Proof That Most Water Purifiers Don’t Work!
The Water Filtration Systems were tested for their ability to remove copper, dye, fluoride, and chlorine from water. The Water Filtration Systems were also tested to see how long it takes to filter 2 cups of water. Dreo, Megahome, ZeroWater, Clearly Filtered, Epic Water Filters, LifeStraw, Aquagear, Seychelle, Amazon Basics, Brita, PUR, and Waterdrop were tested. I purchased all the Water Filtration Systems to ensure an unbiased review. So, thank you for supporting the channel. ➡ Project Farm Extra: 
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Transcript
0:00 · I used to think that drinking tap water was just fine and safe, but I no longer believe that. So, the question is, is this $16 water filter just as good as the one that cost $300? Well, let's find out. In the first test, we'll see which water filter performs the best at removing copper. Then we'll see which one does the best job with chlorine and fluoride. We'll also see which one clears up water the best. Finally, we'll cut open all the water filters and see how they're constructed. At a price of only $16, the least expensive water filter we'll be testing is made by Waterdrop. They claim it's NSF and ANSI certified. They claim a 3-month or 200-gallon lifespan. It has a capacity of seven cups.
0:31 · They claim it reduces chlorine. We're going to test that. And the Waterdrop is made in China. Soak the filter in tap water for 10 minutes.
0:38 · Let's kick off our first test and let's continue using distilled water, which has zero parts per million of dissolved solids. Let's begin using these water test strips. The distilled water that I'll be using passed the test and doesn't appear to contain any of the 17 contaminants. Let's create our test water first by adding 5 gallons of water into this water jug. The water inside the water jug is still at zero parts per million. The water also passed the test for the 17 contaminants. Let's add 40 ml of copper to the water. I'll stir the water to make sure that the copper is spread throughout the water as evenly as possible. And water is now at 94 parts per million of copper.
1:08 · As expected, the test strip is showing that the water is very high in copper. Let's see how long each water filter takes to filter two cups of water and then we'll test the filtered water for copper. It took very close to a minute to filter two cups of water for the Waterdrop. I'll toss out the first two cups of filtered water and then run two more cups of contaminated water through the filter. The water started off at 94 parts per million and now it's down to 81 parts per million.
1:30 · Unless the filter is exchanging something for the copper, it appears that there's a lot of copper still in this water. According to the test strip, there's still a lot of copper in this water. So, let's use a tester specifically designed to test copper in water. I'll add the filtered water to the cuvette and then I'll add the reagent. And there's obviously a lot of copper in this sample as the water is no longer clear. The tester maxes out at five parts per million and the tester is indeed maxed out with this sample at over five parts per million. At a price of $25, is this is brand? It has a capacity of eight cups. They claim it's certified to reduce two times more chemical and physical substances compared to Brita.
2:01 · They claim that their water pitcher is BPA-free. The Pure is made in Mexico and the filter is made in Mexico or Thailand. Rinse the filter in cold water for 15 seconds before using.
2:10 · Carbon dust is normal in the first filling. Insert the filter and twist to lock. Press and change the filter light for 5 seconds to reset. Just like the Waterdrop, I've already purged the filter and I did use distilled water.
2:20 · The Waterdrop is basically an activated carbon filter and the Pure is an activated carbon filter with an ion exchange. The Pure needs more than twice as much time to filter the water compared to the Waterdrop at 2 minutes and 28 seconds for 2 cups of water. I'll dispose of the first 2 cups and run two more cups of test water through the water filter. The water started off at 94 parts per million and now it's very close to 68 parts per million of total dissolved solids. So, the Pure seems to be removing more dissolved solids than the Waterdrop. The test strips aren't too precise, but it appears to be between 1 and 3 parts per million of copper.
