Yep, Brita is certified to reduce chlorine tastes and odors, which does make water taste better. Unfortunately it lacks in capability to reduce other contaminants that are undetectable by our 5 senses - like fluoride and uranium in this case. Water tastes great, but never would have known it was high in these two contaminants without testing
@@waterfilterguru not true I have a Brita filter and it removes all of the fluoride and uranium and also chlorine and lead at least in my city and I have very good test strips to prove it so you can’t make a statement like that because you’re well water is very hard water where you are or certain cities have such a contamination issue with fluoride with lead with uranium with chlorine that yes maybe those filters aren’t strong enough but for my city because it doesn’t have a lot of lead and fluoride there is somethe Britta elite filters remove it completely so you have to like I always say look at your own cities water or where you’re getting the source from that’s really what matters
@@achilles8205 the water we start is very important, this can change what type of filtrer we need. In my city, the water look like your, not a lot of problematic, I have « medium hard water » and Brita do a very good job. Fun fact, I work in a hydrogeology engineering firm, so in water, artesian well tests, for cities, validation for bottled water companies, various spas, we send I don't know how many water tests per week to the laboratory, and collect various samples. No one has reverse osmosis systems at home, at the office we have a Brita Elite pitcher. If we use this pitcher at work while our job is to validate water everywhere in our region, I would say that the Brita Elite pitcher does its job amply.
@@achilles8205 hello which Brita filter do you use? I want to buy one too. is it possible to send a link to where to buy it? maybe on amazon? or just the name of the Brita filter.
Tucson used to have great tasting tap water. It was well water which tapped into an ancient aquifer. But, since the early 90s our primary water source came from the Central Arizona Project (CAP). It's a canal system that brings water from the Colorado River overland (and uphill) to cities and farms in southern Arizona. It is heavily treated before being piped to homes. The water tastes terrible even after using pitcher systems. What I've done for the past 5 years is to get 5 gallons of RO water from instore systems from Sprouts or Whole Foods. Five gallons is usually about three bucks. But, RO water has kind of a slight "tart" or sterile taste. So, I started using a Britta pitcher. The activated charcoal filter "mellows" out the harsh taste of the RO water. I drink a lot of just plain water. Usually around three liters a day. Taste makes a difference. I still boil pasta or make rice with tap water. But, that's about it. Thanks for the filter reviews.
@@waterfilterguru It seems like an odd thing that if it could get an NSF Standard 42 claim for Copper they wouldn't list it on the packaging. Makes me wonder about Zinc since the Elite also isn't rated for that, but the standard filters are. I've noticed that we have pretty lousy plumbing in this building anyway, and that the water here tastes of chlorine, metallic, and with just a hint of wet dog (probably disinfectant byproducts) and the Brita Elite seemed to handle all this, so it made me wonder about Zinc and Copper, which are not listed for Elite, but both standard and Elite appear to get rid of the metallic taste. This building went in back in the 70s, some of the plumbing is older than that, the sewage pump was leftover from a farm and is over 100 years old. It broke down about a month ago (been down there working since 1920), and the toilets went out for the entire building. It turned out all that happened was a float connected to it that acts as a sensor had rotted away and all it needed was something to float to the top and activate the pump. Pump worked fine again after a $50 part. Our landlord will never replace the plumbing. The drainage has been awful, just old pipes rusting out and collapsing, so if the drainage situation is that bad, I shudder to think about what the intake side is like. Corrosion, dirt, lead service lines from the city. Seems like a $30 2-pack of the blue Brita filters probably solves most of that. Illinois is ahead of the game for prioritizing the removal of lead pipes, but the problem is that there were a lot of them and it took a long time to inventory and get to work so we won't stop hearing about lead for at least 10 years. As to Brita, there may be business reasons to not list all of the performance claims, but I don't know what those would be except maybe if they don't list everything you might buy another product and use it as a prefilter? Some might. I looked at the patents for the Brita Elite filter through Google Patents. It is a very well built filter. It's not just active carbon and ion exchange granules like the Standard and Plus (same material, just more and denser), it's a carbon block in fibrous matrix design, which is why they can claim class I particulates and microplastics. Other tests of the Elite and even Standard have shown that although Brita doesn't list Trihalomethanes, both are pretty good at removing those even without a performance claim. Those are disinfection byproducts of chlorine reacting with organic contaminants. They are carcinogenic and not really all that regulated. Decisions (mostly about