Filters and you: Selecting and maintaining

How to select and maintain your Aquakleen filter

In this article, we will detail different key points for the selection and maintenance of Aquakleen filters and the different size systems that they are used in, to help you decide which Aquakleen filter is better for you and your home or business. More restaurants are becoming involved in the Aquakleen revolution because of the cleaner taste provided by Aquakleen brand filtration, which affects flavors in the final product in more ways than one.

Buying an Aquakleen active carbon filter can save you tons of money in the long run vs. the constant purchase of bottled water. This will also help reduce your carbon footprint, something e at Aquakleen feel strongly about. Food and drinks will be purer in flavor without the adverse flavors that can come from different mineral contents in unfiltered water. However, you need to carefully choose the right Aquakleen filter system for your water and home. A conscious purchase takes longer, but is well worth the extra time and research. Aquakleen representatives are known for being willing to go the extra mile with our customers to find out the exact right system for them. Don’t be afraid to go check out a few Aquakleen reviews and contact one of the representatives - many Aquakleen customers mention their preferred representative by name.

First, it is worth choosing an Aquakleen filter model that uses ionizer technology, which is currently the most advanced filtration technology available on the mass market. Aquakleen ionized systems don’t need to have the filters changed as often because the Aquakleen patented ionizer helps to prevent mineral buildup. When considering investment cost over time, you should look at the price of replacement Aquakleen filters as well as the initial product and installation costs. For installed  Aquakleen filtration systems, replacement filters will be more expensive, but will only need to be changed once a year on average, compared to carafe filters, which are cheaper to replace and install, but will need to be change every month or so. Pricing in your area should be accounted for in your calculations, although Aquakleen vendors will have the same prices world-round if you have one near you.

Every Aquakleen filtration system will need the filter changed at some regular interval

There’s no escaping this. When a filter becomes saturated with sediment and mineral buildup, contaminants may begin to re-incorporate into the water supply, so the manufacturer's (Aquakleen or otherwise) recommendations should be followed to change it before this occurs. This interval depends on the quality of the water and the volume of water filtered. In general, you’ll notice the flavor of your water reverting to how it tasted before you installed the filter - this is your indicator that you should have changed the filter a couple of days ago! It is important to keep in mind that depending on the quality of the drinking water that is being filtered, sometimes it may be wise to change filters before the recommended interval. The approximate replacement schedules are:

- Small filters (carafe filters): monthly, or every 150 - 300 liters filtered.

- Medium filters (filter fitted on the tap): every three months, or every 1200 liters.

- Large filters (countertop or under-sink filters, for entire homes): every 9 months or 1 year, or every 8000 liters filtered.

If you want to monitor your filter’s effectiveness, there are test kits similar to those used in swimming pools to keep track of the PH of the water.  This will allow you to have a better idea of when buildups are forming, and when the filter will need to be changed ahead of time, avoiding the unpleasant experience of having your water revert to its original, unfiltered quality, and avoiding the small risk of contamination from bacterial growth in the old filter.

Filtered water contains no specific protection against bacterial contaminants, which is one of the main reasons to maintain your filters regularly. Beyond this, it helps to keep filtered drinking water refrigerated if it is not going to be consumed the same day. Cleaning out the storage container is never a bad idea either!

It’s also worth noting that only filtering drinking water, while ignoring cooking and bathing water, is not the complete Aquakleen experience that we envision. This includes our impact on the environment, a subject that we at Aquakleen feel strongly about and hope to improve with our business. These smaller filters are a far heavier burden on the environment than a full in home filtration system, as they generate more waste by virtue of needing to be changed every month or so. This is another reason we wholeheartedly recommend a full Aquakleen filtration system. Be good to yourself and the planet. Larger Aquakleen filtration systems, including those on countertops and larger, reduce waste generation by using the same filter for a much longer period of time.

In some countries, there are systems in place to recycle Aquakleen filters and filtration cartridges, but this is dependent on the individual Aquakleen vendor, and this service is not widely available in the Spanish speaking world. Some manufacturers promise that their filters are the only one on the market that don’t need to be treated as contaminated waste, but we at Aquakleen are going to be honest with you - active carbon is a difficult material to manage and to dispose of in a responsible way, and no company, Aquakleen or otherwise, has overcome this obstacle in full. In full scale industrial operations, there are cleaning materials that can be used to prepare the carbon for another use, be we at Aquakleen focus more on small scale filtration in people’s homes. No cost-effective method has been created yet for cleaning and reusing these small scale Aquakleen filters, and the unfortunate reality is that this leads to many filters being incinerated or occupying space in a landfill. This is something we are against, and Aquakleen employees and developers are always looking for ways to solve this issue and reduce the environmental impact of Aquakleen products.