2:49 · Once I added the reagent, the water filtered by the Pure is changing colors, but it looks quite a bit better compared to the Waterdrop. And 1.89 parts per million of copper is quite a bit better than the Waterdrop. At a price of $28, this Amazon Basics brand has a capacity of 10 cups. WQA certified against NSF 42, 53, 401, and 372 standards. It's supposed to remove quite a few different contaminants. The pitcher is made in Poland and the filter cartridge is made in the UK. The Amazon Basics is making a lot faster progress than the Pure at filtering 2 cups of water.
3:18 · And the Amazon Basics is finished in a minute and 28 seconds or about a minute faster. I'll continue to toss out the first 2 cups and I'll filter two more cups of water that have the high copper levels. And 72 parts per million is a little bit higher than the Pure.
3:31 · After adding the reagent, there appears to be quite a bit of copper remaining in this water. And the results from the tester show 3.12 parts per million, which is better than the Waterdrop, but not quite as good as the Pure. At a price of $34, this Zero Water brand is a 10-cup ready to pour five-stage water filter. They claim zero total dissolved solids for improved tap water taste.
3:49 · Just like the previous brands, this one is also certified. The Zero Water is assembled in Mexico with imported components. And the ZeroWater even comes with a TDS meter. Twist filter into the bottom of the reservoir. Tighten the filter until there's a complete seal between the filter, blue o-ring, and reservoir. Fill reservoir with cool or ambient water directly onto the filter.
4:06 · Discard the first two reservoirs of water and replace the lid. With the ZeroWater, the water has to travel through five different stages before the filtering process is finished. As you might expect, the ZeroWater takes the most amount of time yet at 2 minutes and 48 seconds for two cups of water. Let's repeat the process one more time. And the ZeroWater is at zero parts per million of total dissolved solids, the lowest number yet. The water test strip is showing that there's no detectable amounts of copper in the ZeroWater's filtered water. And the ZeroWater took some really contaminated water down to only 0.07 parts per million of copper.
4:36 · Very impressive. This is definitely a safe number and the drinking water is safe. At a price of $41, is this Brita filter? It's supposed to remove 99% lead and a whole bunch of other chemicals. It has a 10-cup capacity. The water filter is supposed to last 6 months. It's a product of the Dominican Republic with global materials. The ZeroWater filter is on the right and the Brita is on the left. There's a huge difference in size between the two filters. Press firmly to ensure that the filter is secure. Go and add cold tap water. Pour out the first three pitchers of water. Brita has a much smaller filter than the ZeroWater and it's also filtering water a lot faster.
5:07 · This is probably the most popular water filter brand in the US.
5:11 · The question is, is it the best water filter? And the Brita is finished in about a minute and 30 seconds, which is pretty fast. Brita feminine name with Scandinavian and Germanic origins and it means exalted one, strength or high one.
5:21 · And the Brita is at 73 parts per million, but the question remains, is that copper or did the filter exchange the copper for something else? And there's definitely a lot of copper in this water as it now looks purple. And the tester is completely pegged at five parts per million. At a price of $52, is this LifeStraw brand? The pitcher has a capacity of seven cups. They claim the filter will last for 264 gallons or 1 year. The activated carbon plus ion exchange cartridges last 40 gallons.
5:45 · They claim it reduces chlorine, lead, and a whole bunch of other chemicals.
5:49 · They also claim protection against bacteria and parasites. And the Lifestraw is made in South Korea. Rinse the carbon filter under cold water for 1 minute. Put the filter housing back in the pitcher and run one batch of water through the filter. Remove the filter housing and pat dry. Pull down and twist the bottom cap of the filter housing to remove. Install carbon filter into the housing cap. Press cap back onto housing. They don't call this system the Lifestraw for nothing. After 6 minutes, I stopped the camera and we're now back at 33 minutes and the Lifestraw is finally finished filtering two cups of water. Let's go ahead and filter two more cups of water.
6:18 · Lifestraw uses a microfiltration membrane, activated carbon, and ion exchange. And the Lifestraw is showing around 28 parts per million. Since this filter does use ion exchange, is there still copper in the water? Is it possible that those dissolved solids are now safer ions such as sodium? And the Lifestraw did a great job of removing the copper at only 0.03 parts per million. Very impressive. At a price of $70, is this AquaGear brand.
