GE Merlin Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System

by General Electric

Product Description

GE Infrastructure Water and Process Technologies has achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in the water treatment industry. Out-of-the-box thinking and years of research have produced a totally new point-of-use drinking water system. The New Merlin RO System features continuous-flow water production of 0.5+ gallons per minute, so a storage tank is no longer required. RO water on demand! The unit operates on line pressure (40 to 50 psi required), which eliminates the need for an electrical pump. The patented high-production, low-energy membrane purifies up to 720 gallons of water per day. This high capacity performance creates new opportunities for light duty commercial applications and great for the residential homeowner too! The system is NSF standard 58 approved, and has a compact design that can easily fit beneath the kitchen sink. Supplied with a designer air gap faucet and all interconnecting tubing, the Merlin installs quickly and easily. Covered by a 3-year limited warranty for residential applications, and a 1-year limited warranty in commercial application. Note: Reverse osmosis typically wastes 3 to 4 gallons of water for every gallon it produces.

Product Details

• Item Weight: 27 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 30 pounds
• ASIN: B000G7KSO0
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,627 in Home Improvement (See Top 100 in Home Improvement)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Merlin Drinking water system, January 30, 2009

By 

A. Anderson (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GE Merlin Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System (Misc.)

At the time when GE was about to announce this, I was a GE water products dealer. I agree this has some great features, delivers more water per minute, saves spaces and eliminates the tank associated with other models but... A water softener is highly recommended before the Merlin because if your total hardness is over 12 grains, you may face replacing membranes annually. That is 2 at a minimum cost of $80 each. after having installed over 50 of these, We have had calls for most reporting lack of performance within the first year which I attribute to lack of use. these need to be run frequently not just for the occasional glass of water. It is good for light commercial use like a restaurant but not the average home. It produces a higher total dissolved finished product than all other R/O membranes which is why it has high flow at residential line pressure than others which product lower TDS at reduced flows. These require high pressure to operated at optimum performance and are quite weak at pressures below 50 psi.
The air gap mounting that comes with the unit only works with stainless steel or cast iron sinks not granite counters. When I inquired with GE about this, they said there were no plans to change this.
GE has since sold 80% of it's water products division to Pentair and it remains to be seen how this will bode for the Merlin.
The Merlin can only be operated on treated water from a municipal supply and will foul quickly on many well waters.
I recommend this only where you can service this yourself, have a working knowledge of reverse osmosis and can backwash this about once a month without paying for this service.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone. Didn't pass the wife test., April 5, 2008

By 

J. Margarit (NM,USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GE Merlin Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System (Misc.)

Pros: I used to have the more typical sears RO system but was frustrated by low capacity. I bought one of these last summer. It was great to be able to fill a 5 gal water jug in minutes instead of hours. Cool design.

Cons: LOUD! The air-break in the spigot sounds like a jet engine. Because it is filtering so much more water per unit time than the low capacity systems, it sounds like you are pouring a bucket of water down the drain the entire time it is running. It has startled people in the next room when the ice maker goes off. Replacing filters is a $250 exercise. Mine lasted 9 months before the flow rate dropped to the point where it was no longer acceptable. Now it keeps turning on spontaneously with a trickle of water. It may be because of a bad valve or because the filers need replacing.

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Maybe not all are, but mine was garbage, July 2, 2008

By 

Brett Conley (UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GE Merlin Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System (Misc.)

Having had a reverse osmosis system at an older house, when I built this house I was insistent on getting another one. This Merlin package from GE sounded wonderful. I'd always been annoyed at the periodic and unpredictable refilling that the kind with the tanks have to go through to have enough water to satisfy demand. This one supposedly puts out a lot of water, and it will only make that bubbly sound when you're actually getting water out of it. Makes sense to me. So I bought it. I've had my Merlin in service for nearly 2 years now. Let me tell you about my experience.

For several months after installation, the manifold part of the assembly switched on and off about once a second, making a fairly loud chirpy popping sound every time. It got to be extremely annoying. So to resolve the problem, I'd turn the water on to the system only long enough to fill a jug to put in the fridge, then turn it back off. (Back to tank storage, hmph.)

Eventually, I got sick of doing that, so I contacted the dealer I bought it from and tried all the suggestions they had for me--could be a water pressure problem, maybe even a water temperature problem. I had my plumbers come out and tweak my house plumbing to increase water pressure to the system. There wasn't much I could do about temperature, but I suffered from the problem equally in the winter and the summer, except that output flow was a bit more in the summer.

So finally, I insisted something was broken and demanded that they fix it, and after several emails and phone calls, and them talking to GE about the problem, they sent me a new manifold. The first time I tried it, it had the same on/off popping problem. But after running it constantly for 5 minutes, like it says to, the problem was resolved. I was so relieved.

I had a working Merlin system for about 2 months. Then it started doing it again. Garbage. I tried to contact the dealer again and they wouldn't respond to any of my email requests. So I just threw up my hands and decided to use it the way it was.

Eventually, it just stopped putting out much of any water. When you turn the faucet on, it will spit out a bit, then quickly die down to almost no flow at all. It might be that the membranes are finally clogged and need to be replaced, but I'm not going to blow $100 on a machine that pops and wheezes.

So now the machine is on my back porch, completely disconnected. It is nothing but a pile of junk. I regret the purchase very much.