cost factors relative to health hazards) decided that a very slightly elevated risk of cancer (mostly bladder and colon and prostate cancers) was somehow preferable to cholera outbreaks. :) Some cities have more advanced water treatment systems than others. For all the bad things you can say about Chicago, the water treatment plant down there is state of the art. Incidentally, the overall cost per gallon or month (have to replace every 6 months regardless due to the filter losing bacteriostatic properties and accumulating biofilm) is that the Elite filters have a lower Total Cost of Ownership and definitely do a better job than the Standard. I think they should just stop making the Standard and tell everyone to go to the blue ones. There was an evening news channel that tested the Brita Standard for lead. It makes no claim about lead. They found it removes about half of lead though. Not enough to get a certification, but it has some effect. Lead is definitely one of the more concerning problems in the American water system. The EPA cut the maximum level and so a lot of cities, basically, responded by hiding the problem so they'd pass even though nothing got better. They tell people to flush their cold water tap for a minute or two before drawing samples, and what that does is it pushes all the water that's been sitting in that connector pipe from the street to your house down the drain and you draw in water from the mains that hasn't accumulated much lead, and there's how you hide a lead problem. Just running the cold tap for a while will easily hide 90% or more of the lead. It can turn a violating city into a compliant one without the government spending anything. The problem is that's not how most people draw in potable water! It's not quite Chernobyl melting down while the government insists that a nuclear disaster in the USSR is not possible, but it's this same sort of "Here's how we don't admit to it." attitude. And lead is an insidious contaminant. Children get exposed to it, and it causes all kinds of lifelong problems for them, from reduced intelligence to even, you know, we can overlay a map of lead contamination in soil and water, and that's where a lot of violent crime is. It can cause a lot of problems and for many years the government just didn't care because of the types of areas that were mainly exposed to it. But it is tasteless, colorless, odorless, and not safe at any level. Brita has some good filters. There are cheap clones of the standard filter. Walmart used to make a cheap clone of the Elite, which were "Great Value Lead Reducing" filters, Brita compatible, about $20 for four of them. The problem that I kept having out of them was air pockets. It wasn't a carbon block design. It didn't violate Brita's patents, but they just didn't flow right, and you had to keep hitting the filter to knock the bubbles out and get it running again, very aggravating, but apparently the clone of the Standard ones do it too, so they're cheap but obviously Brita has figured out the clogging problem and others just aren't interested. Interestingly, Brita in the US is Clorox, and in most of the world it's the German company. Back in the 1980s, the Germans figured the US had decent water and nobody here would be interested in filters, and so they sold off the rights for almost nothing. Then many years later they tried introducing German Brita as "Mavea", but it didn't sell because nobody knew who they were. If you still have a Mavea dispenser, you can get those German Brita Maxtra+ cartridges from Amazon, either through Global Store, or by shopping the UK or other domains and letting your credit card do the conversion (I recommend Capital One because no foreign transaction fees.)
@waterfilterguru As far as I know, just the taste of chlorine👍👍. Even my late cat Stuart got Brita water👍👍. I gave him Dasani one day while I was soaking his stainless steel bowls. He sniffed the Dasani and walked away, lol. I'm having issues with this Elite filter, though. It has popped out three times🤬
@@glen3509 Same with my dog. He sniffed and would rather not drink anything than to drink Dasani, Pure Life or Aquafina. But he'll drink Walmart Brand. We're going to try going distilled water only and not just for our coffee. Don't know if there's any downside to distilled so I need to do some more research. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome material and information. We just overhauled our hot water tan and installed a softener system due to a public statement from our water provider of a leak that has been happening for years. I'm now looking for a more in depth filtering system for the whole house.
We use a Brita pitcher (elite) as a pre-filter option then add that water to our Berkey with ProOne Filters installed. Hopefully it's good enough and not adding anything bad. I can say my water tastes great and there's no smell so that works for me for now.
Your multi-stage filtration is probably doing decently well, depending on what's in the source water of course. The Brita Elite is likely addressing any disinfection byproducts present, which the ProOne might struggle with. See the data from our ProOne test ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5h87z2rA6Og.html but then the ProOne is probably reducing fluoride that the Brita cannot. Also good to note, most contaminants in water are undetectable by sight, taste or smell, so even if water looks, tastes and smells good it might still be contaminated.