6:42 · They claim it removes 20 times more contaminants than a traditional pitcher.
6:45 · They claim third-party tested to filter lead and chlorine. They also claim that it keeps the good minerals in. They claim the filter is supposed to last 120 gallons or three times longer than most standard filters. And the AquaGear is made in the USA. Attach or hold the flushing assembly to the faucet. Run water for 2 minutes through the filter at low pressure. Screw the filter cartridge onto the reservoir securely.
7:04 · Place the reservoir into the pitcher and secure the lid on top of the pitcher.
7:08 · The AquaGear is quite a bit faster than the Lifestraw at around 3 minutes and 43 seconds for two cups of water. I had to condition the AquaFilter using my home tap water, which is around 250 parts per million. This is definitely going to throw off the TDS results, but let's go ahead and test the total dissolved solids anyway. 92 parts per million is pretty high, but some of that is from the tap water. And the AquaGear's filtered water appears safe to drink at only 0.24 parts per million, which seems pretty good. At a price of $79, is this Epic Water brand. They claim it eliminates 99.9% of contaminants.
7:34 · They claim it removes 2,000% more contaminants than leading water filter pitchers. It's supposed to be good for 150 gallons of fresh water. They claim it's been tested against official testing standards. It has a capacity of up to 10 cups. According to the manufacturer, this filter system does not remove 100% of the contaminants in the water. And the Epic Water system is made in the USA. I'll go ahead and fill the reservoir with cold tap water and let it filter through completely. I'll go ahead and throw out the first two jugs of filtered water. I believe that the Epic Water system uses both carbon as well as an ion exchange system.
8:05 · And the Epic Water takes quite a bit longer than most of the other brands at around 5 minutes and 8 seconds. According to the TDS meter, only four parts per million. The Epic Water doesn't seem to be experiencing too much color change with the reagent. And 0.26 parts per million of copper should be safe to drink. At a price of $80, is this Sante Shay brand. They claim it's a pH enhancing filtration system. Designed to remove lead, mercury, asbestos, and chromium and several other contaminants.
8:30 · Water has to pass through both water filters for several minutes under pressure from a faucet. It's supposed to enhance the pH up to 9.5. They claim a capacity of 64 oz or 8 cups. And the Sante Shay is made in USA. The Sante Shay seems to be making a little bit faster progress than the Epic Water. And the Sante Shay is finished in just over 4 minutes. I did have to condition both filters using tap water, which has over 250 parts per million. So, the TDS results are no surprise at 138 parts per million. And the Sante Shay is also delivering safe drinking water at 0.72 parts per million. At a price of around $100, is this Clearly Filtered brand.
9:03 · They claim it targets 365 plus contaminants. They specifically mention fluoride and chlorine. It's supposed to remove up to 99.9%. They claim that their filter is supposed to last for 100 gallons. Third party independently tested to comply with NSF and ANSI standards. Remove the protective sticker covering the filter's intake holes. Flip the priming bag upside down so the priming disc is facing the faucet. Hold the disc below the faucet and fill the priming bag with cold water. Once the bag is full, twist the threaded base on the filter onto the disc until snug to create a seal between the two. Flip the bag right side up so the filter is oriented beneath the bag.
9:34 · Forcefully squeeze the bag with both hands to force water out of the filter. And the Clearly Filtered System is made in the USA. The Clearly Filtered Water System is quite a bit slower than average and is finally finished in around 13 minutes for two cups of water. We just finished running another two cups of water through the filter and there's a total of 60 parts per million of total dissolved solids.
9:53 · Some of that might be sodium or some other exchanged ion. And the Clearly Filtered Water System did a great job at only 0.05 parts per million, which is safe to drink. At a price of around $270, is this Drio Reverse Osmosis Countertop System. What's nice about the Drio is that you do not have to hook up any sort of water lines. It's a seven-stage reverse osmosis water filter system. The reverse osmosis membrane filters down to 0.0001 microns. They claim to remove up to 99.9% of a thousand plus contaminants.
