PSI water filters was established in 1997 and was the second water filter company to list their products on the internet in Australia. Metron marketing was the first.
We originally only sold what is our premium system as we didn't wish to service the bottom end of the market which is mostly Chinese manufactured products of varying quality.
We compete in a market where there are many sellers marketing products made in China and some are simply rubbish but they market these goods as quality which we find amusing.
We buy parts from many sources and test them with most going direct into the rubbish bin, you may or may not be aware that about 30 % of water system suppliers in Australia including PSI Water Filters use genuine John Guest and Jaco fittings with the rest using the non genuine copies of inferior quality.
See the genuine fittings at these two web sites www.johnguest.com www.Jacomfg.com and PSI Water Filters and Boss Water Systems Australia needed to be able to compete with these Asian imports so we developed the Standard range which started out by buying Taiwanese housings that meet Australian Standards, the Jaco copy fittings we purchased went in the rubbish bin and we elected to use genuine Jaco and John Guest fittings for reliability, we also decided to use all NSF certified cartridges, tubing and parts. So the real difference between the standard and the premium range is the housings, faucet, bracket and warranty.
The Premium range is second to nothing on the market, in fact there are very few systems to match it for quality, durability and reliability and that is why we offer the 10 year warranty on these systems as they don't give any trouble. They feature the best housing on the market, best fittings and only the finest quality cartridges all NSF listed.
PSI Water Filters caters to middle of the market with the standard range and top of the market with the premium range, we have no interest in supplying the bottom end of the market.
Australian made housings and filters, we wish, there is one manufacturer of housings in Australia and that is American owned, we have stocked these housings before and they gave us nothing but trouble with leaking around the ports and now refuse to stock them until they improve, there is another which is totally Australian but after 2 years of trials it is yet to pass testing so we will wait on that one. There is no bulk manufacturer of cartridges in Australia, there are a few that glue the caps on here and claim they are Australian made but they simply are not.
Sediment filters supplied from most other suppliers are now of Asian origin, we also can buy these cartridges and they cost heaps less, if we import them direct ourselves we can buy them for around $0.30 USD each so we can land them wholesale for around AUD 50 cents each. We have tested them and from the 0.5 to 20 micron there is no difference in weight or flow rates at a given pressure, from our testing we believe all are the same cartridge with different stickers attached. We supply only the U.S. made Purtrex brand and testing shows differences between the cartridges, pick up a box of 5 micron and then pick up a box of 1 micron cartridges and the box of one microns is quite a bit heavier.
Carbon cartridges, we use only cartridges meeting NSF standard 42 as this guarantees the materials the cartridge is constructed off are pure from contaminating chemicals and are obtained from pure virgin sources. You will see Asian cartridges with a picture of the American flag on the label but it isn't from the states, has no NSF listing or EPA certification.
We have cut up Chinese carbon cartridges that claimed to be 1 micron and to believe that they were less than 50 micron you would have to believe that there are Fairies living at the bottom of your garden, these cartridges are produced from any cheap raw material they can get their hands on and manufacture and sell to anybody they can with little regard for quality or purity. Let the buyer beware, remember this is something that you are going to put into your body, quality and price do not always go together.
We are aware that many people relate price to quality and on the whole this is correct, we are well aware that if we charged more for our products we would most likely sell more than we do with greatly improved profit margins, but we make our margins on quantity sold and rely on the customers positive impressions of our products to not only return themselves but to recommend us to their friends and family which they do. Take the Matrikx pB1 which sell in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane for around $90.00 each cartridge, we sell the same cartridge for $40.00 each and they are the genuine article, we buy in bulk and have low overheads which means you save.