One of the most important things to consider when purchasing a water filter product is not just the purchase cost but also the on-going cartridge replacement costs.
Here at PSI Water Filters we advertise with the product the cost of the replacement cartridges and also the exact brand of the cartridge with its exact model number. One of the tricks in this industry is to sell a system at a reasonable price or even discounted cost only to find out later that the maintenance cost is huge. With one budget model of reverse osmosis undersink the annual trio pack of cartridges we sell for $50.00 plus post at $13.50 making it $63.50 delivered.
What you are not told when purchasing systems from some competitors is that the systems sold by them will only accept what is referred to as proprietary cartridges, what this means is they only accept genuine original cartridges which have sustainably higher replacement cartridge costs. We only sell what is called in the industry as standard size cartridges (except for the Omnipure Q series and they are widely available) so you can purchase the replacement cartridges from us or just about anywhere but overall, we are way cheaper and even way cheaper than the likes of Bunnings even after the postage cost is added. We also don’t hide the brand and model number of the cartridges within the systems, it is common in this industry to re-brand or hide the exact brand and model number of the cartridges so you don’t shop around for a better deal. Having standard size cartridges is not only cheaper but because they sell in a competitive environment they are usually better and you have the freedom to switch brands or model if you wish. It gets worse, cartridges such as the Omnipure Q series that we sell have a normal right hand thread but out there are left hand versions so the customer thinks that when they purchase a system with that type of cartridge if the seller gets too dear with replacements they will purchase the replacements from PSI Water Filters, we don’t stock the left hand threaded ones.
Be careful of fake feedback. Most feedback or testimonials on the seller’s web site are fake and even if they were not they are controlled so only good are listed and any bad deleted. The only testimonials that are of any value are ones on third party web sites that the seller has no control of. The reality is that if the customers are happy they in general don’t bother doing testimonials but if upset they will vent their anger but you won’t see a negative comment on a web site controlled reviews.
We have a policy of replacing free any part the customer breaks while installing a system but we stopped advertising this because we were getting false claims just so they had a spare just in case so we now ask for a photo of the broken part. We had a plumber ring the other day saying that a part on a UV system was broken in transit which we promptly posted a replacement that day only to have the home owner also ring later saying the Plumber broke the quartz sleeve. The home owner confirmed it didn’t arrive broken and was not broken when given to the plumber, we still didn’t ask for any payment because all we want is to have a happy customer with a properly functioning water filter system we are not interested in arguing about who did what.
It gets worse, out there being offered are ceramic cartridges (not the Doulton range) that claim 96 to 97% of fluoride removal and because the general public don’t know how to read specifications sheets they are being duped into believing their filter system is removing most of the fluoride from their water. If you read the specifications they list the fluoride content at 2 to 8.1 PPB or ug/l which means parts per billion but in Australia if fluoride is added to your water the amount added is 1 mg/l which means milligram per litre with 1 mg/l measuring at 1000 ppb (ug/l) so the amount in the water here is over 100 times higher than their test data. There is a pottery filter system supplier that sells thousands of these gravity filter cartridges a month with all those people having a warm feeling that they are removing a high percentage of the fluoride which isn’t true.
It should be illegal but it isn’t because they are not claiming more that the test data but relying on the general public not understanding just what it means and simply reading a figure like 97% removal and thinking wow that is what I want.
PSI Water Filters is a family owned business and has been in business since 1997