Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When I moved into my first (and current) house from my apartment, the previous owner had a Whirlpool (Ecodyne) WHER25 reverse osmosis system installed under the kitchen sink. I liked the water the system produced, but the flow control was misfunctioning, causing an annoying dripping sound that was almost constant. The installer (previous owner, not a plumber) had NOT made the common mistake of trimming out the flow control--which was the first thing I suspected. No, the problem, rather, was deformation of the thin rubber membranes (there are two) inside the head of the unit. I flipped them over (they are reversible) and this fixed the problem for a month or so, but it returned. I priced out new membranes/gaskets and flow control insert, with shipping, and decided that I should just start fresh with a whole new unit, since it was on a special sale locally and it would come with all new filters ($80 worth). I replaced just the head and all was well for a while. Then the tank stopped pushing water out and re-pressurizing the bladder only worked for a short while. But, hey, OK, no problem. I had a whole new tank! Replaced that. All was well for a while. Then just recently, the head unit developed a leak at the flow control, due to--you guessed it--deformed membranes in the flow control. If you search YouTube for "WHER25" you can see that this is a common problem (and how to repair it). But, I was SICK of constantly fixing my water filter system! I wanted a RELIABLE system! So, I started the many hours of online research to find my next RO system and settled on this TMAFC model from Perfect Water Technologies. It has a VERY impressive review spread and enough reviews for the spread to be a reliable indicator of the product. All previous large purchases I have made with this distribution of ratings have turned out to be money well spent. I also liked the sound of adding in just a touch of beneficial minerals to the almost pure RO water for improved taste and possible health benefits. So, I pulled the trigger on this system that costs almost three times as much as the WHER25 and had it shipped overnight as I was sick of drinking bottled spring water. First thing: given the comments about the "excellent" instructions I expected a great manual to accompany this product. This was not the case. I don't know what kind of product manual and set up instructions other reviewers are used to dealing with, but in my opinion, these instructions are poor at best. Actually, I should say they are spotty (incomplete) and amateurish. They read as if they were written by a well intentioned Amazon reviewer! That is, they would be a great ADDITION to a proper manual, but are NOT a replacement for one! The pictures are small and pretty bad when viewed online via a computer color LCD screen, but the PRINTED, black and white versions of them are almost unusably bad. Black and white line drawings would have been much better! And it's just not a complete manual, nor even a good set of installation instructions. Don't take my word for it, though. Just search online for both the Tap Master manual and, say, the WHER25 manual. The TM manual is 12 pages long, including the stupid mounting template page. The WHER25 manual is 23 pages. The TM has no table of contents, the WHER25 does. The TM has almost all of its illustrations on one page (the second one), thus placing them far away from the instructions which refer to them. The WHER25 illustrations are almost always to the right of the text which references them. The TM specifications section consists of just five lines of text and do not include dimensions. The WHER25 specifications take up a whole page and include three diagrams of the head and tank dimensions. The TM contents are just a list. The WHER25 contents include 10 illustrations which visually show you what you should have received, along with the text. Same goes for the installation location options--TM is just a short list, WHER25 has illustrations. And this trend continues! Check it out. Compare them side by side in browser tabs! The TM manual lacks a section on how the systems works. It lacks a black and white blow up parts list. It even lacks the PWT part numbers for the freaking replacement filters! The "troubleshooting" section is a freaking joke--it just basically tells you how to work with push connect fittings--which, don't get me wrong, is vital, but it's far from all you need to know to troubleshoot system problems! But, OK, so what, right? Manual, shmanual. Even I would say that this is by no means a deal breaker. I wasn't that perturbed by the manual. For a home owner, I'm a pretty advanced plumber at this point, and I've dealt with RO systems and plumbing issues before. I had very little trouble installing the TM. (One note from the installation process that may be helpful: pushing the RO filter case (which holds every other filter onto it via brackets) was VERY DIFFICULT. I had to push on it for