Customer Reviews

Watts Premier 531130 Filter-Pure UF-3 3-Stage Water Filtration System

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I wanted to give this kit a good review because it saved me from another crappy one made by GE. I found this kit pretty easy to install and only had to do it once to get it right, without leaks. The faucet in particular is well made, solid, and attractive, and fits very well in my cramped sink area. The handle on the faucet is right in front, so you don't have to worry about it hitting stuff on either side. Good design, and looks nice as well.

The Watts hose connectors are higher quality than another kit I bought, made by GE. I wasted a whole Sunday afternoon installing that GE kit over and over, only to find it kept leaking. The problem with the GE kit is that it relied completely on push-in hose connectors, the kind with the little plastic collet with rasps to hold the hose in. And those connectors were not made well.

I'm much happier with this kit, even though it cost $35 more. It does also use 2 of the push-in hose connectors, but they were better made than the GE kit, and easier to insert. The other 2 connectors are actual compression joints that screw in. They hold much better and, after tightening, have not leaked.

The instructions in the box might throw you off a little bit. In one area, it has 3 sets of instructions for how to install 3 different faucets. You need to figure out which faucet you have, and ignore the other instructions. Not a big problem, but not as easy or clean a process as it could be. There was also a half-page addendum floating around the box which I didn't see till I was already done, which had a correction for one of the lines in the instructions. After puzzling over it, I started to suspect this addendum did not in fact belong to the kit I bought but some other one. Shrug. ANYWAY: if you lay your parts all out in front of you and go through the instructions step by step, you'll be fine.

You will need these tools:
1) Exacto knife to cleanly cut the plastic tubing. If the cuts are not clean, the push-in connectors won't work. And the tubing came with rough cuts.
2) Adjustable wrench for tightening the nuts in the joints (actually 2 wrenches would be best because you may have a situation or two where you need to tighten one nut against another, without turning the other one too).
3) Screwdriver or power drill for screwing the filter bank to the wall
4) Thread seal tape. I found that the blue tube's compression joint sleeve was not a snug fit. Too loose. So I gave it a little plumbing thread seal tape to make it snug. The green tube came with a brass insert and brass nut, but the blue tube came with a plastic insert and the fit was different. Why? Good question. I hate to say it, but: typical American manufacturer. Mismatched parts and badly communicated instructions. Oh well, it worked in the end!

You don't get the same high level of filtration from a filter kit like this that you would get with a bulkier reverse osmosis kit. But we have basically good municipal water and just wanted to augment that and make it taste a little better. I did a blind taste test with my wife after installation and she was able to pick out the 1 glass out of 3 that had filtered water in it vs. the other two that had tap.

Taking 1 star off the review because the instructions were a little messy, and it would have been great if they'd used screw-in connectors for all 4 connection points. But still, I'm not complaining.

this was the 3rd filtration system that I tried.

all of them were similar and in the same price range; this one was the cheapest.

the quality of everything that came in the box was pretty amazing, down to the brass fitting, while the other 2 I tried were PVC.

the knock on this system is the installation manual picture of how to assemble all the washers- it was pretty bad, but I was able to figure it out.

perfect water stream and great taste.

I've had it for a month or so and no leaks or any other issues.

very, very simple to install and I may be the world's worst plumber.

Length:: 1:27 Mins

Here is a video of my just installed filter in HD. This is as good as you can get without having RO. And for the price its great. Great parts and quality built.

he good: Compact unit takes up very little space under the sink. Attractive faucet. Install SHOULD be easy.

The bad: The 'T' junction fitting that connects the filter to the cold water line is a piece of garbage. Throw it away. Don't even try. When I finally did get it hooked up, after running out to HD for extra o-rings, I turned on the valve to allow H2O into the filter and water started spurting out of the valve. Water was not coming out around my connections, mind you. The water was coming out around the "dial" you turn to open the flow to the filter.

I'm not a plumbing novice. In the just the last three months I've installed a toilet, a faucet, a garbage disposal and a dishwasher. This should have been the easiest of those jobs, by far (it wasn't). This valve is a tragedy.

So, my recommendation is to go ahead and get this filter. However, if you receive the plastic fitting instead of the brass, just throw it out and buy a brass fitting instead. It's the same fitting you would use to hook up a fridge/ice-maker to your cold-water line. If I'd just done that from the beginning, this would have been a 40 minute job. Instead, it took several hours over two days, including all the re-work and the two separate trips to HD.

I was very happy with the Watts Premier filter for 6 months, then it started having problems. The water came out very slow. Plumber checked it out and said everything looked well and said the unit may have defect. It's still under the 1-year warranty, so we called the manufacturer and they told us to send back the unit, they said they'd send us a new one if they cannot fix it. But 3 weeks have passed and we have called the manufacturer 3 times and they still haven't opened the box to examine the unit. Everytime we called we were told they are short of people and they'll try to look at it as soon as possible.
However, there is still no estimated time as when we can expect to get a working unit back.

As a water professional for many years I can honestly say that this filter is better than anything anywhere near the price. Don't buy an RO system! It will reduce the pH (bad) and strip the water from valuable minerals (also bad). If you have a softener in your home, RO is good because the damage to the water is already done and it's good to get the sodium out of the water. A carbon filter won't help you in this case. Best case is to bypass the softener at the source and run a line to the kitchen and buy a carbon filter like Watts. Or buy a mineralizer and treat the RO water to raise the pH and add minerals.
[...]

This review is being written for Watts 3-stage water filter 531130 on Amazon.com 1/21/2011.


