gb85, Most, if not all, horror stories you found in your research were posted by people who didn't know what they were doing and proved it. For reference... SADDLE VALVE = BAD PE (polyethylene) TUBING = NO PROBLEM Any appliance that can use PE tubing can use copper tubing but will/may require different fittings. All one needs to do anything is the knowledge and the tools. Lacking either and considering the expensive damage a mistake can bring you should consider a plumber and think of the cost as tuition. That said, what don't you like about your water? Are you on a well or water system? what are you wanting to filter for? Additional faucet at the kitchen sink or ice maker/water dispenser in the fridge also? Is your water softened?

We have a house filter (AquaPure) attached to the cold water line (in the laundry room) for the kitchen. That line feeds the refrigerator water line (the fridge has its own filter as well, so water dispenser and ice-maker get double-filtered water), the pot-filler faucet, the sink faucet, and the outside faucet on our deck (only because it was tapped into the cold water pipe under the sink--not because we wanted to water our flowers and herbs with filtered water! LOL).

I don't think there is anything else that really comes close to the Berkeys. For the one in your link: 50% recovery rate highest among reverse osmosis filters. means that you are still generating as much waste water as filtered.

There are quality fittings, quality polyethylene tubing (various colors), and quality filter and RO housings that may be purchased. I have never had one leak unless I assembled it incorrectly, much less explode. (House water pressure should be regulated, if high.) I did have a transparent (cheap HW store) line to my centrifugal humidifier harden and fail after being illuminated for 10 years by my kilowatt metal halide plant light. I don't expect the black PE replacement tubing to have that issue. Notwithstanding the leakage explosion history, risk analysis suggests belt and suspenders design, so water leakage alarm/auto shut offs are called for to protect floors and "stuff" sitting on floors. The complex of devices and tubing in this photo compose most of the core pat of my RO system. This system feeds faucets at three sinks, a freezer ice maker, and said centrifugal humidifier. It has pre-filtering, of course, as well as pre-heating, and feeds storage tanks in two locations. Except for copper tubing in one stretch where damage is possible, all of the tubing is either 3/8 or 1/4 polyethylene. Fittings are John Guest or similar. Permeate pumps are ERP-500 (much quieter than ERP-1000). RO control and RO filters by SpectraPure. Heating control by bayite with further modifications. Leak alarm and shut off in various locations is by Floodstop. The point is that here and in other locations there are a lot of opportunities for tubing and fitting failures, and they haven't happened where appropriate parts are used.