Yes, similar item without the hot. A filtered water dispenser at the sink.

Any reliable brands to check into?

We use a britta pitcher and water filter.

thanks so much!

If we were to put a filter under the main sink, does that water get used for the dishwasher too? wouldn't want to waste filtered water on the dishwasher.
Putting it for the prep sink is a great idea!

The filtered water can go wherever you want it to go. I only want it to replace our Brita. We are doing a glass fridge and I don't want the Brita in there, so this is how we are resolving this issue. Plus the freezer drawers do not have an inline filter like some fridges do.

We use the filtered water for drinking, for making drinks, coffee, tea, etc. Not for prepping or dishwashing.

You can put it under the main sink, but in general you split it off the main water flow and have the filtered water dispensed though a separate faucet, so only water coming out of that faucet is filtered.

Something like this:

Here is a link that might be useful: Filtered water system

We used a filtered instant hot/room temp dispenser (insinkerator brand because the faucet sorta matched and the hot got hotter than other brands).

Worked great, although our water isn't that bad tasting to start with. But. Think about that instant hot. We really loved it for beverages, cooking, and CLEANING!

bee- which system are you getting? I'm on their site : )

greg- thanks! That's kind of like the insta-hot but without the hot, right?

fori- is the Hot on the insta-hot hotter than just putting on really hot water?
I REALLY want one actually but we were trying to cut things out of the budget. I'm not so good at that! : )
The Insinkerator (INSTA-HOT) is $291 for tank & Filter, $390 for dual dispenser, plus the install costs. .. hmmm. I may have to do it. I don't know. I hate all this budgeting. lol

we are doing the K5.

see link below

I purchased a Rohl Triflow faucet, with 3 handles. We are not using a separate faucet. The one we are using has a hot, cold, filtered handle.

Here is a link that might be useful: K5 by Kinetico

Or you can go super low tech like I did. My municipal water tastes off to me, but is otherwise good water so I didn't need a fancy filter. I went to HD and got a GE inline filter. It fits right on your cold water line under the sink. No separate faucet cluttering up the sink top; it's cheap; and the water tastes great. The initial pack with filter was about $50 and replacement filters are about $25. Sounds like the filter will need to be replaced every six months or so.

The cold water flow rate is slowed only very, very slightly. The hot water flow rate is not affected. I only noticed the cold water flow when I did an experiment with my identical cleanup and prep faucets. I could tell the prep sink cold water was running a tiny bit harder than the cleanup sink. Still, it has zero impact on how you use the cold water. It still comes out a a very good flow.

Thanks breezy! But then you would always be using filtered water at the sink. Right? Washing dishes , etc. DH says you wear through the filters faster no?

We have had our K5 hooked up for a couple weeks, love it! Flow is great, no complaints!

ellaf, I'm with you on the Brita pitcher. I used to have a unit on my old faucet but my new one's too lovely for that. I only use filtered water for drinking straight and for making coffee/tea. It's low-tech and I love it.

christine40- Do you have a separate faucet for it? Do they offer them or you buy it separately?

Beekeeper- Do they make pull down faucets in triflow? I never noticed triflow before.

No, we have the kinetico faucet, it came with the system, multiple different finishes to choose from. I had no idea there was another faucet option.....but I don't mine the skinny little ro faucet. So far we love, love the system!

We got a Quik and Hot from Amazon.com for less than the prices you are quoting for the insinkerator. We got the tank and faucet for $143.00- it was cheaper to buy the kit than the tank alone.
Link; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KOCV0C/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details
Since this faucet didn't allow for both hot and cold, we got the Westbrass Victorian faucet for $88.00. Westbrass and Wasteking use the same tank, giving you LOTS of faucet options
http://www.amazon.com/Westbrass-D205-12-Victorian-Dispenser-Traditional/dp/B005CFTMPM/ref=sr_1_6?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1330467587&sr=1-6

Then we got a chiller for $396 w/ a coupon.

i LOVE ours. The faucet works very well and one of the keys is that it can be turned on and STAY on. My dad has an instant hot in his house that the lever has to be held down for the hot water. I prop it up w/ a rolling pin when I want to fill the tea pot b/c who the heck wants to stand there and hold the faucet down to fill a pit!

