Watts Premier UF-3 Three-Stage Under Counter Ultra Filtration System

At first I looked at reverse osmosis systems but was put off by the wasted water and having to tamper with the drain pipe under the sink. So I kept looking and found that the UF-3 has pretty good filtration specs, down to 0.2 microns thanks to the UF membrane. This system, certified to meet NSF/ANSI Standard 53, is able to take care of volatile organic compounds (VOC), heavy metals, and fluoride. See what the NSF certification entails here:[...]and here: [...]. Having used a Seagull IV water filter system for the past 20 years, this was a step up in filtration quality. I was a bit hesitant to do the installation since several reviewers commented about missing parts, leaks, and about the plastic T-junction (the piece that connects the green tube to the water source). But since Costco also sells the UF3, I figured that it couldn't be that bad since the store seems to carry mainly high quality products. I do admit that there is some confusion in the instructions. The faucet was made for three different systems and has three sets of instructions printed right on the box. Ignore all of them since the correct instructions are in the installation pamphlet. I did have left over a 1" rubber gasket that didn't seem to be needed for the faucet installation and was not mentioned in the instructions. The instructions mention a brass and a plastic T-junction. Mine was plastic and it installed easily once I ignored the complicated instructions for the brass version. The junction worked perfectly well. The green tube connects to it with a dead-simple quick connect method (the John Guest locking system): just stick the hose into the hole and push. Same easy method is used to connect the green and blue tubes to the filter assembly. Much simpler and easier than dealing with sleeves and nuts. For the connections that require nuts and sleeves, I wrapped a bit of white teflon tape around the threads to improve the seal. When I first turned on the water a few drops came out of the green hose at the filter unit. Turns out I hadn't pushed the hose far enough! I screwed the blue tube's connector nut at the faucet shank pretty tightly and got no leaks. I ran the water for a few minutes and didn't notice any of the carbon particles mentioned in the instructions. My old Seagull filter did put out quite a bit of grayish looking water for the first few gallons. Overall I'm very happy with the installation and the water is definitely better tasting.

I replaced an Aquasana single tap unit with the UF-3, and it's just so much better (at least, so far). The Aquasana filters would slowly reduce the flow rate just a few weeks after replacing them, to the point where the flow was a weak trickle, so I was motivated to find something from a different manufacturer. Glad that I found Watts Premiere. It has a much better flow rate than the Aquasana, despite the Aquasana claiming to filter 2x or 3x faster. Flavor is great (although so was Aquasana's) and having a dedicated tap for the filtered water just works so much better than the Aquasana single tap approach. The specs on the UF-3 are better, too, from what I can tell. But I've only had this installed for week, so things may change once it's been working for a while. The install is pretty straightforward, with one exception - you need a knockout punch for a stainless sink, like mine. They're kind of a pain to use, but you only have to do it once. Factor in to your DIY price. Everything proved to be leak free after installation. Even with the need to make a hole in my sink, it was actually easier to install than the Aquasana. Aquasana's design requires using hand tools for some of the fasteners, because of awkward placement that seems to serve no functional purpose, and it requires 10 fasteners to be installed. The UF-3 just needed two, and is power-tool friendly. The faucet is decent quality, but ugly as sin. I'd really like to replace it with something that better matches my sink, but I have no idea what to get. I'll just deal with it. You get a filter set that requires replacement for two cylinders at 6 months, the third at one year. I was able to order a full year's worth of replacements for about $85 (less than half of what Aquasana replacements cost) with some careful shopping. With this ROI, I didn't feel that badly about chucking the old unit in the garbage, where it belongs.