all I was worth to get it to snap into place. And I am not exaggerating. And I'm by no means a weakling. It took some freaking FORCE!) Next note from the installation is that there really wasn't enough tubing length included in this kit. I needed more length on the supply line than was provided, for example. Hence the different colored tubing in the picture I uploaded. I just used the same tubing connection I already had in place from my WHER25, so no problem. In fact I had plenty of extra tubing, but others certainly might not, and for a system as expensive as this one, extra tubing length for the tank, supply, drain, and faucet connections should be provided. But, again, not a deal breaker. I wasn't perturbed. OK. So at this point I have everything mounted and neatly connected and hooked up. Outstanding. I carefully crack the supply valve and water starts to flow into the system. Very shortly on the heals of this water starts SPRAYING out of the top connection to the final "artesian" filter. Tuns out that someone had just pushed the tubing into it at an angle, resulting in the o-ring getting pushed out of its channel (caterpillared), blocking the tubing from going further in--but enough for the collet to grab it. I had to carefully push the o-ring back into its channel with a toothpick and re-seat the tube. Yet after this, it was still dripping from this connection. I believe this was because the tubing had been nicked and/or the bend radius was too tight. So I replaced this bit of tubing and lengthened it somewhat. Problem solved. However, I should point out that this--and ALL of the other--connections that leaked were connections that I did not make. They were made at the factory, so to speak. Which is disturbing because it doesn't take much experience with push fittings to get a feel for when is done right--to know when the tube has pushed in past the o-ring and made the seal. This one obviously wouldn't have felt that way, nor would it have gone in nearly far enough. The assembler SHOULD have caught this! But, anyway, OK, one bad connection, which I figured out how to fix. Not a deal breaker. Problem solved. Actually not. Because the unit was now leaking from the bottom artesian filter connection at this point. So I replaced this tube section as well and this fixed the problem. Problem solved. Well, actually, not so fast. Other connections were dripping! (None of which I had made--just reiterating that). I was not impressed! So as not to bore you or lose you in wordy descriptions of which connections leaked, I annotated the picture I uploaded, so please check there for all the unpleasant details. But the final result is that there was one connection I could not stop from dripping. It was a slow drip, to be sure, but it wasn't going to get any better. Or I wasn't going to take a chance on it spontaneously getting better, anyway. So I did return this to Amazon for a refund. Yeah, yeah, OK, fine. So I got a bad unit. This is a known issue. PWT could have sent me a leak-free unit if I had only asked. Other reviewers mentioned this, if I had just read the reviews. I shouldn't have given this a bad review just based on that. Actually, I DID read all the reviews. And I did know that I could presumably get a new main unit which would not leak. There is more . . . So why did I return it? Why did I give this two stars? Well, mainly, in a word, THE WATER DID NOT TASTE GOOD! If you're like me, you imagined crisper, livelier, richer, FRESHER water from this "artesianal" system. What a great idea! Gid rid of the "flatness" of the typical RO water, which "strips" the water of these beneficial minerals! Yea! Hallelujah! Take your RO water to the next level! OH MY GOD WAS THIS SO NOT THE CASE! Have you ever accidentally drunk water from a water softener? I mean like at someone's house who has really hard well water and has a whole house softener installed? Usually in this case, the kitchen sink has its own connection which by-passes the softener. Or this was the case in the house I'm thinking of. Water from the sink was hard, but drinkable. But water from the bathroom faucets? AURGHHHH! YUCK! So not pleasant! Well, for MY PALATE, that was the case here. But, admittedly, it was subtle. My wife actually didn't find it that objectionable. However, that was for just the water. Make coffee from that water and the result is much more objectionable. Or that was my experience. There was this weird--I don't know how to describe it--peanutbutter?