10:21 · It's very simple, you plug it in, flush twice, and enjoy purified water. They claim that the filters that come with this kit can purify up to 1,050 gallons.
10:29 · And the Drio is made in China. Fill the water tank only with fresh tap water just below the max water line. Place the raw water tank in position. The system automatically flushes and refills the pure water pitcher. The Drio is making pretty quick progress and I'm not entirely sure when we reach two cups.
10:44 · So, I'll go ahead and stop the test at two minutes. And the Drio filtered three cups in two minutes, which works out to around a minute 20 seconds for two cups.
10:51 · And the Drio is showing zero parts per million of total dissolved solids. The Drio also removed just about all the copper at 0.04 parts per million. And the most expensive system we'll be testing costs about $300 and is made by MegaHome. Unlike the other systems, this one is an actual water distiller. It distills the water at 212° Fahrenheit.
11:08 · It takes approximately 5.5 hours to make one gallon of distilled water. The interior and the exterior are made of 304 stainless steel. Water does not touch plastic. This is a used system that's been in use for about two years.
11:20 · As the water boils, vapor enters this tube and exits here. Water then transfers into a one-gallon glass pitcher. The system also includes a charcoal filter. I'll run just one batch of water through the water distiller.
11:30 · The water distiller is using around 575 watts, which is quite a bit of electricity and heat. I know from experience that this distiller takes about 5.5 hours for 1 gallon of water.
11:39 · The water distiller is the slowest system in the lineup at around 41 minutes for 2 cups of water, and the distilled water is at zero parts per million. There's right at 0.04 parts per million of copper, the same as the Drip O. Let's go ahead and test the water that's inside the water distiller, and there's just under 400 parts per million of total dissolved solids in the water that is still left and yet to be distilled. So, the Lifestraw Drip O made at home clearly filtered, and Zero Water did an excellent job in reducing the copper content below 0.1 parts per million. Aquagear Epic and Seychelle reduced the copper levels below 1 part per million.
12:09 · The amount of time a water filter takes to do its job might be a factor to consider, and the Waterdrop is the fastest at filtering 2 cups of water in very close to just 1 minute. The Drip O reverse osmosis 1 minute and 20 seconds, and Amazon Basics is close to a minute and 28 seconds. Let's add 1 gallon of very dirty pond water to 4 gallons of distilled water. Let's also add some red food coloring. Let's also toss in some probiotics. Right on the sodium fluoride bottle, it says toxic if swallowed. So, let's go ahead and add some sodium fluoride to the water. The water is definitely rich in fluoride and has maxed out the test strip.
12:37 · Let's see which water filters do the best job at reducing fluoride content and improving the appearance of the water. Let's first test the Waterdrop after I add some unfiltered water to a cup. The Waterdrop is improving the appearance of the water a little, but it still looks pretty red.
12:50 · The Waterdrop has around 502 parts per million, and the unfiltered water is actually lower at around 461 parts per million. Before we test the fluoride level, let's first test the color of the water using a copper tester. I'll start with the unfiltered water. The tester only measured the concentration of red dye in the water and not parts per million. And the unfiltered water has a color score of 0.33. We want this number to be as close to zero as possible, and the filtered water by the Waterdrop has just about as much color with the score of 0.31. The Pure seems to be doing a better job at removing red food coloring and improving the appearance of the water than the Waterdrop.
13:21 · And 384 parts per million of total dissolved solids is better than the unfiltered water. The Pure also performed a lot better for appearance with a score of 0.21. The Amazon Basics didn't perform quite as well as the Pur removing copper and the Amazon Basics water doesn't look to be quite as clear as the Pur water. And 427 parts per million is better than the unfiltered water, but not by much. The Pur scored 0.21 for a color score and the Amazon Basics is at 0.23. The Zero water has a five-stage filter. This is some really nasty water full of food coloring, bacteria, and fluoride.
