PRODUCT REVIEW: DUPONT'S MODEL WF-FM350 FAUCET MOUNT WATER FILTER

Back in 1988 while I was living in St. Louis, a Shell Oil pipeline broke near Vienna, Missouri and spilled 20,554 barrels of crude oil into the Gasconade River.  That crude oil flowed from Vienna to Gasconade, Missouri where it dumped into the Missouri River.  Once the crude oil reached the Missouri River, there was no chance of preventing it from mixing with the Mississippi River a short time later.  For the geographically challenged, I will mention here that the Missouri River empties into the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri.  So a few days after the spill took place in Vienna, the 863,268 gallons of crude oil reached St. Louis.  Can you guess the source of all the drinking water for the city of St. Louis?  That's right.  The metropolitan water district of St. Louis was now challenged with making sure that the crude oil was removed from the city's drinking water.

Shortly after the crude oil reached the St. Louis area, the City of St. Louis Water Division began testing samples of their treated water and pronounced that the crude oil had no adverse effect on the city's drinking water.  They proclaimed the water safe to drink.  But the City of St. Louis Water Division's largest customer disagreed.

At the time of this crude oil spill, it was reported that the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis used over one million gallons of water each day in the brewing of their beer, and all of this water was supplied by the city of St. Louis.  Anheuser-Busch tested the crude-oil-tainted water and proclaimed it unfit for their beer and shut down brewing operations for two weeks.  It then became clear to me that I should not just glibly accept the tap water in my house as being clean.   If it was not good enough for the brewing of beer, then I doubted that it was good enough to drink.   I began to consume bottled water and I began to filter the tap water that I drank.

Over the years I have tried several water filters in my home and I have found none better than the one that I currently use.  I tried the Brita products and the Pur products, and while I do not have a specific complaint about the Brita products , I will say that I became very frustrated with the Pur faucet mount filters because they were less than sturdy.  I purchased three Pur faucet mount filters and each one of them failed just outside of the warranty period.   The failure was always a small crack in the filter housing that allowed unfiltered water to run into my glass.

Eighteen months ago I purchased the DuPont 4 Phase Deluxe Faucet Mount water filter, Model WF-FM350.  I purchased it at Wal-Mart for $36.88.  This filter was very easy to mount on my kitchen faucet, and I have not had any trouble with it at all.  It is certified to filter particulate, the taste and odor of chlorine, asbestos, atrazine, benzene, carbofuran, dinoseb, lead, lindane, mercury, and tetrachlorethylene.   The filter provides filtration for 200 gallons of water, twice as much as the Pur filters, and the replacement filters are priced at $13.88 at Wal-Mart.

The DuPont water filtration system has a fourth stage of filtration that you will not find on the Pur or Brita products.  This stage is an antimicrobial product protection called Microban.   This stage actually protects the carbon filter itself from microbes that might look for a home in the filter.   I suspect that it is this antimicrobial protection that allows the filter to clean twice as much water as competing filters.

The most convenient feature of this product is the electronic filter life meter. The filter has a backlit LCD display that informs you of the number of gallons of water that have been filtered by the filter.  I love this feature.  I no longer have to make painful mental calculations in an attempt to determine whether my water filter is still working.   The $36.88 for the filter system is a little bit more than for the similar Pur filter systems, but this electronic filter life meter feature more than justifies the additional cost.

There is one negative that I should mention.  I have never been able to actually filter 200 gallons of water with one of the filters.  At between 130 and 150 gallons, the water flow becomes too slow for me to tolerate and I replace the filter.  I have never experienced a degradation in the taste nor the clarity of the water.   I believe that if I were more patient and could tolerate that reduced flow, the filter would probably provide me with pure water for the entire 200 gallons.  I should also mention that I live on the fifth floor of a building that was built in 1970.   Over that past few years I have been required on several occasions to remove the aerator from the bathroom faucet in order to remove copius deposits of sediment that had severely restricted water flow.   I suspect that these same deposits of sediment have affected the water flow out of my water filter.

I highly recommend the Dupont water filter system. It provides clean, healthy water at a reasonable price, and you never have to wonder whether the filter is still working.

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