Before I selected this, I considered the Multi-Pure MP750SB and the AquaPure AP-DWS1000. Both were highly reviewed on Consumer Reports but were also considerably more expensive than this unit, each costing more than $300. I'm sure both got the job done but I couldn't find a reason to spend an extra $200 to $300 for a filter that didn't appear to be more effective than the Watts Premier. Also, the two more expensive filters had few reviews here and the ones that were written seemed suspiciously biased. Anyway, I selected the Watts Premier mainly due to the high ratings here, its reasonable price, its use of widely available Watts filters and the certifications that validated its effectiveness. I was apprehensive about the installation after reading the problems some people had with it but mine went smoothly and without problems. I was concerned about the effectiveness of the plastic diverter valve but it worked fine. I took another reviewer's advice to use teflon tape to make a tighter fit between the brass fittings and the plastic valve. I was also concerned about these snap-in, connectors you slide the plastic tubes into. I wasn't convinced they would create a water-tight seal, but they did. After hooking this filter system up (which took about an hour), I let the water run and was relieved to find no leaks. As other reviewers have noted, make sure you push the plastic tube all the way into their connectors. Give them a slight tug to verify they are in. Also, you may need an extra hand to keep the faucet steady as you tighten the nut from underneath the sink. I was impressed by the quality of the included stainless steel faucet and was surprised at how attractive and well-built it was. Since the water filter was the focus of this package, I expected the faucet to be more of an after-thought. But the faucet's high quality exceeded my expectations. Of course, pain-free installation and quality faucet aside, I bought this unit for its water filtering capability. And I'm happy to report it filtered the water just fine. The water tasted great. I immediately noticed the lack of chlorine taste and smell. I couldn't tell the difference between this water and the water from my old reverse osmosis filter. In conclusion, I'm very satisfied with this purchase.

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. 12/26/2013 Update The filter system continues to work fine. The push button cartridge system still works well without leaking. The weak point is the faucet which has minor seepage at the rotating handle point. So far, this has just resulted in a few drips and mineral deposits not warranting changing the faucet.

The area I live in has very hard water that has a considerable amount of chlorine added during the treatment process. The water out of the tap did not taste good, and my wife and I were concerned about the chemical content (there is a Superfund site nearby). Testing showed that the water was high in, as expected, chlorine, bromine, and dissolved solids. We decided on this filter because of the chemical removal rates and when compounds it removed. The taste of the water after the filter is very good, and vastly improved over the tap. This device does not advertise the removal of dissolved solids, but we have noticed that our electric kettle had not calcified as fast as usual while using water from the Watts system. The installation was simple and the body of the device is relatively small, which worked well for our under counter space. The quality of the valve and nozzle are very good and we have had no problems as of the writing of this review. I didn't give this 5 stars because of the supply line tubing quality. The fittings on the filter body are the quick-disconnect barb type meaning that there are no tool required, simply push the supplied rigid polypropylene tubing into the fitting. The initial install had drips that occurred at the fittings at the body. There is nothing you can do but remove the tube and cut a bit off and re-insert the tube and hope it fixed the problem. I found that the tubing is of the extruded type and as such has a very faint seam along the length. In some places the seam is rougher than others and I believe this caused the leak. I flame polished the end of the tubing with a lighter (not recommended if you have never done something like this before) to smooth out the seam. This fixed the problem. The point is that I shouldn't have had to do that in the first place! Someone else may have to return the system if they had this issue, and its a quality concern that could be easily fixed at the factory. Great filter otherwise and my problem may have been an isolated issue. I would definitely buy this filter system again, and would recommend it. The replacement pack 560039 UF-3 is also a great deal and easy to install.

System was easy to install and worked well UNTIL the plastic water shut off they supply cracked and flooded 1/3 of my 1st floor. It's only 2-3 years old and not covered under the one year warranty. No-one local carries the valve and Premier wants $16.67 for the valve and almost $40 for shipping. You'd think for customer relations they would send me one for free since this could have resulted in thousands of dollars in damage if it hadn't been caught within 1-2 hours of the failure. Three members of my family have these systems but I will not reccomend it in the future.