13:50 · And the Zero water is looking very clear compared to the previous three brands.
13:55 · Very impressive. And the Zero water is now at zero parts per million. Very impressive. At zero parts per million, I'm looking forward to testing the fluoride content in a couple of minutes.
14:04 · And the Zero water scored perfect with a color score of zero. Very impressive.
14:08 · The Brita doesn't seem to be helping the appearance of the water by too much, but maybe it's helping a lot with the fluoride. And the Brita is at around 397 parts per million of total dissolved solids. And the color score is at 0.14, which is good enough to move into second place behind the Zero water. It's been around 33 minutes and the LifeStraw is finished filtering the water. The LifeStraw is around 357 parts per million of total dissolved solids. And the LifeStraw moves into third place behind the Brita with the color score of 0.18. AquaGear is doing a really good job at improving the clarity of the water and it seems to have a lot less color compared to most of the previous brands.
14:39 · However, there are now 456 parts per million of total dissolved solids in the water. The water does seem to be a little bit more cloudy compared to the Zero water. However, a color score of 0.1 is good enough to move into second place behind the Zero water. Epic is also doing a really good job at improving the clarity of the water and looks just as good as the Zero water.
14:56 · The water filtered by the Epic is now at 427 parts per million. And the Epic moves into a two-way tie with the Zero water with a perfect score of zero. Very impressive. The Seychelle is doing a pretty good job at cleaning up the water, but not nearly as well as the Epic. The water filtered by the Seychelle is now at 574 parts per million. The Seychelle performed quite a bit better than average with a color score of 0.07.
15:17 · The Clearly filter is doing a really good job at clearing up the water. It's been around 13 minutes and the water is worth the wait at only 177 parts per million. And the Clearly Filtered water scored perfect on the water color test with a score of zero. The DYLN is a reverse osmosis system, and it's working very quickly, and the water looks crystal clear. And the water filtered by the DYLN is at 10 parts per million, which is pretty good. And the DYLN also scored a perfect zero on the color test.
15:40 · The MegaHome Water Distiller system is the slowest water filtering system in the lineup, but is it worth the wait?
15:45 · The MegaHome water does look crystal clear, just like the water filtered by the DYLN. And there's only three parts per million of total dissolved solids.
15:51 · And the water distiller did a great job with a perfect score of zero. Just because water has total dissolved solids doesn't mean that the water is unsafe to drink. However, the ZeroWater came out on top at zero parts per million. The water distiller finished in second place at three parts per million, and DYLN reverse osmosis third at 10. So, five of the water filters cleaned up the water and scored a perfect zero for water clarity. According to a study referenced by the US Department of Health and Human Services website, high levels of fluoride exposure were associated with lower IQ in children. Not good. In the next test, let's see how much fluoride is still in the filtered water.
16:22 · The test strips will not provide a precise parts per million count, but it appears to be between 50 but less than 100 parts per million. Based upon the lighter color of the test strip compared to the water drop, the PUR appears to be closer to 100 than the water drop. Again, this is just an estimate, and the Amazon Basics appears to be between 25 and 50 parts per million, the best yet. And it appears that the ZeroWater did remove all the fluoride as a color matches the zero parts per million color. Very impressive. The Brita appears to have performed a little bit better than average at just over 50 parts per million.
16:51 · The LifeStraw looks close to the same as the Brita at just over 50 parts per million. So, let's consider it a tie. The AquaGear performed better than most of the other brands on this test at around 25 to 40 parts per million. Again, this is just an estimate, and the color of the water filtered by the Epic appears to be around 10 parts per million. The test strip for the Seychelle is a light pink, and it appears to be between 50 and 100 parts per million. Just like the ZeroWater, the Clearly Filtered did a really good job on this test, and it appears to be between 0 and 10 parts per million.