To answer your questions...

My filter is at the cleanup sink so that anyone wanting a glass of water could do that without interrupting me at the prep sink. Yes, you always use filtered water when you turn the faucet on to cold. Just about the only time I do that is to fill up a water glass or the occasional prep task if the other sink is being used, but that's OK because the prep task could benefit from filtered water anyway (washing a fruit or veg).

I'm trying not to be a smarta$$ here. Do you use cold water to wash your dishes? If so, then you would be using filtered water to wash your dishes. I use hot water to wash my dishes so I'm not using the filtered water except maybe a small amount. I have our tankless water heater set to 115 degrees anyway so the water isn't extremely scald-a-baby hot. Almost everything goes in the DW anyway, except knives.

I've been using the filter for four months, and the original cartridge I put in is still going strong. If I'm using the filter slightly more than someone would if they had a separate faucet, it's not obvious. Don't most filter systems need to be changed about twice a year anyway?

The woman at HD said the filters usually last about six months. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I'd say mine will last longer than that because I have two sinks. The cleanup sink gets used only half the amount of time or less as it would if it was my only sink.

I spent $50 for set up. I might, but probably won't, need to spend $50 a year in filters. (Only $25 extra for the first continuous year as the setup came with the first filter.) To me, that's a much better deal than some of the other filtering devices out there, especially the ones where you have to buy a separate faucet. Plus, I didn't see any extra "wow", luxury factor having another faucet at my sink. I like the cleaner look of just the one faucet.

I think I'm coming across as defensive and b!tchy today. I don't mean to. Maybe I just don't understand the need to go ultra fussy with filtered water when the solution can be so cheap, subtle, and easy. And believe me...I love and am very picky about my water! I drink tons!

christine40- thanks! I'll check it out.

beagles- thank for the info! Is that faucet a regular faucet or just for the quick and hot?

breezy- Makes total sense and your answers were what I was looking for.
Like many of us here I really like to hear about different options from everyone and then go with what I think will work best for us functionally, financially, and esthetically.

I think we'd like to keep this simple since much else is complicated enough : )

Thanks so much everyone! Another day of info gathering!

Seems one can spend $600 or $100 on one of these filters. I suppose it depends on what you want/need because not all filtered water is the same.

The one I had in the city had UV light because the plumbing in the building was decrepit and water would come out brown in the tub. After the filter it was so clean it could be used in a humidifier without leaving a trace of anything. How I became a convert. I bought a Newport Brass faucet to match my sink faucet as they were next to each other.

Here in the country we're on our own well so I simplified my filter (no UV) but it screens out most impurities. Cheaper and effective for this situation.

Best to read the various descriptions to see the specs and what's important to you.

These come with a cold-water faucet with a lever that can be held down or flipped up to keep it on. I removed a soap dispenser in the mudroom to install this.

The company recently reduced the number of system options and this isn't the cheapest brand. But the tech support is super and it's a great performer. I use it for all our drinking, coffee, cooking etc. and refill the plastic bottles with it.

Even if you go with another brand, I'd look under Drinking Water Systems and Counter Top for various price levels to see what they do. They also have 10% off sales around holidays. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: EWS - Water on the Web

I agree with you on the filter thing breezy....we went K5 expensive RO because we are on a well, and therefore I think we need it for drinking water. All other water is softened. But I don't care for the taste of the softened water. If I had city, treated water that was just generally yucky, I'd have gne with a much cheaper system. But in our case that's the only reason we went RO....that being said, I love love my water and the K5!!

Fishes, I don't see anyone answering your question about how hot the water is out of an instant hot water faucet. It is much hotter than really hot tap water. Most people keep the hot water heater for their taps at around 120 degrees F. Water out of the insta-hot type devices is just a little below boiling (212 degrees). Ours is an Insinkerator and has knob for adjusting the temperature of the hot water.

In answer to Breezy's "Do you use cold water to wash your dishes" - well, if I'm just doing a quick rinse so stuff doesn't dry on dishes while waiting on the counter for the next dishwasher load, filling a pot to keep stuff from drying on until we get to cleaning it later, rinsing the sink out, etc - I usually use the cold water. I'm not going to wait running the water long enough for the hot water to get to the faucet so no point in turning the faucet to hot.