I live in an area where tap water is clean enough to be drinkable straight from the source, so Brita mostly helps me to improve the flavor and filter whatever garbage would manage to get into water on its way to me from the local depths. For these tasks I believe it does a fair job. Also how the hell does URANIUM get into your local water supply? 💀
I purchased Brita because is less expensive and less harmful to the environment than buying bottle of waters. It does not leave any type of flavor in the water. I think it works well for me
Hi thanks for watching and for your comment. Keep in mind that the most nefarious contaminants are undetectable by sight, taste and smell. So even if the water looks and tastes great, it could still be contaminated. The TL;DR of this video is that the Brita (or any other water filter) may or may not be sufficient - it all depends on what contaminants are present in the water.
I have not tested that one yet. But being Brita, it is most likely certified for some contaminant reduction. You can cross reference those certifications with your contaminants of concern.
Thoughts on this I am running my tap water through two Brita Elite filter pitchers then taking that water and filling my Waterdrop K19 countertop system with it. It’s easier to fill the system this way and I feel like I am taking less stress off of the RO system. In my opinion the water tastes way better than just putting the tap water into the RO system. Would love to here your thoughts on this and maybe make a video seeing if it makes a difference in the lab testing by combining the systems together? Thanks!
Doing that should serve to extend the life of the carbon pre-filter in the RO unit, as they will reduce some of the contaminants that the carbon filter otherwise would. I made a similar video about doing this with water filter pitchers alone ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HyFgI9YhUFg.html
I just wanted a water filter, nothing specific and so I bought a Brita because they are everywhere. It has proven to be very effective for my needs, I can see the water flow gradually slow down (as it passes through the filter) to a trickle and eventual total blockage. Yep it gets so clogged water will not pass through it anymore and the cartridge feels so heavy upon removal. Obviously I don't know what's getting past the filter, and luckily my local supermarket has very cheap spring water.
@@waterfilterguru If you want a definitive answer you got me there to be honest time line speaking. However I can say this, for the first few weeks the water filtration rate was quick without any noticeable difference (I was questioning if the filter was working) and then suddenly it began to slow down and once it did it clogged up rather quickly, or so it appeared to me. Say I had the filter in the jug for six weeks, the filtration began slowing down after three weeks (easily after the halfway point) and from there it was down hill, the last week was excruciatingly slow and then nothing. Hope that helps.
@@anthonyxuereb792 What you describe is completely normal - a noticeably slower filtration rate is a sign the media in the filter is reaching capacity, essentially getting filled up with contaminants.
@@waterfilterguru Ah, makes sense. I got a Brita Elite because low levels of lead were detected in my water. I stumbled across your video while trying to find explanations for why the filter only lasted one month instead of the six months it advertises on the box. I know I didn't use 120 gallons in a month. 😅
Check out this video about our overall pitchers testing project to see which ones performed best ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pkncz7PoBFs.html
PFAS chemicals were not one of the analytes included in the test kit we used. That said, the Brita Elite™ Filter (Model OB06 ) has been certified by IAPMO R&T against NSF/ANSI Standard 53 for the reduction of PFOA/PFOS (two of the most common PFAS compounds) pld.iapmo.org/file_info.asp?file_no=0013905
PFAs and microplastics require additional specialized testing that are not included in the Tap Score Advanced City Water Test kit we used for this project.
Good question 😁 Springwell CF to filter whole home water bit.ly/3Jz2tyP Aquatru countertop RO for drinking water geni.us/chlQv5o Clearly Filtered pitcher for traveling when I go in the car geni.us/VsUZHW1 Just to name a few I use regularly. I'm always testing water filters so using different systems all the time.