This system consists of a filter housing unit that mounts under the sink and holds three filter cartridges. The filter and housing are fairly compact compared to the previous generation of water filters. For routine filter changes, no tools are required. Each filter is removed by turning the water off at the shutoff valve and pushing a button above each filter. The filters are proprietary and not readily available in local stores. My previous system used screw on filters that were difficult and messy to remove and required a proprietary wrench.

The water tastes OK from this system, but in my case the tap water already tastes fine. I'm using the filter for added safety.

The dedicated drinking water faucet looks nicer than average. It's heavy and has an upscale nickel finish.

Perform a pre-assessment of your sink before you buy this product. If the answer is "No" to any of the following questions, then you should consider the additional difficulty of the project:

1. Does a shutoff valve exist under your sink for the cold water line?
If no shutoff exists, you will need to turn off your main house water line.
2. Turn on the cold water, and turn off the shutoff valve under the sink. Does the water flow completely shut off? If not, you will need to turn off your main house water line.
3. Does the faucet connect to the shutoff valve using flexible hose (common in newer installations)? If not, it may connect with hard copper tubing which will need to be cut, with additional fittings possibly required.
4. Does your kitchen sink already have a hole where the faucet can be mounted (such as an unused sink spray or lotion dispenser hole)? If not, then you will have to drill or punch the sink or the counter (depending on the material).


Installation issues:

1. The instructions say to place a brass insert into the blue plastic tubing that connects to the bottom of the faucet. However, the installation kit has one brass insert and one plastic insert. The brass insert is used at the shutoff valve on the green plastic tubing that at the other end connects to the input of the filter housing. The plastic insert is used at the connection to the bottom of the drinking faucet on the blue plastic tubing. I verified this with the manufacturer.
2. The instructions say to place the plastic sleeve over the tubing, with the tapered end toward the end of the tube. However, the two plastic sleeves in the kit are of different design. The one with the green tubing fittings (water supply) is tapered on one side. However the other plastic sleeve is identically tapered on both sides (like a normal brass compression sleeve). This end leaked until I tightened the connection (carefully, due to the all-plastic design of this end, see below).
3. The plastic insert connection to the bottom of the faucet requires a bit of adjustment to get tight enough without crushing the plastic tubing (since this tube has the plastic insert instead of the brass insert).
4. The faucet is geared toward right hand installations, and my faucet hole is on the left rear corner of the sink. My choices were to mount the faucet so that the handle is on the left and rotates away from me to turn on (my choice) or mount with the handle on the right which requires reaching over my current faucet in the middle of the sink. My old drinking faucet had a push lever instead of a rotating handle for the shutoff, and was universal vs. this right-handed design.

Another good idea when starting this or any other plumbing project: Locate a plumber ahead of time and know their hours. Start your project on a weekday morning if possible so if anything goes wrong, you can call a plumber during their normal working hours.

As many others have said, the instructions are terrible. But I think most people understate it. So many 4 and 5 stars - I don't understand how people can be tolerant of lazy manufacturing like this.


It looks like at some point they swapped out quality brass parts for crappy plastic parts that are completely different from the ones it used to come with, but they didn't update the instructions. Nice. So you have to sit here and guess what goes with what.


And the crappy blue tube leaks to all hey like everyone says.

Emailed their support and no response whatsoever.

It might be a good filter, but you shouldn't buy it unless you're looking to buy yourself a project.

The filter is great. The water is better than most other filters that I have tried in the past and taste is as good as an RO filter that a friend has. The only reason I didn't give this product 5 stars is due to the fittings. The fittings didn't hold and I had a some clean up when they came off with water pressure. I had to go to my local hardware store to get proper fittings ($2.00) which is no big deal. Overall performance otherwise is great.

I would give this filter system 4 stars maybe 5 if the "Tee" valve it came with had been better quality. The "Tee" valve that this system uses to tap into your existing water supply is made of plastic and has two metal fittings that adapt it down to 3/8". My water supply happened to be 3/8" and required the adapters. The bottom adapter does not get tight enough in the bottom fitting of the "Tee". (The bottom, to me, is the side that goes towards the water source aka: inlet side.)

After having flooded my lower sink area twice now, I am going to replace the Tee adapter with a Sea Tech 3561-0604 Valve that I found by searching Google shopping site. I don't have time to deal with the manufacturer right now, especially if they are just going to give me the same crap valve that leaks at the connection points because of chintzy poorly fitting adapters.

As for the rest of the system: For the couple of weeks that I have had it, I really like the system itself. It was easy to install. The water tasted good. The instructions were "okay", and the quick connect hoses seem to work really well. If their stupid Tee Valve had been the right size or heaven forbid maybe they should have provided two different Tee Valves and charged $5 - $8 more for the kit instead of trying to convert a larger plastic fitting to 3/8" with a metal adapter. Any time you change materials like that there is a potential for failure. In this case it was compounded by the lower adapter being the wrong one for the job, in my opinion.

After reading about the other kits that are available in this level of filtration, I would still do this again even if I knew ahead of time that I had to buy the valve. I will try to remember to update this review after I have the replacement valve and have made sure it works well. Being that it is the right size for the job WITHOUT having to use the adapters, I'm pretty sure it will work very well.

I chose a 3 stage filter system specifically because I do not want to drink PURE water. PURE water is bad for you. It leaches minerals out of your body. (Minerals travel from higher concentration to lower concentration. Put pure water in your body, and existing minerals will be pulled out.) I just wanted to filter the water some because we have very hard water.

I am looking forward to trying the better valve. It looks a whole lot better for this job.