges for my DIY standard 10" 3-stage water filter for washing/cooking purposes.

These are the retired cartridges: Stage 1 sediment filter, stage 2 Doulton ceramic, stage 3 Matrikx active carbon.

Doulton made in England, Matrikx made in USA. Can you tell if these two cartridges are real stuff?


Would be glad if you can offer your recommendation for the new replacement cartridges for the above.

Yes, pure silver for disinfection in the tank should help. And yes, you should be ok to wash it with 6% peroxyde. Commercial systems are sanitized with high % chlorine solution, but no need to do it for home systems.

Your system is actually not bad, just few comments:

1. How old is this sediment filter? Looks too clean to me. Is it 5 micron? What brand?

2. Oh... ceramic filters... I believe yours is ceramic+carbon core. So if carbon core is modified, it can take out lead and cyst, no issue there, but so can many carbon blocks. Now, the ceramic layer. Their nominal filtration rating is 0.5 micron. Bacteria can be as small as 0.2 microns, viruses are 0.02 to 0.4 microns. Filtration rating doesn't have to be small if there are some other filtration mechanisms, example - electroadhision in a filter with nominal of 2 micron can filter 99.99% of all viruses and bacteria. But there is nothing in ceramic filter that can do that. So think about this Doulton not as "magic", but rather as 0.5 micron sediment filter+modified carbon block, or just a simple 0.5 micron modified carbon block.

Not saying it's bad, just gotta know what it is. However, there is one negative to it. What's happening inside the ceramic when large bacteria gets stuck in it? It's relatively thick layer of ceramic. I never dealt with one, but I spoke to people who had and in their experience it gets blocked easily. If the flow drops, you can run sand paper over it 2-3 times, after that - change the filter.

Last but not least, is this Douton authentic? Each of their filters has a serial number that you can register on their website to verify authenticity. The one that you have should not cost less than 150-200RM in Malaysia, I see some of them selling for like 30-60 Ringgit... this is a lot less than what Doulton charges the distributors.

3. Matrikx, if it is authentic, then good choice. 1 micron, right? Also about 100RM?

Congratulations on overall good and relatively cheap system! I would just get good sediment, replace Matrikx with another one if you can get it, and sand paper over ceramic (if it's authentic you can get few more months from it). If you want to change ceramic to more efficient one, can offer electroadhision filter in the future.

Where are all the fittings and filter housings from? I would worry as much about plastic leaching from these as from your tank actually.

Is it possible for condo unit to install water filter system at point of entry (within unit)?

Check with your condo management, is the best answer you can have.

i want to know is technical can be done or not.
My management no comment.

1. Used about 2 years plus. Cheapo brand 1micron. It's clean because I have a PoE.
2. No it's a full ceramic candle. All Ceramic filters are 0.5 micron ?
3. I bought the Doulton and Matrikx from Makro cheras closing down sales before Tesco took over it. 10 years ago and I don't remember the price I paid for but it certainly wouldn't cost more than RM50. I only use it after I DIY the 3-stage filter some time in 2014. I can't find any serial num on the cartridge and the packaging box already thrown away.
The housing and fittings are non branded ones sourced from water filter shop.

Can you share where I can buy those quality 10" cartridges that you mentioned earlier, good sediment filter, sub micron and carbon block. If it's not convenient to share in this thread, do PM me.

This post has been edited by aeiou228: Feb 25 2018, 01:11 AM

I am using Aquaphor crystal eco so far so good after a year . Cheap to maintain , filter cost rm4xx only . Can buy from hardware builder in fb or got some1 in garage sales selling

This post has been edited by chiafoo: Feb 28 2018, 04:14 PM

May i know how much u paid including installation?

So which water filter you are using

Please PM me the soulution as well. I would like to know more about cheaper solution

anyone know where can i get this type of faucet ?


Attached thumbnail(s)

This one can do?
https://www.lazada.com.my/products/mocha-m2...NaDvqE&search=1