Boil water in multiple teapots 🫖 then cooldown( 3hrs ) and pour water into Zero Water Pitcher. THEN pour that filtered water in Brita pitcher (elite filter ) covered all bases . Replace filters every 5-6mo. Cheers 🍻
If this is municipal tap water you're treating, boiling isn't really going to be doing much for you except increasing the concentrations of most contaminants. Boiling is a method of disinfection, and water is already disinfected with chemicals at the treatment plant. Also, I'd recommend the Brita Elite filter before ZeroWater. Since the filters are cheaper, removing some contaminants first will help extend the life of the much more expensive zerowater filters 👍
Keep in mind a TDS reading doesn't account for all contaminants. Uncharged impurities like some organic contaminants and suspended solids including bacteria won't be detected by the meter. Unfortunately ZW marketing has misled a lot of folks into believing a TDS reading is sufficient to tell you if water is healthy or not. In reality, it's not. Check out this video to learn all about what a TDS meter does and does not measure ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yHvdYWXiVzI.htmlsi=fyVietuBVRTAoolf
Brita has been crap for years. It takes the chlorine smell and taste out, but not much more. It's far too simple a filter, and at one time the filters actually added unwanted elements to the water that you thought you were filtering ! I recommend the ZERO Water Filter.
ZeroWater is solid, but didn't completely eliminate DBPs in our test. Did you see the video of those lab results? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ud45hxCFQyM.html
All filtration systems are not good because they’re sitting in a plastic container, including clearly water you need to buy a water distiller so you can move everything from your tapwater. You should be getting your minerals from fruits and vegetables not your water. I don’t want to pay the electricity bill for water distiller so I just buy distilled water and use it for ice cubes and then also to clean things with, but I buy springwater and glass bottles and also Icelandic water and glass bottles which are the two best waters in my opinion in the world internationally Icelandic and the mountain valley Springwater filters also retain tons of bacteria you have to test the filtered water pretty much every week for bacteria buildup, which is not healthy about the heavy metals and all the solids. It’s the bacteria that’s the issue, so nobody should ever buy a reverse osmosis water system or any filtered pitchers unless that’s all you can afford then it’s better than nothing
There was still detectible uranium in the water post-filtration. The most conservative health protective benchmarks for uranium are 0 ppm and are based on adverse kidney system effects observed in both humans and animals. Animal studies have also shown female reproductive system and developmental toxicity related to uranium exposure. So even though PUR reduced it by 80%, there are better options that provide greater reduction.
You won't believe this but I think the elite brita filter is what's making my hair fall out. I've always used distilled water to wash my hair with, because tap just made it greasy. Switched to filtered water and then the elite filter because I needed non distilled drinking water, so might as well use a tap filter. Today, I took a bath and the brita water and did not dry my hair, uncharacteristically. Sure enough after an hour my scalp started itching again and pulling hair with it. Impossible, I actually drank this water for a couple of months, if simply letting skin come in contact can cause such severe symptoms, what would it do to me drinking it? And yet when I stopped drinking it I noticed no change. Anyhow, the itching gets worse, I wash my hair again but this time with distilled. No more itching. So the only explanation I have is this fucking filter is leaching toxins, nobody figured it because nobody is washing their hair with it, and few people use the elite filter. Of course it's a company, nobody is checking them, they only check for some chemicals. Unfriggingbelievable. I'll update if I have to retract this and the cause is something else. EDIT: just unbelievable. In the land where everyone agrees don't drink tap, there's no proper regulation on water filters, for example making sure they don't release chemicals. No epa or fda. And who makes the filters? The harsh cleaning chemicals company clorox. Just doesn't get any better. I repeat, I put the brita water ON my hair and it fell OUT! Like I'm living in chernobyl or some 3rd world country. EDIT 3 weeks later: it definitely made my hair itch and aggravated the hair loss. That alone is enough for me never to touch clorox brita filters again. And I did my research on lack of regulation per above. But the main reason for the hair loss was too fast iron chelation. Mind you, not too much, just too fast.
That's a pretty bold statement. The Elite filters are certified by the WQA and IAPMO to NSF/ANSI 42, 53 and 401 for the reduction of 15 contaminants, meaning they've undergone rigorous testing and can reliably address these contaminants in water for the specified capacity: find.wqa.org/find-products#/keyword/OB06 pld.iapmo.org/file_info.asp?file_no=0013905
@@BillyAu Well, to summarize for you: Your Brita pitcher might be useless if you have contaminants in your water that it's unable to address, like fluoride or uranium in our case.
TL;DR: Brita doesn't filter everything. Know what's in your water before buying a filter. Brita is certified for a handful of contaminants, which it is a great low cost option for
This statement is false and misinformed. The most nefarious contaminants that pose risk to human health are undetectable by our senses (including taste) - the most infamous example being lead contamination from outdated infrastructure.
