Reviewed: Zerowater drinking water filter #AD

Rarely does a kitchenware product create such excitement among my children, but the Zerowater water filter has been an object of fascination with my kids ever since it arrived! For some reason, they love topping it up and helping themselves to the filtered water.

You’re probably more interested in the product itself that my children’s reaction, so let me tell you all about it. In short, it’s a jug with built in water five-stage filter that claims it can remove 99.6% of all total dissolved solids (TDS for short) that you might find in tap water. These solids could be tiny amounts of metals, salts, pesticides and so on

It does not end there. Not only does Zerowater claim to remove the TDS, it comes with a digital monitor so you can test the water and check the quality of it yourself.

Five stage filtration system

The Zerowater is a typical filtration system. You pour water in at the top and it passes through a filter, coming out clean at the bottom. The five stages are:

• A mesh filter to remove rust and dust that make water appear cloudy
• A foam ‘distributor’ to remove further TDS
• A ‘multi-layer carbon and oxidation reduction alloy.’ This part of the filter does the serious business, drawing out organic contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides and chlorine
• An ‘ion exchange resin’ that removes metals, non-metals and any radiological elements
• A ultra-fine screen and membrane layers that removes suspended solids and hold the layers in place.

I’m sure you’ll agree this all sounds very impressive. What you want to know is whether it works or not.

Putting Zerowater to the test

Prior to using the Zerowater for the first time, I used the TDS testing monitor to see what the levels of contaminants were from our tap water. It came out with a reading of 125 parts per million which is typical for UK tap water.

Once the water had passed through the filter, the reading came out a big fat zero. We’ve been using the filter for a few weeks now and the readings haven’t changed; The water going in has a reading of around 125ppm and it comes out reading zero. On that basis I can only tell you it’s working very well.

You’re probably wondering about the taste of the water. The filtered water did taste ever so slightly different, although I can’t quite put my finger on why. If, however, I hadn’t been told it had been filtered I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

The jug and filter themselves are very straightforward to use. The TDS monitor…well that took me a few attempts to get it working properly. I think this was largely because the instructions had clearly been written for the French market and then translated in to not-quite-perfect English.

Cost and availability

There are various Zerowater products on the market. For the purposes of this review, I was using the 2.3 litre jug which has a price tag of £34.99 at the time of writing. This particular product is one of the larger ones and also has a tap on the back so you can place it on a work surface and fill your cup without picking the jug up.

You might want to consider the 1.7litre version. This has been designed to fit in a fridge door so takes up less space and has a price tag of £24.99.

Filters themselves cost £19.99 if purchased individually. Discounts are available if you buy multi-packs. Each filter will clean around 40 litres of water.

All products are available online from the Zerowaste website. Alternatively, you can buy them from Lakeland.

Concluding thoughts

Based on my experiences, the Zerowater filter works incredibly well. The filters, however, do not come cheap. If you feel this is a price worth paying then Zerowater could be the ideal product for you and your family.