--off taste to the coffee. And seltzer made from this water left a bad, lingering aftertaste in the back of the throat. This was very disappointing as I had read all the comments about other, less advanced RO systems over-extracting and making "bitter" coffee and so on. In my experience, the opposite was the case. The coffee made from the TM water was MORE bitter than that made from the WHER25 water. And from my research, experts recommend making coffee from water with something like a 60 TDS number because it extracts MORE flavors from the beans. I also read information about some calcium helping the taste but too much really hurting it. I don't know what the truth is, I only know that the coffee was way better with my old water. And I have a Technivorm drip coffee maker and I roast my own green beans, and grind them fresh with a Zassenhaus grinder just before brewing. And they are never more than a week old (from roasting). I also have a vac pot and a french press as well as a Bonavita BV1800 8-Cup Coffee Maker with Glass Carafe maker at work (incredible maker for a very reasonable price!). In other words, I have more than a basic knowledge of coffee and coffee making. I wasn't just throwing some Maxwell house in boiling water. Anyway . . . To be fair, it is within the realm of possibility that I got a defective unit and that a second one would have impressed me. Or perhaps I just simply prefer pure RO water. So, considering these things, why not get the Tap Master low end model with no artesian minerals added? Well, I did consider that option. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked this Tap Master design. On their website they list a number of advantages to the Tap Master, one of which is as follows: "Leak elimination: The leading competitors canister type RO system uses the same filter housing year after year, subjecting it to constant high water pressure, water erosion, and wear from maintenance. Only the filter element is replaced. After about 5 years the walls and seals of the competitors canister filter housing begin to weaken and decay, eventually failing, potentially causing a substantial leak." Ah, OK, I'm sorry but this is a load of marketing nonsense. The seals on most other RO filter systems--certainly the WHER25, anyway--are ON THE FILTER CANISTERS. So the o-rings get changed out every time you change the pre and post filters or RO membrane, or whatever other filters are on the system. It is true that there are plenty of seals and components in the head that do NOT get changed, of course. But this is ALSO TRUE of the Tap Master! Look at all those various inline and T and other connectors in the system! Those don't get changed when you change an inline filter or the central RO housing. AND THEY ARE ALL PUSH CONNECTIONS, with o-rings making the seal. In the WHER25 at least half of those analogous connections are just channels that are injection molded right into the plastic of the housing. I can tell you which I have more faith in! Plus, aesthetically, a single integrated housing just looks a lot better. The TM looks like a sort of squid shaped tangle. And, actually, this is more than just aesthetics, because those tubes end up supporting the filters from sliding down vertically, with gravity. The brackets only hold them on a parallel axis with the RO housing, which is the only thing that is firmly mounted. It's a little unsettling to handle the unit, or to make or un-make push connections to it. It's a big, slidey, moveable mass and you worry that the unintended and unwanted movement that happens while you are making and unmaking connections stresses the other push connection(s). As for purification, this RO system isn't any better than the WHER25. Go to the National Sanitation Foundation website and look both models up for yourself. As for speed, the tap master did indeed have faster flow than the WHER25, but it wasn't that much faster and the WHER25 had plenty of flow. I could fill quart bottles for my seltzer maker in about 10-15 seconds or so. Plenty fast enough. As for the carbon filters, I don't know which "leading" competitors they are thinking of, but the specifications on the WHER25 pre/post filters indicate to me that they ARE using premium grade filters. Further, truly premium SBAC filters can have down to a .5 micron filter-pore size, so 5 microns isn't that impressive. In short I was far from happy with this product, to say the least. For me, for the time being, it's a case of "better the devil you know" and back to the WHER25, which at this point I know how to keep leak-free and operational. I just need to keep the flow control membranes replaced on a yearly basis. Inexpensive and only a minor inconvenience on the whole. At some point I will re-visit RO systems and upgrade to a better one, but it won't be one made by this company. For the record, I am NOT recommending the WHER25. Presently, the Aqua-Pure Reverse Osmosis System APRO5500, Under Sink Water Filtration System has my interest because Aqua-Pure is a division of 3M, and a local plumbing supply house which I definitely trust for recommendations carries and recommends their filters (but does not carry the RO system, only the less expensive in-line carbon filters). Also, it is definitely true that one bad set of experiences (and a few bad reviews) do not a bad product make. You be the judge. I offer this review as a counter-balance to the mass of five-star reviews. For what it's worth, my experience of this product was not a five-star kind of experience.