When I'm about to order an item through Amazon, I usually read several of the reviews with high ratings, and skip most of those that assign very low ratings. But with this UF3 filter, I should definitely have concentrated more on the negative reviews. Or I should have taken note of the rather high number of negative reviews, and at least skimmed through a few of them. They would probably have saved me a lot of time, and some money. My bad. At any rate, here's a negative review of this product that describes why I don't like the product itself, along with a few positive "caveats" about why this filter might just work for you. First, I live in the country and use well water. I don't know why that should matter to this filter's performance, but apparently it does. Chlorine is not a problem here; sediment is. Very, very fine sediment--like silt--that passes right through most whole house sediment filters often appears in the water, especially if the well pump has recently been power-cycled. I bought the Watts Premier UF3 3-stage filter because it promised, among other things, a high-quality, small micron sediment filter. Just to be sure, and as recommended by many of the reviewers, I also bought an HM Digital TDS-EZ meter to test total dissolved solids. I've since kept the meter and returned the filter. Installation was a little more time-consuming than I thought it would be. I have an old porcelain-covered, cast iron sink and needed to visit the local big box hardware store to buy a diamond tipped, 1/2" hole saw (adding $24 to the cost of this unit). I didn't struggle with the instructions as much as others apparently have. Don't know why. And all the parts seemed to be of as high quality as anything else is these days; read between the lines at will there. The filters themselves seemed stout enough. The Calif. Prop. 65 warning gave me some heartburn, but I figured if the product worked as advertised, it shouldn't be a problem. Overall, when I finally got everything installed, and had drained 3+ gallons of water through the filter, I was pretty pumped up. Then I tested the water with the TDS-EZ meter: Tap water (passed through 2 whole house filters and a water softener): TDS 186 ppm Tap water (filtered as above) and passed through Watts Premier UF3: TDS 204 ppm That's a 10% increase in dissolved solids coming out of the UF3-filtered water. Hmm... Sub-optimal. How could the TDS count increase so significantly after passing through a 3-stage filter? I called the customer service number listed in the instruction manual, and was told by an automated voice that my wait time would be at least 28 minutes (on a Monday afternoon). No thanks. So I filled out their online customer service report form (i.e., an email). After submitting it, a window popped up and asked for a 3-day grace period before hearing back from them. That was 10 days ago. Nothing heard yet. I packed up the filter and sent it back to Amazon, who graciously returned my money--at least most of it--despite my having passed the normal product return window. (I'd kept it unopened until the day I actually installed it.) Would I recommend this product to a friend? No. Would this product make heavily chlorinated water taste better? Probably, but I have no way of knowing myself Would this product make well water taste better, or reduce sediment that has already passed through standard whole house filters? Unlikely

Bought this item and installed it in April 2013; have been using it multiple times a day since. I have to say that of all the things I have installed in my house recently, this has improved the quality of my life the most. I have nothing negative to say about this unit other than the directions were a bit confusing (like another reviewer, I ended up with a spare washer and couldn't figure out why). I did not even bother trying to use the plastic joint that came with the unit; I went to the Home Despot and bought the metal piece that other reviewers have suggested. Once I got everything hooked up and turned the water on, I had some leaking under the sink. I took everything apart and removed the Teflon tape I had put around the pipe fittings, hooked everything back up, and no leaks. (I'm guessing it was the Teflon tape, which the directions did not say to use, so this was very much user error.) I kept a towel and a bowl under the sink for a few days just in case anything leaked again, but nothing ever did. The hardest part was drilling a hole in the top of my stainless steel sink (tip: you're going to have to charge up your cordless drill about 5 times in the process). The features of this unit that have pleased me the most are: 1. Spigot is very nice looking, not cheapo. I have not had the dripping problems another reviewer mentioned; when the spigot is turned off, the water comes to an immediate halt and does not drip. Nor have I had any leaking around the handle or base. I also like how the spigot pivots, so I can rest a large pot in the sink, turn on the spigot, and go do something else while the pot fills. 2. Fantastic rate of flow from the spigot. I can fill up a big pot from the spigot in under a minute. I don't know how the filters work that fast, but it's absolutely wonderful. 3. Purification is extensive. I looked at many other filters that don't filter out as much as this one does, especially for lead (water flows into my house through lead pipes), and I'm pleased that the rate of flow does not seem to be affected by the fact that the water goes through three filters. I just ordered the year's supply of filters from Amazon, and it costs about $75. ---------------------------------- Update, June 2016: After a couple years, the spigot corroded very badly at the tip, and rust spots appeared all over the neck. The unit still works flawlessly (no drips or leaking), but the corrosion is rather unsightly. On another note, I have changed the filters several times since installing the unit, and it's extremely easy to do. If you're interested in this filter, I suggest you buy a different spigot, but keep the filter! I'm not lowering my rating, since the filter is still very effective. I'll just plan to replace the spigot with that of another brand.