If I do want to use warm water for something like cleaning a bowl I'm using for use again, I'll fill it mainly from the cold tap plus some water from the insta-hot rather than waiting for hot water to get to the sink from our hot water heater which isn't terribly close to our kitchen. It saves time and water. So for us the separate faucet for filtered cool and instant hot water works better.

Yeah, really hot. Like you can scald yourself hot. French press hot. Adjustable of course so it doesn't have to be.

I liked it for cleaning the floor. Steaming hot water helps with the tree sap on the kitchen floor. (Everyone gets that, right?)

If you drink lots of filtered water then either a Brita or a cold tap with chiller are your best options. If you filter room temp water you still have to open the freezer to get ice so why not just use the Brita instead -- cheap and simple.

We have an instant cold with a water chiller and filter, and are really happy with it. Not the cheapest but we drink a lot of water and the grab-and-go chilled water is worth it for us.

Our cold tap is Insinkerator ... the flow rate is fast and it can flip to continuous pour so you don't have to hold the tap's lever.

We also have instant hot but we don't filter that one. The hot has a slower flow rate and no continuous pour feature (probably by design come to think of it).

Like breezy, we have two sinks in our kitchen, and on the prep sink we have a filter on the cold water line. If I don't want filtered water, I turn it to hot, which shuts off the flow of water through the filter -- usually I either want hot water, or I need so little unfiltered water that it doesn't get hot before I shut it off again. Or I can use the unfiltered supply at the utility sink, where most washing-up happens. This works fine, doesn't require extra holes drilled in the counter, and is relatively low-tech and easy to maintain. We would take this approach again if we had it to do over.
Lynn

taggie- I didn't know Insinkerator had the chiller option. I thought it was hot and room temperature cold. Is that a separate attachment? I mean, you buy a chiller in addition to the tank and filter?

Hi 2LittleFishies, yes it's a chiller that goes under the sink and the cold tap hooks up to it so your water comes out instantly chilled.

I posted the models and links to it in this thread: Tell me about your water chiller so you can check it out there. (I like beagles' price with her coupon better though!)

Thanks Taggie- I looked at the photo! Is the heater in there too? Or is that a different sink?

No the heater isn't in there, it's at a different sink.

Fishes,

There is basically not a single best fit answer for everyone. Do you know about the quality of your water? What do you want to filter? In our case we have very hard water and a very high level of nitrates and phosphates as some of the city source is well water. So we are going with the K5 reverse osmosis system by kinetico..same as Beekeeper'swife. More expensive but we need it. Our softened water will feed it and I hope to get a drinking water faucet in the prep sink and also feed the pot filler. The K5 system can be installed in the attic and feed the storage tank(which incidentally is bigger in kinetico). I am actually not doing any ice maker. Decided to buy ice instead as we use ice rarely and the ice maker takes too much room in the sub zero freezer drawer. I am tempted by the instant hot (it would be lovely to quickly grab green tea when I am busy during the day but Then with the induction, it does seem a bit much.

Lalitha

Lalitha

Like Lalitha said, what's best does depend. For me, with my otherwise decent water, it made sense to go with the cheapest, easiest filter. Lynn described how I use my faucet with the filtered water better than I did.

It also depends, I guess, in which part of the country you live. I drink A LOT of water, but ice in it isn't a requirement for me like it is for Taggie as I live where I'm cold and wear wool socks about 10 months of the year.

Nice that we have so many options to suit our individual needs and budgets!

breezygirl,

Is the filter system you got available online? We always had RO filter system. But we might sell our house soon. I don't want to put in a RO system and also not sure about adding another faucet. So your inline system seems perfect for the time being as long as water flow is good.

Thanks!

We currently have a whole house water filter by Aquasana. We also have a sink filter (also Aquasana) so we get double filtered water there. I tend to use our fridge dispenser just because I can get water and ice in one place. We have loved the Aquasana system and plan to do it again at our new house. We'll be installing the sink filter at our wet bar sink since it's a bit of a walk to the kitchen fridge. I can't imagine going without the fridge door ice and water though. It's very rare that I drink something other than water, coffee, or wine.