More than 90 % of the United States’ water provide is secure to drink in line with the Environmental Protection Agency. But that hasn’t stopped individuals from fretting over the standard of their faucet water—or equipment producers from churning out all types of “purifiers” to purge it of contaminants actual or imagined.
The Coway Aquamega 200C is an electrical countertop water filter that guarantees to cut back at least 10 contaminants together with lead, chlorine, unstable natural compounds, mercury, and even ibuprofen. It additionally boasts a couple of de riguer good options, equivalent to real-time monitoring and app management.
The coronary heart of the 200C is a two-step filtration system. A sediment filter removes infusible particles out of your water provide to guard the carbon filter, which does the heavy lifting of eradicating the contaminants that may endanger your well being or simply make your water style dangerous. Coway claims the system can cleanse as much as as much as 150 gallons of water per filter change. Those filters don’t come low-cost, although—at present, Coway is promoting them for about $40 per pair, which over time will add a big chunk of change on prime of this good equipment’s $499 retail worth.
Connecting your water provide
While putting in the Aquamega 200C is pretty easy, it does require familiarity with kitchen-sink plumbing and a few stable handyman expertise. You’ll want to shut the cold-water shut-off valve below the sink, after which separate the cold-water hose from the valve. Next, screw the equipped T-valve onto the shut-off valve, after which reattach the cold-water hose to the T-valve. Tighten all of the connections with a wrench to make sure nothing leaks.
Though the instruction handbook makes no point out of it, you’ll subsequent must drill a quarter-inch gap in your countertop, so you may get the equipped feed hose from the cold-water provide below your sink to the Aquamega. Connect one finish of the feed hose to the water inlet on the again of the 200C, thread it by way of the opening within the countertop, after which insert the opposite finish into the T-valve. Finally, activate the T-valve and open the cold-water shut-off valve to feed water into the 200C’s tank.
Before you can begin ingesting your newly purified water, you have to flush the 200C’s filters with room-temperature water, after which fill the cold-water tank to begin cooling—a course of you’ll repeat for every filter change. For this step, it is strongly recommended that you just connect the included drain hose to the 200C’s faucet and place the opposite finish in your sink, so water doesn’t splash throughout your counter. To flush the filters, you simply press the Ambient water button on the contact show, after which press the allotting button for 2 seconds, which can immediate the Aquamega to repeatedly dispense water for 3 minutes earlier than mechanically shutting off. Finally, choose the Cold button and once more press the allotting button for 2 seconds to fill the cold-water tank, which takes about one minute.
The 200C’s contact show makes it straightforward to dispense room-temperature or chilly water in preset quantities of 4-,8-, or 16 ounces.
A tall drink of water
The equipment’s contact show makes getting a glass of water an act of Jetson-like comfort. The 200C dispenses water in three preset quantities: 4-, 8-, or 16 ounces. All you have to do to slake your thirst is press both the Ambient or Cold button, relying in your most popular temperature, choose the specified quantity of water, and press the allotting button. You may have water repeatedly allotted for 3 minutes by following the identical steps used within the setup course of.
You can get extra out of the 200C by pairing it with Coway’s IoCare app. Once you obtain it and create an account, press the Ambient and Cold buttons concurrently to allow Wi-Fi paring, after which comply with the app prompts to finish the method. The app offers a variety of real-time information, together with every day water consumption stats (damaged out by Ambient and Cold), in addition to month-to-month water evaluation reviews. The additionally permits restricted distant management—you may flip the unit’s sound, LED indicators, and cold-water operate on and off—and it tracks the life cycle of the filters. All these options and capabilities are specified by a clearly labeled tabbed interface.
Michael Ansaldo/IDGYou can monitor your water utilization and different information within the Coway IoCare app.
It’s value noting right here that holding your water clear requires upkeep past changing the filters. The cold-water tank, faucet, mesh filter, and tray all have to be cleaned commonly, and whereas none of those duties is especially arduous, they need to be factored into your funding.
Should you purchase it?
Admittedly, the push-button strategy of allotting water was enjoyable, notably for my youngsters, and the water tasted good if not essentially higher than what got here straight from the faucet. And the app offered some attention-grabbing, although not important, context for our water consumption. Those issues alone, nonetheless, are usually not actually sufficient to suggest the 200C—or any water filter—although.
Before you shell out for such an costly equipment, you must get some info in regards to the high quality of your water. Your native Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) is an efficient place to begin, because it identifies the degrees of contaminants detected in your municipality’s water provide and the way they examine to the EPA’s ingesting water requirements. This EPA document also provides many useful facts about home water testing.
If your property was constructed earlier than the mid-1980s—when lead-free pipes began being mandated—you also needs to get a check package to test what’s popping out of your faucet. That goes double if you happen to reside in a rural space and draw your water from a personal properly. You ought to take into account the Aquamega 200C provided that it removes the particular contaminants which are recognized in your water.
Even then, I’d nonetheless solely suggest the Aquamega 200C to households and different bigger households that devour plenty of ingesting water, who object to options equivalent to bottled water, however don’t object to the preliminary buy worth and the continuing value of alternative filters. If that describes you, the Aquamega 200C may serve you properly.