17:18 · The DYL reverse osmosis system has done a terrific job, and the test strips appear to be almost a perfect match with 0 parts per million of fluoride. When it comes to water purification, a water distiller is considered the gold standard by many, and the MegaHome water distiller appears to remove all the fluoride from the water. Using water test strips to measure fluoride content is definitely not a perfect test, and I've tried to do the best I can to estimate the fluoride content. The test water was definitely badly saturated with fluoride to distinguish the filters that most thoroughly remove fluoride. And the ZeroWater DYL and MegaHome appear to remove all of the fluoride.
17:48 · The Clearly Filtered also came pretty close. In the next test, let's add just enough chlorine to the water so that the chlorine smell is present. Every once in a while, the tap water in my home has a very strong chlorine smell. I'm using a specific tester and reagent designed for detecting bleach. The unfiltered water test sample turned red once I added the reagent. The unfiltered water is in really bad shape with a maximum rating of 3.5 on the tester. I tested all the water filters. Unfortunately, all of them scored perfect on this test, removing all of the chlorine content.
18:17 · Let's cut open each of the filters, beginning with the Waterdrop. And the oscillating tool made very quick work of the Waterdrop. And the Waterdrop is packed full of loose filtering media.
18:25 · The PUR performed better than the Waterdrop throughout most of the testing. And the PUR filtering media does look quite a bit different than the Waterdrops. The Amazon Basics trailed the PUR in some of the tests, but seemed to perform better at filtering fluoride.
18:35 · And the filter media looks similar to the Waterdrops. The ZeroWater performed very well in this review. There are five stages in the filtering process with the ZeroWater, and this filter is packed full of filtering media. The filter media inside the Brita does look quite a bit different than the previous brands.
18:48 · The LifeStraw has two different filters.
18:50 · The first filter appears to be a carbon-based filtering media. The second filter's media looks quite a bit different than the other brands and appears to be some sort of microfiltration membrane. The Epic Water Filter seems to be quite a bit different than the other brands. I believe that this is a carbon filter with ion exchange. The filter media with the AquaCleer looks similar to the Epic. I believe it's carbon as well as ion exchange. The Santeau has two of these filters, and they're both the same. The filter media looks similar to the Aqua Clears. They clearly filtered performed very well in this review compared to most of the other brands. And the filter media looks much more robust and complex in the previous five brands.
19:20 · So, which water filter is the best? The left side of the scorecard contains some basic information about each brand that was not included in calculating the winner of the review. I decided not to include total dissolved solids in calculating the winning scores since not all total dissolved solids are unsafe in drinking water. The graded categories are on the right side of the chart and I've converted the raw performance into the first to last place ranking. And the DYL reverse osmosis and the Mega Home Water Distiller tied for first place with an average finish of 1.25.
19:45 · Beginning with the DYL, it's pretty expensive at a price of around $270, but the filters are supposed to last for around 1,000 gallons. It's a pretty quick water filter and it does an amazing job of cleaning the water. If it fits within a budget, it seems like a great choice for families that go through a lot of water as this thing works quickly. The Mega Home Distiller is another great system.
20:05 · It does use quite a bit of electricity and is pretty slow at around 41 minutes for two cups of water. On the other hand, there aren't any filters to replace, but it does need cleaning periodically. If you're only needing 1 to 2 gallons per day, this would definitely be a great choice. By the way, this is what's left behind after distilling 1 gallon of drinking water.
20:22 · Looks worse than the pond water. If it's all about the budget, I really like the Zero Water and this would definitely be my choice at a price of around $34. It filters water pretty quickly and it does a terrific job. The Zero Water strips the water of just about everything and for that reason, the filters will probably have to be replaced more often than most of the other brands. However, if you buy the filters in bulk, you can acquire the filters for around 12 to 13 dollars each. Some people want a water filter system that leaves the minerals in the water. Me personally, I'd rather take everything out and add back the minerals that I want to consume. All of the videos in this channel, including this one, are viewer suggested.
20:53 · So, if you have a video idea, I hope you'll take time to leave a comment. Thanks so much for watching. Please take care and I'll look forward to next time.